DOES MARRIAGE MAKE YOU HAPPY...AN ARTICLE

Does Marriage Make You Happy?

Study: Marriage Provides Short-Lived Boost in Happiness

By Sid Kirchheimer
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
on Monday, March 17, 2003


March 17, 2003 -- First the good news. Marriage can make you a little happier -- at least initially. Now even better news. If you were happy before getting married, chances are you'll stay that way.


People tend to get a boost in overall life satisfaction from being married, but the increase is small and typically short-lived, finds a new study. In other words, getting married may initially make people feel happier about their lives in general, but staying married has little long-term effect on being happy.


'What we found is that on average, there is a reported boost in happiness right around the time of marriage -- the year before, the year of, and the year after getting married,' says lead researcher Richard Lucas, PhD, of Michigan State University. 'But after two years of marriage, most people are pretty much back to where they started before marriage.'


And what was their boost in self-reported levels of happiness? A mere one-tenth of a point on an 11-point scale, reports the study, published in the March issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.


Lucas' study tracked data on 24,000 people living in Germany from1984 to 1995 who were periodically surveyed to gauge their overall level of happiness. The researchers took into account factors such as changes in Germany due to the fall of the Berlin Wall when evaluating their results.


The findings aren't to suggest that proverbial honeymoon ends with the literal one. In fact, various studies -- including this one -- indicate that married people are typically happier than those who aren't. 'But those people who tend to get married typically report being happier before they got married, they're just overall happier people,' says Lucas. His study didn't measure how children impact a marriage's happiness, but others have shown it typically dips when kids are teenagers and then rebounds.


So what changes with marriage? Apparently, life's goals -- which may explain the upward happiness blip among newlyweds and those preparing to walk down the aisle.


'As life circumstances change, most people adjust their goals and expectations,' Lucas tells WebMD. 'Before getting married, one's goal might be to get married. So when that goal is achieved or about to be, they're very happy. But as they settle into marriage, their goals might change -- maybe to have children or build their career. And they focus on achieving those new goals to lead them to happiness.'


His take-home advice from his finding: 'Many people may enter a marriage with an expectation that it will provide all these benefits for making them happier,' says Lucas. 'But they shouldn't expect that.'


So what should newlyweds expect to boost their chances of living happily ever after the wedding band begins to age?


'You should understand that where there is contact, there is going to be friction,' says Bonnie Maslin, PhD, a New York psychotherapist who has written several books on marriage, including The Angry Marriage and Not Quite Paradise: Making Marriage Work. ''When you are romantically involved and at a distance, there is a tendency to idolize that person. Just like if you're looking at a rare tapestry from far away, you're not going to see stains that you see up close.


'But the closer you get, the more you see the texture of person -- their good and bad points -- and the more ambivalence you may feel about your mate,' she tells WebMD. 'People who stay marriage well are those who can tolerate this ambivalence.'