A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
Marriage remains a mystery. What makes it work for the long-term? What makes some marriages passionate? What keeps couples in love—even madly in love—decades after they exchanged their vows? What is the fundamental difference between couples who experience marital happiness and those who do not?
In the recent New York Times article “What Brain Scans Can Tell Us About Marriage,” Tara Parker-Pope reveals how questions such as these fascinate and drive academic researchers, such as a post-doctoral researcher at UCSB, Bianca Acevedo. Dr. Acevedo and others are intrigued by these questions and the “inner workings” of long-term happy marriages. Utilizing a plethora of lab tests (including brain scans and relationship tests), researchers tried to more accurately and tangibly identify what is behind these lasting, loving, and happy marriages.
In one study, Dr. Acevedo, who specifically studies the neuroscience of relationships, conducted a phone survey of 274 men and women in long-term, committed relationships and who considered themselves still madly in love. She collected data related to marital happiness and passionate love and expected to find only a small percentage of couples still deeply in love. Dr. Acevedo was extremely surprised to find nearly 40 percent registering high on the romance scale! Couples in the other 60 percent also had high levels of relationship satisfaction and considered themselves still very much in love—just not as acutely as the first group.
In another study, 17 men and women (married an average of 21 years) agreed to undergo a brain scan so that researchers could try to identify how long-term, romantic relationships affect the brain. When shown a picture of their spouse (as opposed to a friend), parts of the brain related to romantic love were activated—similar to a couple falling in love. What was especially interesting is that in these older couples with longer-term marriages, something additional was identified in the brain scan. For these couples who had weathered life and shared significant experiences together, a unique part of the brain associated with deep attachment and security was activated as well! So, in addition to the euphoric feelings related to romantic love, these couples also experienced feelings of security and calm in the relationship.
So you ask: What did these couples have in common to keep the romance alive all those years? While there is still uncertainty and debate surrounding what specifically fosters and preserves marital happiness, romance, and longevity, these couples did in fact share certain things in common. Researchers discovered the following facts about these couples:
- They remained active and engaged in one another’s lives.
- They were committed to working on and growing the marriage. (They recognized and understood that marriage is work and doesn’t just “go” on its own!)
- They were intentional about doing new and different activities together
As a marriage therapist, what I get out of this article is simple: There are tangible ways to work toward a more satisfying and engaged marriage—one in which you still feel in love! Despite what you may think (and the growing pessimism of the surrounding times and culture), you can be madly in love with your spouse…even decades into your marriage. It can happen. It does exist. And (wink, wink) there are some benefits that you can only enjoy decades into your marriage. Pretty cool stuff.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 18th, 2010 at 11:29 am and is filed under Marriage Dynamics.
8 Responses to “News From the Happy Marriage Labs”
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June 24th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Your article makes sense. In order to keep anything alive, you must invest time and energy in it. The same holds true for a marriage. Thanks for your News from the Happy Marriage Lab.
June 27th, 2010 at 7:13 am
[...] to making it work, and work well, over the long haul? Marriage and family therapist Jay Slupesky weighed in on the article and the brain scans, surveys, and relationship satisfaction statistics that these studies reported. [...]
August 6th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Very good article on relationships. If we concentrated on married life then definitely we can find the good love life…Thanks for the post
August 30th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
I think a experienced marriage counselor finds ways to restore the broken relationship by resolving the conflicts and healing the wounds. Marriage Counseling can help the couples to have an idea of what to expect from a marriage and what not.
September 28th, 2010 at 10:20 am
This is a great article. My parents have been married for 64 years I I think it’s safe to say they would agree with you!
I recently wrote an article about affair-proofing your relationship. Really it was about appreciation. I think it fits nicely with this theme.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
October 14th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Hi, good article.I have been married for 25 years and it sickens me on how the now generation is living in a dispossible world. The marriage doesn’t work get a divorce. Marriage is work, good work, worth it all work. Grow together, be there for each other, listen to one another.Give and take from one another, fit in fun and laughs along the way and remember to respect and appreciate each other. I am forever grateful to have found someone who loves me unconditionally to share my life with me. Someone who loves and appreciates me for me. To those of you have found this true love don’t take it for granted.
April 6th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
interesting, i remember a friend tried this and wasn’t very successful either - i think it takes a lot of openness to work..
August 21st, 2011 at 4:55 pm
I’ve been happily married for over 20 years, and my wife and I have always had an easy relationship. That doesn’t mean that it was not without issues. But they were mostly my baggage, and I was in denial about them. I was always a flirt, long before I met my wife, and in fact, I left my first marriage a year into it by having an affair. I knew things were very different with my current wife from the time we first hit it off. I knew she was “the one.” She was definitely the best thing that ever happened to me.
Unfortunately, my desire for attention from other women did not go away, and I just assumed it was the way I was. I knew better than to have another physical affair, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to send out a fishing line now and then to confirm that I was attractive to other women. I thought this was just my “pattern,” and was in denial that it was immaturity and habit. At one point, I developed a crush on another woman with whom I was carpooling, and told her I was attracted to her. That was after telling her what a great marriage I had, and that we were “marriage snobs.” I should have felt stupid, but I liked that feeling of having a crush on someone. She was attracted to me, too, but fortunately, she was very ethical and although single, would not get involved with a married man. When my wife picked up on what was going on, as she is very in tune with this sort of thing, she got very upset. I stopped carpooling or being friends with this other woman. One would have thought I would have learned my lesson, but no.
Fast forward 15 years. Fifteen years of happy marriage.
Recently, I had a case at work that involved some outside complainants. One of them was a woman who obviously picked up on my weakness. I think at first she wanted to use me to further her cause, but soon realized that she was attracted to me. She began playing up to me with lots of flattery, which I admit I ate up with a spoon. What I didn’t realize was that she was a great manipulator, and that she had me eating out of her hands. (After the affair, I told my coworker, who said she felt the creeps around this woman because she was so pushy and manipulative, and was surprised I hadn’t noticed that. Boy, was I blind!) I had created this fantasy world in my head in which I did not see what she was doing or who she really was. I also really loved the feeling of “new love,” and was really seeking that feeling again. I didn’t realize at the time that I could have it with my wife, in a real world. Let’s just say it was the perfect storm, but really, it was temporary insanity. Somehow, I was able to numb myself enough that I could tell this woman I was attracted to her, and carry on an emotional affair, putting aside the guilt I should have had for what this could do to my marriage and not think about my wife’s feelings. So this “other woman” and I declared our feelings for each other. I even told her I loved her. Silly me, I was merely infatuated and seeking that feeling after 20+ years of marriage. While the two of us were having our clandestine little tryst, we were talking about being HONEST! Imagine that. She had me snowed into thinking I was being honest when I was cheating on my wife!! How’s that for manipulation? My wife was suspicious before it began. She is amazing at reading me, but she wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt. I obviously didn’t deserve that. Anyway, my wife confronted me after less than two weeks of this affair, carried out almost entirely with emails, phone calls and facebook. I admitted to her what was going on (although it took me a week or two to totally come clean and answer all her questions). I realized what a total idiot I had been, and told her I would end it immediately, which I did. My wife is so incredible. She took me back and forgave me, but insisted that I grow up and work out this “pattern” of mine.
My wife patiently worked with me, and I began seeing a therapist. My wife also convinced me to do some work on our marriage using Harville Hendrix’s book Getting the Love You Want. She had wanted to do this work 15 years earlier so we wouldn’t take our marriage for granted. I, being a guy, didn’t think we needed it. Wrong again.
Now, my marriage is unbelievable! I have had so many rushes of love for my wife, we’ve fallen in love all over again. It is even better than that “new love” feeling because it is rooted in reality, not a fantasy world with someone I really don’t know. I have learned to fully open my heart and love my wife without limits. Before, I was trying to protect myself, not wanting to be vulnerable, so I put up walls that kept me from loving fully. I didn’t realize it at the time, of course. Now, our sex life is the best it has ever been, and we love each other more than ever. Our marriage is pure bliss. She truly is the best thing to ever happen to me, and her goodness really showed in the face of my abhorrent behavior. I am so grateful for her forgiveness and love.
When I think back, it is hard to believe that I did such a stupid thing and risked so much for a few days of excitement with a woman who was even more emotionally immature than I was. I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if my wife hadn’t taken me back. That short-lived relationship would surely have ended within a few months, when I saw the “other woman” in the light of reality.