|
As Daniel Jones, author of Love Illuminated, explains: we spend our youth asking "How do I find love?" and midlife asking "How do I get it back?" Anyone in a relationship or who plans on being in one needs to know how to keep love alive over the long term. But how do you learn the secret to this? Everyone is happy to explain "how they met" but few give the details on "how they stayed together." So let's look at what science has to say. "Happily ever after" ain't easy Aside from being the epitome of lazy writing, "happily ever after" is not simple. Ty Tashiro explains that couples in their first year of marriages score 86 percent for marriage satisfaction. By the seventh year, it's under 50 percent. Yes, about 50 percent of couples get divorced. Another 10-15 percent separate but do not file paperwork. And 7 more percent are chronically unhappy. So the real stat is two-thirds of marriages do not live "happily ever after." The divorce rate often reported by the media is 50 percent, which is based on Census Bureau data. However, census data does not capture the 10 to 15 percent of couples who permanently separate but do not file formal paperwork for a legal divorce. This means that a conservative estimate of the divorce and permanent separation rate is 60 percent. Add the additional 7 percent of chronically unhappy couples who do not divorce or permanently separate but are consistently unhappy in their marriage, and this means that two-thirds of all married couples do not live happily ever after. | 
