Many couples fall out of sync. Without warning, life events disrupt the rhythm that helped them stay in harmony. Pride, strong emotions, marital and work-related stress, and different communication styles often make it difficult to reconnect. Meet Ryan and Alyssa, a married couple struggling with connection. Ryan’s success in his job was such an event. He zeroed […]
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Conflict can have damaging effects on a marriage. But the damage is not caused by husbands and wives disagreeing with each other. The damage is caused by how husbands and wives handle their disagreements. At the University of California, Berkeley, researchers Aimee Gordon and Serena Chen collected data in seven different studies of romantically attached couples. […]
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Too many couples look back on their wedding as the happiest day of their life, only to count many of the days that follow as disappointing. If they haven’t figured it out before their wedding day, most couples eventually discover that sustaining a satisfying marriage requires effort. But, many couples put forth effort without getting […]
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According to data gathered by Statistic Brain, the average person spends two weeks of their life kissing. That means some kiss more. Some kiss less. So why do people kiss? Scientists aren’t exactly sure why we kiss. Romantic kissing exists in less than half of the world’s 168 cultures studied by scientists who published their findings […]
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In a marriage, forgiveness is not a free pass for one spouse to keep on hurting the other. Forgiveness doesn’t turn a blind eye to misdeeds. Most marriages begin with good intentions. Neither party enters a marriage wanting to hurt the other. But it happens. We all have our flaws. We know this the day we […]
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Some of the most important moments in a marriage relationship are brief. They are the moments when a husband or wife tries to connect emotionally with their spouse. How their spouse responds determines the impact of that moment on their marriage. The impact will be positive or negative. Many among us are driven to produce and […]
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At the end of a stressful day, how spouses manage their stress can strengthen their connection to each other or push them apart. Researchers surveyed over 100 heterosexual couples in Switzerland about their stress response to daily hassles over the prior year. Publishing their findings in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, they reported that […]
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Many married couples struggle with not having enough time for each other. They struggle with demands and distractions that pull them apart. According to recent research at the University of Minnesota, the average couple may spend between four to five hours together each day, not counting time spent sleeping or on personal grooming. But there are […]
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Sixty-nine percent of divorces are initiated by women, compared to 31 percent initiated by their husbands. In a recent study led by Michael Rosenfeld, associate professor of sociology at Stanford University in California, Rosenfeld drew this conclusion by collecting data from over 2000 adults ages 19-94 in heterosexual relationships. This conclusion is in contrast to […]
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Emotional distance, a loss of intimacy, and the death of romance. That describes our marriage less than six months after my wife and I exchanged vows. We’d married with dreams of living happily ever after. Conflict on our honeymoon cast doubt that our dreams would come true, putting our relationship on the rocks. Then I […]
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