Couples Who Are "We's" Are Happy

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Daniel Clement

Couples who refer to themselves as 'we' are happier than those who say 'I', 'me' or 'you.”

The study conducted at the University of California at Berkley, found a link between the use of pronouns and marital happiness. According to the study, reported in the Daily News and in the Domestic Diversions blog, middle-aged and older couples who used words like “we” and “us” when discussing their marital disagreements experienced less stress than those couple who used the words “I” “me” and “you.”

Not surprisingly, more older couples than middle aged ones identified themselves as “we;” shared life experiences, birth, death and other milestones, probably gave the more senior couples a greater sense of shared identity.

According to the Daily News, earlier studies have shown that “we-ness” versus “me-ness” is a strong indicator of how happy younger couples are.

It would be interesting to see if the pronoun/identity factor is predictive of divorce. Do couples who team up to become a “we” stay together? Conversely, do couples who become polarized “me’s” divorce?
 

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Census Says: Marriages Are of Shorter Duration

Posted on September 21, 2007 by Daniel Clement
The odds of a marriage lasting twenty five or even fifteen years are decreasing.

Reporting  on recently released marriage census data, the New York Times noted that more than half the Americans who might have celebrated their twenty fifth  wedding anniversaries since 2000 were divorced, separated or widowed before reaching that milestone.

"For the first time at least since World War II, women and men who married in the late 1970s had a less than even chance of still being married 25 years later."

Of course, one of the reasons for this drop-off is that people are marrying later in life increasing the chances that a spouse will be widowed, rather than divorced before reaching their twenty fifth anniversary.

But the percentage of marriages lasting fifteen years is also declining.  “About 80 percent of first marriages that took place in the late 1950s lasted at least 15 years. Among people who married in the late 1980s for the first time, however, only 61 percent of the men and 57 percent of the women were married 15 years later.”

There really does seem to be a "seven-year itch."Couples who separate do so, on average, after seven years and divorce after eight.



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