Marital Satisfaction Depends On Perception

By Margarita Nahapetyan

A new Northwestern University study suggests that dating couples who include marriage in their future plans will experience higher relationship satisfaction if they believe that a partner will always be there to support them after they tie the knot.

For many years researchers have been wondering what makes a marriage work in long-term, taking into consideration the fact that, just in the United States alone, the divorce rate climbed to 50 per cent, and that a significant number of people get married more than once. Previous investigations on this matter have found that the first several months, or even years, can be very exciting for couples, and that this could be one of the main reasons why they choose to get married. However, the future, in many cases, is not as cloudless as it seems, and some individuals simply find themselves unable to handle their partner's personality or habits.

When people are dating, the major concern in the relationship is whether things will be moving forward. People are convinced that happiness with a partner depends on whether the relationship will grow into something bigger and deeper, whether a partner will support the dreams the other hopes to fulfill. When people get married, they think that the best partner is the one who understands that the ideal achievements are still important and helps in the everyday obligations of life as a couple.

To come up with this conclusion, a team of investigators from the Northwestern University, led by psychologist Daniel Molden, has decided to carry out a scientific research into the matter, and to compare the state of affairs between 92 couples who were dating and 77 pairs who were married. The participants were asked to fill out appropriate questionnaires that included an assessment of how much they thought their partner understood and supported both the hopes and responsibilities they had set for themselves. In order to analyze how different types of perceived support were associated with happiness in the marital union, couples also were asked to report the level of satisfaction they had, as well as levels of intimacy and trust. Preliminary results showed that marriage, indeed, changed everything.

Based on the responds, psychologists found that all those who took part in the study believed that their partners should always cheer them up, and always be there for them. However, surprisingly enough, the study also discovered that it was not the shift of focus from "me" to "us" that was causing problems for couples after tying the knot. The major problem turned out to be passing from judging the other partner based on perception to judging them based on real facts, on what they do on a daily basis. Many couples that eventually went through divorce said that they simply could not cope with the behavior or attitude of their other half anymore. In some cases, it was habits that were very well known to the partner who left the relationship, but which had become too stressful to deal with in the latter years of their life together.

The investigators also revealed that people's self-absorption with themselves in many cases prevented them from really getting to know and understanding the person they committed to spending the rest of their lives with. Almost everyone who gets involved in a relationship start projecting their thoughts, beliefs, feelings and hopes on the partner, regardless of the subject or focus of these things. This messy projection can easily result in a big disappointment, even though, on many occasions, they are simply the outcome of a negative and wrong way of thought.

"People planning to get married should think about not only how their partners support what they hope to achieve but also about how their partners support what they feel obligated to accomplish," Molden said. "We could end up with both happier marriages and more satisfied people in general."

The study will be published in the July issue of Psychological Science.