[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Ah, but we don't do that sort of thing here.

Aldarion and Erendis are miserable precisely because they both get it wrong. Aldarion, with his part-elvish longevity, doesn't consider his wife's much shorter lifespan, and squanders the time they have on his needless voyaging. On the other hand, Erendis allows her resentment to get the better of her and makes the worst possible mistake: she gives her husband an ultimatum, a straight choice between herself and something else that he loves, putting her at risk of being the loser in his final decision. What makes this story such a mature examination of a disastrous marriage is the mutual lack of consideration, the unreasonable actions of both sides. This is borne out by the fact that two people on this thread have expressed completely opposing opinions about who was to blame.

As for other unsuccessful relationships, what of that between Tarannon Falastur and Berúthiel? It seems to me from the brief entry in Unfinished Tales that here was another woman who was rivalled by the sea in her husband's affections. Certainly there seems to have been a lot of resentment at work there to turn her into the joyless creature that Tolkien describes.