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The following is a question from the publisher.

Do you think Amy and Nick both believe in their marriage at the outset?

This is a tough one. I'm not sure. I think they both are used to acting and not being themselves, thus not investing fully in the marriage. On the other hand, both seemed a little heartbroken over time which suggests the marriage meant something to them. What do you think?

I think they did at first, but later Nick fell out of love with his wife. They both played a part, and their marriage was actually a sham. After a while they found out that "marriage is hard work", so they stopped investing fully in the marriage. After they exposed their true selves, their marriage stopped working altogether.

I can't say what Amy believed at the start of their marriage. She was so crazy that it's difficult to know what her twisted motivations were. She was a real piece of work and most people were ten steps behind her, including her parents.

After the series of events, I believe that Amy and Nick are both believe in an illusion. I know there are different types of love, there is a different type for each type of person, but what they are immersing themselves in doesn't sound like the good kind. Amy and Nick were both manipulative and deceiving as a means to the end. It doesn't seem like a healthy sort of relationship and the only real basis for them reuniting was that they both wanted to believe in the same illusion, but I do not believe that's any real sort of ground for a healthy, non-toxic marriage.

I'd have to agree with everyone on this. Though I think at the end, in her twisted way, Amy might have gained back some belief in their marriage. I don't remember the exact wording, but when she said something along the lines of "you must really love me". He was still acting, but it had caused her to lapse into a security that wasn't really there.

Honestly, I don't think either of them believe in it. After everything that happened, I think it would be delusional for them to consider their marriage stable. I think they just realized they're two terrible people who happened to find each other and instead of breaking up and spreading their misery and toxicity to someone else, they decide to stay together.

I don't think Nick believed in it as much as Amy did. Nick seemed sad, but if he is cheating, how much did it mean to him in the first place?

I think that at first, Nick may have believed in the institution of marriage and in his own marriage. As for Amy, I don't think she ever believed in it. She was just moving on to the next stage of her life.
Later on, they both completely lose interest in their marriage hence Amy's desire to get out of it, though in her own twisted way.
In the end, I think that to some extent they regained belief in their marriage in that they understood how to deal with theirs.

I think they both did at first. After time, I think he lost hope, and she refused to accept that, which is why she wanted to punish him.

I think they didn't have any idea of what marriage is really about or what you had to believe and do. I think they liked the idea, and not the reality.

Amy and Nick may have thought they believed in marriage. I do not believe they understood marriage, nor cared about it. They simply fed their inner demons. This may or may not have been their fault, but their marriage was a tragic causality as a result. Amy didn't seem capable of putting Nick's needs above her own. Nick was the same, it appeared as a result of her behavior. It was hard to know if he could have stepped up, if she had been normal. I had to question his motives from the start. Why did he marry Amy? Neither character appeared to be capable of being a warm or loving spouse. I found this story challenging to get past the middle, then I was hooked. I believe it was because the writer made me feel the misery that the characters felt. I was completely satisfied by the story, and the movie as well. I just needed a different, lighter genre afterwards.

This book inspired me to be such a better planner in my personal relationships. This will sound odd, but Amy Dunne is a personal hero of mine. I feel like they were so perfectly matched for each other that when they were sparking that small bit of crazy, they became bored. Amy tried so hard to be what she thought Nick wanted that she became sort of deranged and obsessed with being that version of herself. In all fairness to Amy, she did it fully commit to the crazy until she found out about Nicks affair. But did they believe in their marriage? I think they believed in their own idea of what a marriage was supposed to be. In their own unique relationship, they were perfect for each other.

Amy Dunne was raised being the daughter her parents didn't have. She was constantly competing with this fictitious character, the "favorite child" in a sense. Honestly I don't think she really knew what it meant to be married and in love. It appeared to me that she was raised to believe that no matter how good she did she was never good enough in anything. Nick came into her life, and I feel she saw him as the "perfect" real life story that her parents were writing about. They had the house, the jobs, the life and so she did everything in her power to be that ideal "perfect" housewife that society makes out, and I am sure her parents did too. Nick I feel had a more solid idea of what marriage is, but when they moved and he decided to stay and started settling that was when they gave up on their marriage and whatever it is they saw in it.
The excitement of it all was gone. Nick got bored and Amy, trying so hard finally snapped. Even at the end of the story they worked up so well into hating each other for what they were doing that I think they both became beyond obsessively crazy from all the drama that was happening and trauma they experienced that they felt that what each other did was out of love. Yes, Nick was scared of Amy when she finally came home and he moved back in, but over time it seemed that he justified her actions to rationalize their relationship as normal. People will do anything for love. Which, in that sense, and what she did, no shows no sign of what it means to believe in marriage, a healthy one that is.

I feel like Amy wanted Nick to stick to his vows because that is what he had promised when they got married: for better or for worse. They experienced trials that would strain any marriage (sick parents, sudden unemployment, relocation...). It's common for many couples to experience these things. It takes so long for that magic to fade away, for that love to transition from a romantic infatuation to a compatible, stable, honest relationship that by the time it happens, neither party knows who the other one is. Whether they grow together or apart in that, that inevitable change happens throughout the course of time. Longevity is difficult to achieve for these very reasons. To me, Gone Girl felt like a very dark and extreme version of a mid-life crisis on both Nick and Amy's parts. They sort of felt like two halves of the same whole. Like what would one do without the other? In some ways the deranged sort of love they shared made me happy to know that they were happy...in their own sort of messed up way lol.

I think your analysis is right, Scott. They got married because they believed in it, then they didn't work toward it, and their downfall set in the reality of what their marriage had become.