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Pastimes : Another Good Reason Not To Be Married -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edwarda who wrote (5697)	10/5/1999 3:04:00 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6545

Study Finds a 7-Year Itch, and a 4-Year One nytimes.com It is well known that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. With that in mind, a psychology professor from Wright State University surveyed husbands and wives once a year over the first decade of their marriages to observe how marital quality changes over time. The researcher, Dr. Larry A. Kurdek, found that couples often began their unions with high levels of marital quality, but that it appeared to decrease twice: once rather steeply over the first four years and again after about seven. (The pattern of change was the same for both husbands and wives.) He also reported that couples with children experienced the steepest declines. The research, in the September issue of the journal Development Psychology, began with a sample of 522 couples. Participants filled out an annual 32-item questionnaire on various aspects of marital quality. Sample questions included these: "How satisfied are you with your marriage?" "How affectionate is your partner?" and "To what extent do you do things together?" The husbands' and wives' responses were compared over time; 93 couples participated for the entire decade. "Most marriages start off with such high levels of quality that it can only change down," Dr. Kurdek said. "At the start of a relationship you can overlook the fact that he throws his socks around or that she leaves the refrigerator open. Over time, a sense of reality sets in. You'd started off making excuses for your partner. Then you don't. It's a natural evolution. "The second dip is more difficult to explain," he said. "It may just be the result of being in something for a long time. You start re-examining. It might just be the natural curiosity -- a sort of wondering about what else is out there." Dr. Kurdek also examined the factors that predict the rate of change. He looked at three major sets of predictors: divorce history, the presence of children and personality variables. He found that couples who have children together, not children from previous marriages, experienced the steepest decline. "There is ample evidence to indicate that having kids changes the overall quality of marriage," Dr. Kurdek said. "For the most part these couples are dealing with young kids, and they require extensive levels of supervision. You're spending less time together as a couple, may not have a lot of time and energy for sexual affection, and there's a lot more to argue about. "My own sense is that a lot of our emotional responses are based on expectation. If you can prepare for these declines, then chances are if you're happy over all, the level of commitment can stay high." An expert on couples and mental health, Dr. Jerry I. Cooper, former chief of psychiatry at York Finch General Hospital near Toronto, called the study interesting but added: "People have to use common sense and judgment. In marriages, the damage is done from the beginning. Before you have children, you're going to get a good preview of what your life is going to be like. If you're not getting along now, later on you're not going to get along."