Why Does the Honeymoon End?
Do you know of a solid relationship that seemed to have a lot going for it…and yet it unraveled? What about a marriage that stayed together but seemed stagnant…or even hostile? Did you see the Newsweek article last summer, No Sex Please, We're Married?
If relationship disharmony has never affected your union you are rare; in 2002 the Census Bureau predicted that half of all new marriages were likely to end in divorce. Our honeymoons aren't lasting, but when we look at rising divorce statistics we often assume this must be a recent problem. It isn't. It's proverbial that "the honeymoon period lasts less than a year." What has changed is that we now divorce easily when disharmony strikes. So a problem, which was once hidden by the fact that couples had to stay together even when things were grim, is now coming to light.
Usually when couples break up they conclude that they just married the wrong person. But the fact is, no matter how right the mates, marriages still often go wrong. In 2000, Dr. Kiecolt-Glaser released results from a survey of 90 newlywed couples that ran from 1988 through 1992 at Ohio State University. The researchers carefully selected only couples who had everything going for them with no addictions or emotional disorders. In fact they picked fewer than 1 in 20 from more than 2,200. Most had dated for about three years before they married, and three out of five had lived together before marrying. "These were highly healthy people. They were blissful!" explained one of the researchers. So what happened? ...
Find out here.
