To answer that question, sociologists Paul Amato from Pennsylvania State University and Spencer James of Brigham Young University examined data from 1,617 participants in the Marital Instability over the Life Course survey, a longitudinal study of marriage in the US conducted from 1980 to 2000. All respondents were married at the start of the survey; by the end, about half of them still were, the rest having divorced (19%), become widowed (5%), or dropped out of the study.[...]
To gauge happiness, the researchers asked respondents to rate their satisfaction with things like their spouse’s supportiveness, the affection in the marriage, and their sex life. Much like other researchers, the team found that happiness declines in the first years of marriage, as the flush of newlywed life gives way to day-to-day frustrations and realities. [...]
But what was more striking about the overall collective data of married people was that while happiness really didn’t sway that much over time, the relationships still changed markedly.
Conflict, for instance, declined dramatically and continuously over the course of a life together. After a dip in the first decades when work and family obligations consume a couple’s time, the frequency of shared activities increased. By the fourth decade of marriage, couples reported spending as much time dining, socializing, and having fun together as they did when they were newlyweds.
No comments:
Post a Comment