14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers have been interested in what makes a marriage tick for a long time, considering the fact that, in the United States alone, approximately 50 percent of couples divorce, and that a significant number of people get married more than once. Previous studies have shown that the first few months, or even years, can be very reassuring for people, and that this is one of the main reasons why they choose to tie the knot. However, somewhere along the way, reality becomes obvious, and some simply find themselves unable to cope with their partner's personality or habits.
A team of psychologists from the Northwestern University, led by Daniel Molden, has decided to conduct a scientific investigation into the matter, and to compare the state of affairs between members of 92 dating couples and 77 married pairs. The participants were asked to fill out questionnaires about their relationship and to detail the level of satisfaction they had, as well as the traits that they liked most about their partners. Preliminary results showed that marriage, indeed, changed everything.
According to the questionnaires, all those involved in the study believed that their partners should always cheer them up, and be there when they needed them to be, LiveScience reports. But, surprisingly enough, the investigation also revealed that it was not the shift of focus from “me” to “us” that gave couples a hard time after they married and started living together. The real difficulty is passing from judging the other based on perception to looking at them based on facts, on what they do daily.
And the rigors of living together daily are the safest bet in that direction. Many of the people that eventually got divorced said that they simply could not take the behavior of their partner anymore. In some cases, it was habits that the partner who left knew about for years, but which had become too much of a stress factor in the latter years of their relationship.
The study also showed that people's perception of themselves, the fact that we're born to be self-oriented and self-absorbed, got in the way of them really getting to know the person they committed to spending the rest of their lives with. Almost all those who get involved in a relationship start projecting their thoughts, feelings and experiences on the partner, regardless of the subject or focus of these things. This indiscriminate projection can give birth to moments of disappointment, even though, on some occasions, they are simply the result of a negative and wrong line of thought.