Falling in love and having a great relationship is relatively easy in the beginning. Everything is new, exciting, and fresh. But over time, certain aspects of relationships become more difficult. When you first get married, in the honeymoon phase, you think the good times will last forever with your favorite person by your side. But the trend is not your friend. The fact is that divorce rates have trended up over the last century. Given the divorce rate, a review of the research on marital longevity might provide some clear directions on how to protect your marriage.
Researchers set out to review the literature on long-term marriages and marital stability. They were looking for the factors that would help couples avoid divorce and separation. After starting with more than 1,700 articles, they found that there was limited literature on long term marriages. And the results they found were often contradictory, for instance studied on gender in marriage.
The research done on long term marriages covered many aspects in general: attitude toward marital relations, religion, role of children, love, commitment, intimacy, gender, communication, conflict resolution, support, attachment and loyalty, role division.
Their review focused on 25 articles that provided the best sources of information on long term marital stability. They looked at the qualitative and quantitative aspects. On an intrapersonal basis these aspects were important: religiosity and spirituality, commitment and loyalty, personality characteristics, capability to trust and empathize, patience, being supportive, forgiveness, self and other acceptance. From an interpersonal perspective, these aspects were important: communication, sexual relationship, love and attachment, intimacy, religious agreement, mutual respect, role division, spending quality time, approach to problem solving, and conflict resolution. Issues like the role of children or financial issues were broader.
The Most Important Aspects
Researchers netted the various components of marital relationships down to the following, most important aspects, which differed by region.
American Countries
- Religion
- Sex
- Commitment
- Intimacy
- Congruence in values/beliefs
Asian Countries
- Communication
- Religion
- Children
- Conflict resolution
- Emotional issues and love
European Countries
- Sex
- Commitment
- Relationship satisfaction
- Support from partner
One aspect of long term marriages that comes up often in studies is that of religion, and for good reason. Religion provides guidance that marriage is sacred. It enables couples to interact with others’ with the same beliefs, thereby providing a support structure. It contributes to a couples sense of well-being while providing a sense of safety and control over challenging situations. During times of hardship, religion provides coping strategies, teaches couples to accept diversity, provides a sense of family and community as well as stability. Couples report being happier and having a higher life and marital satisfaction.
Commitment is the desire to stay in a relationship even when things are difficult. Couples that have a strong sense of commitment believe that their problems are solvable. They choose to work together and take steps to improve or resolve issues. Being committed, couples develop an identity that gives them a sense of togetherness, a sense of teaming, that means they fight to preserve that identity.
Successful, long-term couples, have good emotional responsiveness. Couples support one another in good and bad times, but focus on acknowledgement of the positive feelings instead of negative. Authentication of positive emotions helps partners accept each other’s differences. Studies have found that in long term marriages, husbands are more defensive than wives while wives are more emotionally negative. These behaviors tend to be a self-feeding loop which is harmful. Those couple in happy marriages choose to focus more on the positive. Being happy in a marriage protects the marriage stability over the long run.
In their review of the literature, researchers found contradictory conclusions relating to sexual satisfaction as a necessary component for marriage stability. Common beliefs are that sexual relations are an important component of a successful marriage, but one study concluded that a sexual relationship was NOT necessary for longevity. Most research points to sexual satisfaction being correlated with happiness, mental health and successful social communication. Healthy sex is a major indicator of a happy marriage and the primary way couples communicate affection. It is a symbol of their relationship. Sex allows couples to show love, feelings, and intimacy which breaks down their individual boundaries and establishes stronger recognition of them as a couple. Just as important as sex is, the quality of a couple’s communication is more important.
Every relationship has conflict in some form, at various levels. Those relationships with high levels of stress in conflict will struggle with satisfaction and stability. Couples have different ways of resolving conflict: constructive, destructive, avoidance. The couples that employ constructive methods will protect their marriage. Constructive approaches to conflict resolution include problem solving, conversation, cooperation, support, responsibility, openness, and empathy.
Children can add stress to any marriage, but can also become stabilizing factors for a marriage. Raising children forces couples to see each other’s challenges, work to resolve them, see the positive in the other and leverage these aspects to build a stronger relationship. Those couples that can feel the teamwork, appreciate the cooperation, and see the positive in their spouse will do better than those that allow frustrations to become one against the other.
Not surprising, researchers found some gender differences in the studies they reviewed although many aspect were contradictory. The one item we can be sure of is this. Sex is important for men, and communication for women.
To achieve a long-term marriage, couples should focus on:
- Spirituality/religion
- Commitment
- Sexual relationship
- Communication
- Intimacy
- Love and attachment
- Positive conflict resolution
- Children
Karimi, Reza et al. “Protective factors of marital stability in long-term marriage globally: a systematic review.” Epidemiology and health vol. 41 (2019): e2019023. doi:10.4178/epih.e2019023
From <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6702121/>
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.