In Love? It's Not Enough to Keep a Marriage

Found on Yahoo News...Study Finds

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – Living happily ever after needn't only be for fairy tales. Australian researchers have identified what it takes to keep a couple together, and it's a lot more than just being in love.

A couple's age, previous relationships and even whether they smoke or not are factors that influence whether their marriage is going to last, according to a study by researchers from the Australian National University.

The study, entitled "What's Love Got to Do With It," tracked nearly 2,500 couples -- married or living together -- from 2001 to 2007 to identify factors associated with those who remained together compared with those who divorced or separated.
It found that a husband who is nine or more years older than his wife is twice as likely to get divorced, as are husbands who get married before they turn 25.

Children also influence the longevity of a marriage or relationship, with one-fifth of couples who have kids before marriage -- either from a previous relationship or in the same relationship -- having separated compared to just nine percent of couples without children born before marriage.

Women who want children much more than their partners are also more likely to get a divorce.
A couple's parents also have a role to play in their own relationship, with the study showing some 16 percent of men and women whose parents ever separated or divorced experienced marital separation themselves compared to 10 percent for those whose parents did not separate.

Also, partners who are on their second or third marriage are 90 percent more likely to separate than spouses who are both in their first marriage.

Not surprisingly, money also plays a role, with up to 16 percent of respondents who indicated they were poor or where the husband -- not the wife -- was unemployed saying they had separated, compared with only nine percent of couples with healthy finances.
And couples where one partner, and not the other, smokes are also more likely to have a relationship that ends in failure.

Factors found to not significantly affect separation risk included the number and age of children born to a married couple, the wife's employment status and the number of years the couple had been employed.

The study was jointly written by Dr Rebecca Kippen and Professor Bruce Chapman from The Australian National University, and Dr Peng Yu from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

Told my wife she is fat...

She's put on 6 sizes since we got married.We stopped having sex about a month ago. She's been hounding me asking why we haven't been having sex. The real reason why we haven't been having sex is because she thinks she is an ugly bohemath and I think that she is a lazy fat slob.

She does not like the way she looks but does nothing about it except get sad.

I still love her as a person but not in a sexual way. She just doesn't turn me on.

She hounded me today hard as why we weren't having sex, she reckons I'm cheating on her, so I told her it's because she has become fat. And elaborated and said more so the fact that she doesn't like the way she looks yet does nothing about it except be down in the dumps. How am I supposed to be sexually attracted to someone that doesn't love themselves / be confident about the way they look?

So she shed a few tears and then took off. Now I feel bad, but I just can't see any other way to handle the situation, she wanted to know why so I told her. It is the truth, I can't help if I'm not attracted to her.

Some naturally large women (who are not fat but large) perhaps say big boned, and confident about the way they look are attractive. They don't all have to be size 0 posh spices. It's more the confidence of the individual in regards to their looks rather than their looks.

Opinons?

Return to Your First Love

This is awesome! Written by Greg Laurie

Do you remember when you first fell in love with your spouse? Remember how you wanted to make such a great impression?

You would wear your best clothes, put your best foot forward, and use your best manners. Wherever you went, people could see you holding hands and looking into one another's eyes. Then there were those little gifts you would give to each other throughout the week, just to let each other know how much you loved one another.

What brought you and your spouse together was your desire for companionship, for intimacy, for honesty. But when a husband and wife begin to take each other for granted, that marriage becomes endangered.

A marriage is strong because you make it that way. Romance is kept alive by a conscious effort on your part. Romance is not something that comes and goes. It is something that you keep alive as you take part in the necessary activities to keep your marriage strong and vibrant.

Strength of a marriage

If these two women can endure tough times ... so can we!