Friday, April 24, 2009

Denial for Bliss?

(themotherhood.com)

"Denial Can Bring Marital Bliss"
Meredith F. Small (LiveScience.com)

With the divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, and so many people married more than once, it sometimes feels like humans are terrible at figuring out long-term love.

The typical pattern starts with falling head-over-heels for someone, with all its heat-thumping, starry-eyed craziness, and it takes a while before that fog dissipates and the real object of desire comes into focus. Often, the truth doesn’t hit until after marriage when the real person, warts and all, wakes up next to you in bed wearing a wedding ring.

Reality check, with its evil twin disillusionment, are sure ways to kill off a marriage. In a study to be published in July in the journal Psychological Science, Northwestern University psychologist Daniel Molden and colleagues were interested in the possible differences between the way dating and married couples see each other. They asked 92 dating couples and 77 married couples to complete questionnaires about satisfaction with their relationship, and not surprising, marriage changes things.

Everyone, married or dating, thinks the best partner is one who acts as a cheering section and brings out our best. But that sort of relationship only translates into a truly happy marriage when the partner seems to accept real commitment and helps in the day-to-day obligations... More>>

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