Though couples have been marrying and divorcing for literally thousands of years, it seems like it’s a lot harder these days to find couples who stay together for 30, 40, or 50 years. So when couples do manage to last that long, how do they do it? What is the secret to long and happy marriages?
Statistical data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in April 2021 shows an average divorce rate of about 33% between 2008 and 2016. That is not nearly as bad as the 50% so many self-proclaimed experts talk about. What is surprising is that the number of people choosing to not get married has steadily increased. During that period, all the age groups covered by the Census Bureau data experienced a significant increase of never-married singles.
To put it simply, single people are choosing to not marry in greater numbers. Meanwhile, the divorce rate remains steady. Both factors help explain why marriages lasting as long as 50 years are harder to find. So again, what is the secret to those marriages that do last so long?
It is Not One Thing
The secret to long and happy marriages is that there is no secret. When we talk of such things, we are hoping that couples with a long history have access to some kind of marital pixie dust. The thinking is that the rest of us can have long and happy marriages if we just had access to it too. Yet it does not exist.
There isn’t just one thing that guarantees a long and happy marriage. Rather, long and happy marriages are the result of a lot of little things put together. Furthermore, none of those little things are one-and-done things. They are things couples continue to embrace day after day, week after week, year after year.
Looking for the Easy Way
Perhaps so many people are interested in the secret to long and happy marriages because they are also looking for the easy way. Take it from the professionals at Relationships & More in Rye, New York: there is no easy way. Relationships are hard. They are especially hard among married couples for the simple fact that they are so intimate.
We are conditioned to look for the easy way by our Hollywood image of love and romance. On the silver screen, couples live happily ever after as they ride off into the sunset. On TV, the most difficult marriage issues can be resolved in under 30 minutes. But all of that is fantasy.
Films and television shows are rarely realistic. They couldn’t be, or people wouldn’t pay to watch them. Still, that does not mean that long and happy marriages are impossible. Any couple who has legitimately enjoyed 50 years of marriage can attest to that. But getting that far requires living in reality. It requires taking a pragmatic approach to marriage and learning how to make it work.
A Few Little Tricks
With all that said, married couples with decades of experience under their belts can offer their own little tricks for making things work. Some couples talk about never going to bed angry. Others talk about giving one another plenty of space. The different ways married couples have of making it work for so long are as varied as the couples themselves. The one thing they all have in common is a willingness to put the work into it.
Whatever a long-married couple’s secrets are, they work at their marriages. They do not expect decades of wedded bliss to happen by accident. And maybe that is the secret after all.
