Psychology Facts

▼ Marriage ▼

》 Over 75% of people who marry partners from an affair eventually divorce.

》 More than friendship, laughter, forgiveness, compatibility, and sex, spouses name trust as the element crucial for a happy marriage.

》 While couples with children are less likely to divorce than childless couples, the arrival of a new baby is more likely to bring more stress and emotional distance than new happiness. Nearly 90% of couples experienced decrease in martial satisfaction after the birth of their first child.

》 There have been studies that show a higher divorce rate and lower level of marital satisfaction among couples who cohabitated before tying the knot. Several factors could be unplanned pregnancies leading to an ill-conceived marriage, the lack of a definitive decision to commit, and couples who normally would have broken up had they not been living together.

》 A New Woman's Day and AOL Living poll found that 72% of women surveyed have considered leaving their husbands at some point.

》 A 15-year-long study found that a person's happiness level before marriage was the best predictor of happiness after marriage. In other words, marriage won't automatically make one happy.

》 A person's level of education influences the age at which they marry. Couples tend to marry later in states with higher numbers of college-educated adults, while the opposite is true for states with lower education levels.

》 A 2008 study found that marital satisfaction improves once children leave home. However, if marital problems existed before, an empty nest often reveals those otherwise masked issues.

》 The most successful marriages are those where the oldest sister of brothers marries the youngest brother of sisters. Two firstborns, however, tend to be more aggressive and can create higher levels of tension. The highest divorce rates are when an only child marries another only child.

》 No sex in a marriage has a much more powerful negative impact on a marriage than good sex has a positive impact.

》 Compared to singles, married people accumulate about four times more savings and assets. Those who divorced had assets 77% lower than singles.

》 Approximately $6 billion in revenue is lost by American businesses as a result of decreased worker productivity linked to marriage hardship. Employees in a happy marriage, in contrast, tend to increase a company's bottom line.

》 Stress associated with divorce affects the body's immune system and its ability to fend off the disease. The health benefits of remarriage are reduced the second and third times around.

》 Cohabitation before marriage has long been shown to be a risk factor for divorce, with one key exception: Couples that do not move in together until engagement appear not to take on the risk. One theory is that partners who live together tend to come to value the commitment of marriage less.

》 A great deal of research has explored whether people have specific "types" they seek out in relationships. For example, many people appear to be unconsciously attracted to a certain eye or hair color.

》 But one longstanding belief has been proven false: Opposites do not attract, or at least they do not tend to have as much success in long-term relationships as partners who are generally similar to each other.