The Good News About Marriage Part 2

For example, if you live together before you get engaged and married, it makes it more likely you'll get divorced. That's a big cost. It is a dumb thing to do, statistically. But people believe that they can improve their odds if they live together first. So some of the myths today about the risks of marriage lead to the very behaviors that decrease the odds of a marriage succeeding.

We do need to give people hope about marriage. The sense that they can do things to give them a future. The sense that they're going to make it. Marriage is an investment, and you want to know it has a future to invest in it.40 While I may take issue with various projections, the conclusion is universal: there is a great need for hope. Realizing the truth that divorce is not inevitable, that true hope is there, and that their marriages will probably last a lifetime gives struggling couples a vision for the future. Look at this comment from one woman who went through fire in her marriage and came out the other side: I have heard so many people over the years saying that the divorce rate in America is 50 percent. It's debilitating, and it turns out it's not even true. You can't listen to that. Instead, you need to a.s.sume your marriage will last.

One of the thoughts that helped me to make it through my first pregnancy, fighting the fear of the coming pain that everyone tells you is the worst pain ever, was the thought that Millions and millions of women over the centuries have successfully given birth, so I can do this too!

It is the same principle in considering making one's marriage last-If so many others have succeeded, I'll keep trying and I will probably also succeed!

What a difference it makes to reveal the a.s.sumptions of inevitability and futility for the lies they are, and know the good-news truth instead!

Summary * The current divorce rate is nowhere near 50 percent and has never been close to the 50 percent mark. Instead, the vast majority of marriages last a lifetime.

* According to the most recent authoritative data (2009 Census Bureau), 72 percent of people are still married to their first spouse. And of those who aren't, many were married for years until a spouse died. Based on various factors, we can estimate that perhaps 20 to 25 percent of first marriages have ended in divorce.

* Looking at all marriages (including second and third marriages) among women, just 30.8 percent have ended in divorce (2009 Census Bureau).

* The divorce rate has been declining, dropping 32 percent since its peak. According to other census data, the number of divorces per one thousand adults (the crude divorce rate) peaked in 1981 at 5.3 and has fallen to 3.6 as of 2011.

* Many factors dramatically affect the chances of divorce. Those who marry young (teens and young twenties), who don't go to college, who live together before marriage, and/or who do not attend religious services together have a higher risk of divorce. Those who get married in their midtwenties or later, go to college, don't cohabit first, and/or worship together could realistically have a 5 to 10 percent divorce rate.

* Top experts continue to project divorce rates of 40 to 50 percent, but these are future projections based on various a.s.sumptions, and we've never come close to that high of an overall divorce rate.

Good News #1 The vast majority of marriages last a lifetime; the current divorce rate has never been close to 50 percent-it is closer to 20 to 25 percent for first-time marriages and 31 percent for all marriages-and has been declining for years.

3.

Why Most Marriages Are Happy, Not Hard

Not long ago, before speaking at an event at a well-known private university, I asked for a quick meeting with the university executive who had arranged for me to come in. This man is a leader in higher education, plus he and his wife are very involved in the marriage arena and speak regularly at large marriage conferences.

I wanted to share the good news about marriage I was finding and get their feedback and input. So we sat in a student cafeteria for a few minutes, and I began outlining the five truths in this book that counter the different myths people believe about marriage. But when I got to the subject of this chapter, instead of simply telling them what I was seeing, I decided to demonstrate.

I said, "Wait a second and I'll show you something."

I walked over to two graduate students at the cafe table next to us and apologized for interrupting but explained that I was a social researcher and I had a random question for them: "What percentage of couples do you think are happy in their marriage today? Not perfect, but not just so-so roommates either. What percent do you think are happy?"

Both twenty-something women laughed a little bit, and one said, "I'd say about 30 to 40 percent" (which is about what I usually hear). The other one said, "No, I don't think it is that high. With everything we hear, I'd say more like 15 percent."

I told them, "Would you believe it is around 80 percent? Lots of surveys have found a little lower or little higher, but the average is probably around 80 percent."

They, of course, were stunned. And encouraged. "Wow! That is amazing." "That's really great to know, actually!"

I walked back over to the university executive and his wife and noticed that they looked surprised, even fl.u.s.tered. I sat back down across from them, and they just stared at me for a moment.

The husband finally said, "Wow."

The wife shook her head. "That was amazing. That really opened my eyes. And you made your point-very effectively, by the way!"

The husband said, "I'm having a hard time processing what I just saw and heard. This changes everything regarding how we should talk about marriage and divorce at our marriage conferences. We are so focused on emphasizing how marriage is in trouble to motivate people to not be one of the statistics. But I can see that it might demoralize them instead. And if most marriages are happy, that may mean that many of the couples at the conference are doing well and are there for inspiration or equipping because they want to keep doing well." He paused. "I'm really going to have to think about what this means."

The Truth About Happiness in Marriage

I have seen that type of response more times than I can count from average people on the street and from those who work with married couples. Although I hear a variety of opinions, of course, most people think about one-third of couples are happy in their marriages. Even more telling, it is quite rare that someone will guess a number higher than 50 percent. For every twenty people I ask, I might hear two or three who believe happy couples are in the majority.

Most married people today enjoy being married to their spouse and, given the chance, would do it all over again.

I certainly used to have the same impression, so I was stunned when I started to realize the truth was very different. It turns out most married people today enjoy being married to their spouse and, given the chance, would do it all over again. And the numbers are even better in certain demographic groups. Our research also found much good news even for those couples who, right now, are unhappy and struggling.

Let's look at three of these truths in more detail.

Truth 1: Around 80 Percent of Marriages Are Happy

There are so many studies about marital satisfaction (including one of my own) that it was impossible for Tally and me to investigate them all. But as far as we can tell, they have all found similar things: the vast majority of couples are happy in their marriages. Yes, clearly, sometimes trouble comes, and when it does, the happiness numbers can change very quickly. But thankfully, for the majority, the ups and downs seem to mostly keep couples in an overall happy place.

To show you the overwhelming evidence for this, let me first describe my own study, and then I'll list several others.

My Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages Study41

From 2010 to 2012 I extensively interviewed and surveyed married couples about their happiness in marriage and their various day-to-day habits for my book The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages.

I was primarily interested in learning what the happiest couples did differently that was making them so happy and that others could replicate. This study included anonymous surveys of 1,304 married people-652 married couples-which were conducted either internally (by me and my team) or by the research firm Decision a.n.a.lyst (with whom we have worked on all our nationally representative surveys), and which provided a confidence level of 95 percent, plus or minus 5 percent. To ensure that neither spouse knew what the other had said, the spouses were always separated for the survey.

I identified the happiest couples by having each spouse answer this question: Are you, personally, generally happy in your marriage these days and enjoying being married? (Choose one answer.) 1. Yes!

2. Yes, most of the time.

3. It depends-sometimes yes, sometimes no.

4. Not really.

5. No! I am really unhappy.

The couples I wanted to study for The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages were the ones where both the husband and the wife independently and anonymously answered "Yes!" But since I had the ability to a.n.a.lyze couples, not just survey individuals, I also wanted to learn what percentage of husbands and wives independently agreed that they were happy.

As you'll see below, most studies find an extraordinarily high percentage of survey takers (usually above 90 percent) saying that they are happy in their marriages, and researchers have understandably been skeptical of those percentages. After all, just because a husband or wife says "Yes, I'm happy" doesn't mean that their spouse would agree-which would mean the couple wouldn't be considered truly happy.

My survey, by contrast, was designed to weed out those cases, since I was categorizing partic.i.p.ants as couples, taking into account what each spouse said. We broke down the respondents into three categories. Here are the results from my internal surveys:42 The Highly Happy couples-34 percent These were what I call the Yes! couples, where both the husband and wife independently and anonymously answered that "Yes!" they were happy and enjoying marriage (answer choice 1). Any couple where either spouse picked an answer other than this was put into one of the categories below.

The Happy couples-37 percent These are couples where both partners answered that they were happy most of the time, or one answered "Yes!" and the other answered "Yes, most of the time."

The So-So and Struggling couples-29 percent Any couple where one or both spouses picked choices 3, 4, or 5 was put in this group. Most were in this group because one partner answered "Sometimes yes, sometimes no." There were many telling mismatches, where one partner said he or she was happy and the other party said "Sometimes" or "Not really" (such couples were always placed in this third group).

It was very encouraging that 71 percent of married couples were happy, with one-third being highly happy!

Even most of the 29 percent who aren't listed as happy have a "sometimes yes, sometimes no" marriage; in other words, the so-so relationship that most people seem to think is the majority. But it isn't! Truth be told, the real happiness ratio is probably even higher than 71 percent, since several of the venues in which we did these surveys were likely to attract couples with a greater need for marriage intervention.

You can find out more details on what I found in this study (including the very telling habits of the highly happy couples) in The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages or at www.surprisingsecrets.com.

What Percent of Marriages Are Happy, According to Other Studies?

Beyond my own research, the following pages list what other studies have found.

Looking at my poll and all the others, the median number of those who say they are in happy marriages is around 90 percent. Although these numbers are certainly encouraging, it is likely that most of these surveys asking about happiness or satisfaction don't tell the whole story.

First of all, the survey language is often vague and probably doesn't offer enough choice at the bottom end of the scale. But more important, my own survey found that there was a nine percentage point drop from the number of individuals who described their marriage as happy and the number of couples that actually were happy once you take both spouses' answers into account. I think the same scenario is likely to apply to the other studies of individuals. So applying a similar haircut would bring down the median happiness ratio for couples to around an 80 percent level.51 Happiness Results from Other Studies*

Study and Findings Percent Happy or Very Happy The General Social Survey (GSS) has been run by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago43 since 1972. Their overall happiness numbers have remained fairly consistent over the last forty years, with around 98 percent of respondents describing their marriages as happy. These 2012 results are not yet published but were tabulated for us by GSS director Dr. Tom Smith:44 Taking all things together, how would you describe your marriage?

Very happy-65.4% Pretty happy-32.2% Not too happy-2.3%

98%.

A 2005 survey conducted by the Office of Survey Research at the University of TexasAustin for the National Fatherhood Initiative Marriage Survey (NFIMS) found 96 percent described their marriage as happy, and 88 percent as "completely" or "very" satisfied with their marriage.45 Taking things altogether, how would you describe your marriage?

Very happy-68.5% Pretty happy-27.9% Not too happy-3.6% All in all, how satisfied are you with your marriage?

Completely satisfied-50% Very satisfied-38% Somewhat satisfied-9% Not very satisfied-2% Not at all satisfied-1%

96%.

A GfK Roper poll (likely 2008) for Divorce360.com found that most people described a happy marriage as one where the couple was happy at least three-quarters of the time and that 75 percent of respondents indeed described themselves that way.46 Those who say they are happy in their marriages...

At least three-quarters of the time-75% At least half the time-15% Never happy-5%47

75%.

Marist conducted a 2010 poll for the Knights of Columbus,48 finding the following happiness levels among those who are married: Very happy-58% Happy-33% Not very happy-7% Not happy at all-2%