Normalize therapy.

The purpose of marriage, from a clinical perspective, is to build a shared meaning together that gives both of your lives more weight than either of you could carry alone. It is not the wedding, not the romantic feeling, not even the intimacy. Those are real, but they are downstream of something deeper. The purpose of marriage is the slow, sometimes invisible work of two people building a shared identity, a shared story, and a shared sense of impact on the world around them.

That is why couples who lose their sense of purpose often describe the same thing in our practice: not that they fight more, but that they cannot remember why they are still together in the first place. The argument is downstream. The shared meaning is the load-bearing wall.

This article walks through what shared meaning actually looks like in marriage, where it comes from, and how couples build it on purpose rather than hoping it shows up by accident.

What "Purpose of Marriage" Actually Means in Therapy

When researchers and clinicians talk about purpose in marriage, they are usually pointing at one specific thing: shared meaning. John Gottman built an entire level of his Sound Relationship House model around this concept. He called it Shared Meaning, and he placed it at the very top of the house, above trust, above conflict management, above friendship. The idea is that strong marriages do not just coexist. They construct a shared interpretation of life together: shared rituals, shared goals, shared symbols, a shared sense of what matters and why.

That is what people are really looking for when they ask "what is the purpose of marriage?" They are not usually asking a definitional question. They are asking a load-bearing one. They want to know whether marriage is supposed to feel like this. Whether it is supposed to be this hard. Whether the two of them have lost something they were supposed to have.

The clinical answer is that shared meaning is not a feeling. It is a construction project. And couples who do not realize that often spend years waiting for it to arrive on its own.

Meaning Starts With Your Shared Story

Every couple creates a shared story of their relationship: how they interpret the events that brought them together and what they believe about where they are going. Just over a year before this article was first written, Verlynda and I were preparing to leave on a year-long trip in our travel trailer. Having to create that vision for ourselves, and then explain it to other people, forced us into a process we did not realize we were in. Every time someone asked, "Why are you doing this?" we had to answer. And every time we answered, the story got a little more solid.

Any major life transition for a couple does this. So does the early stage of marriage itself. You are bringing two individual identities together and creating a new, jointly developed meaning that helps you make sense of your relationship and makes the future feel a little more stable[i]. The work happens whether you do it consciously or not. The question is whether you are doing it well.

One study looked at the stories newlywed couples told about how they met and dated. The content of those stories, and the shared meaning embedded in them, was a strong predictor of marital wellbeing[ii]. Three patterns stood out:

Storytelling process. Couples who told their stories collaboratively, with high agreement on the details, were the couples whose marriages held up well over time. Disagreement and conflict during the storytelling itself often suggested the couple had not yet built a strong sense of shared meaning. This is where you can actually watch purpose forming or failing to form: in whether the couple's history feels synchronous when they tell it.

Storytelling style. Telling the story as a narrative with a sense of drama, rather than a flat list of events, also predicted wellbeing. The animation reflected investment. Couples who were genuinely interested in their own history were the ones who had something to invest in.

Story content. Attributing tensions or difficulties to factors outside the couple, rather than blaming each other, indicated cohesion and was linked to high wellbeing. Framing the story primarily around conflict and barriers, on the other hand, was linked to lower satisfaction. If the entire story of your relationship is defined by turmoil, it tends to keep generating more.

What I take from this clinically is straightforward. Couples who carry some sense of providence, destiny, or "we were brought together for a reason" tend to have a more meaningful story behind why they exist as a couple. That sense of meaning becomes a platform from which they can begin asking the next question, which is how they want to impact the world together. Whether you frame the source of that meaning as faith, fate, or simply a deliberate choice, the platform itself matters.

And in our work with couples, the pattern we keep seeing is that the couples whose first-date stories diverge significantly are often the same couples who, ten or fifteen years later, sit in our office describing a marriage that has lost its center. The early disagreements over "how it really happened" turn out to be early signals of the same shared-meaning collapse they cannot name today.

Four Forces That Shape Shared Identity

Shared story is the foundation. There are four other forces that act on shared identity once it forms.

Family of origin. How involved your family of origin remains in your married life has real consequences for marital satisfaction[iii]. Even as you build shared meaning together, you have to stay in touch with your individual identity and history. The critical move is that both spouses agree on what the right level of involvement is. I am not talking about enmeshment. I am talking about a healthy, marriage-centered approach to family relationships where both of you are reading from the same playbook.

Flexibility. Each spouse comes into the marriage with their own identity, sense of purpose, and expectations about what the marriage should mean. A couple's ability to construct a shared meaning depends heavily on their flexibility, because the construction has to be collaborative[iv]. Rigid expectations on either side do not survive the collision with another person's actual life.

Romantic versus companionate love. Couples whose shared meaning was based on positive relationship qualities like intimacy, satisfaction, and commitment were significantly more likely to have stable, satisfying marriages. Couples whose identity was based mostly on passion and romance were not[v]. Passion alone cannot sustain long-term shared purpose, because romantic love often does not last the entire length of the relationship while commitment and intimacy can. As we covered in our episode on the neuroscience of dating your spouse, this is not an absolute rule, but it is the dominant pattern.

Positive and negative meanings. Newlyweds are influenced by each other's negative views of marriage (the things they believe make a marriage bad), but not by each other's positive views[vi]. In other words, couples come into marriage with a clear, shared sense of what their marriage should not be like, while figuring out what it should be like takes longer. That asymmetry has clinical consequences. Couples often agree on what they are running from years before they agree on what they are running toward.

Expressing Shared Purpose Through Joint Ventures

Once a couple has built some sense of shared identity, the natural next question is what to do with it. One of the most common ways couples express shared purpose is through joint ventures: enterprises, projects, or causes that the two of them invest in together.

This podcast is one example. We started it as a joint venture and it has shaped our marriage in ways we did not predict.

When the joint venture is business-based, research shows that the love bond between couples grows stronger over time as they work together[vii]. Couples who build a business together create shared experiences, which can raise intimacy, even though work and family roles get complicated[viii]. Couples who do this well typically share three qualities:

Strong family values

High mutual trust and confidence in each other's abilities

A strong commitment to equality in the marriage[ix]

The "joint" part does not have to mean each spouse owning half of the business operations. Sometimes one spouse runs the venture while the other contributes through household management, network-building, advisory work, or simply keeping the running spouse grounded[x]. Joint does not mean identical. It means co-invested.

Joint ventures also do not have to be commercial. They can take the form of involvement in your church, service to your local community, work on a school committee, coaching, mentoring, or volunteering. Some joint ventures build the life you want inside your family. Others create impact in the world around you. Most couples I see in healthy marriages are running both at once, often without naming them as such.

Sometimes the activity is shared equally. Other times one spouse takes over with the kids for an evening so the other can pour into something purposeful. Even though they are physically separated that night, the activity is still shared because both of them are invested in it.

Parenting as a Vehicle for Shared Meaning

For couples who have children, raising a family is one of the deepest sources of shared meaning available to them and one of the most lasting forms of impact on the world. As we have covered in earlier episodes on parenting for the benefit of your marriage, raising a family carries both positive and negative effects on life satisfaction[xi].

Day-to-day satisfaction often drops while children are young. Sleep, freedom, and bandwidth all shrink. But long-term life-meaning, the deeper sense that your life is contributing something,...

Remarriage after bereavement. Maybe I get a little selfish and hope that I’ll never have to face the loss of a spouse. When I’m feeling more noble and altruistic, I hope my spouse will never have to face it. But regardless, nearly 100% of couples face the loss of their significant other during their lifetime. And so if this reality is so common, it’s worth talking about.

Losing your spouse is one of the hardest things any person can go through. Amidst the grief and sadness, you have the question of remarriage: when is it ok to remarry? How will my new marriage compare to my old one? Should I even be comparing them? Today we’re going to be looking at this topic and hopefully offering some hope to those of you in this situation.

Background Info about Remarriage

We’re just talking about remarriage after bereavement today. Not remarriage after divorce- that’s a rather separate issue. But for both of us here at OYF: this is our first marriage. We don’t actually have any close connections in our peer group who have remarried after bereavement. And both sets of our parents are still living. So we’re definitely abstracted from this in terms of experience.

But we do have some research to help frame the issue of remarriage. Here are some stats to get us started:

Men are more likely to remarry across all age groups.

Remarriage rates decline with age for both men and women. Women's likelihood of remarrying declines more sharply with age than it does for men[i]. As they get older they become less likely to remarry.

These patterns are true across cultures.

Remarriage rates decline with age for both genders. This could be due to a lack of availability of potential partners, or may also reflect a reduced interest in remarrying.

Older widows often cite freedom from having to care for their spouse as a reason not to remarry in later life[ii]. Which makes sense — if you see someone caring for a spouse with a long, protracted terminal illness: they are not only learning to become more independent as the illness progresses, but they are also carrying a huge burden of care. And I could definitely see someone coming through that being more reluctant to remarry.

When do people tend to remarry? Rates of remarriage drop just after bereavement and then rise. This is different from the remarriage rates for divorce, where people often remarry quickly.

Clearly, a time of mourning is needed before remarriage after the death of your spouse, but perhaps this finding is also hinting at a social norm or taboo stating that it is inappropriate to remarry too quickly after being widowed[iii].

12 months is sometimes considered the acceptable time to wait before re-marriage, and there is actually a large increase in marriages among bereaved men and women in the 13th month after the bereavement[iv]. This suggests that a good percentage of the bereaved consider a year an appropriate time to wait before moving on with a new partner.

I think if you’re recently bereaved then that alone should offer some hope: right now you may feel like you’ll never recover, but perhaps it’s comforting to know that for some people the healing process moves along to a point they feel ok remarrying after just a year.

Of course, it doesn’t always go that way, and every circumstance is different. Overall rates of remarriage are much lower after bereavement than divorce: 5% of women and 12% of bereaved men remarry, compared to 69% and 78% of divorced women and men, respectively[v].

Interestingly, widowed people often marry other widows, with 45% or bereaved men and 42% of bereaved women doing so[vi]. Perhaps the shared experience of having gone through such a terrible loss makes them uniquely able to comfort and support each other.

Issues Affecting Remarriage

We’re going to cover some interesting factoids here, talking about the influences that come into play.

In a general sense: either post-divorce or post-bereavement, it’s my understanding that the divorce rates for second marriages are higher than the divorce rates for first marriages. I think the takeaway from this is to note that it is probably harder to make that second marriage work well and we’re going to see how many different factors play into this.

I’m not mentioning this because I have an agenda to discourage second marriages, but rather to make sure that folks listening to this are better prepared and better educated so that they can come to their second marriage more informed and prepared. And, consequently, have a greater likelihood of real enjoyment of that second marriage.

Availability of Partners: Availability of potential partners is lower the older you get, especially for women since older unmarried women greatly outnumber older unmarried men. This is mostly down to the simple fact that women live longer than men on average.

Widows/widowers living in big urban areas have lower rates of remarriage than those living in less urban areas, possibly due to having less of an established social circle[vii].

Social Support: Levels of social support can affect the availability of partners but also the desire to remarry. Bereaved men who had higher levels of social support from friends and family reported less desire for future romantic relationships at 6 and 18 months after the bereavement[viii]. Having a supportive network around you may help ease the loneliness and make remarrying less of a priority.

Women tend to have larger social networks and trusted confidants than men, and also typically receive more support from their children after bereavement. So men's generally higher desire to remarry may be partially due to a lack of alternative social support. In fact when bereaved men report having high levels of social support their desire to remarry is no higher than that of women[ix].

Economic factors: Remarrying is often seen as economically advantageous over staying single. Especially for women, who typically tend to have lower incomes or work fewer hours[x].

This effect gets less pronounced in later adulthood as traditional gender roles become less important: couples are no longer looking after children, are potentially not in employment anymore and so on. So the advantage of remarrying may be less in later life. But for many bereaved individuals, it makes sense to remarry on a practical, economic level as well as an emotional one.

Social norms: as we noted above, there may be a perception that remarrying quickly after bereavement is inappropriate and that there is an acceptable way to grieve. Time clearly plays a factor in this. In one study bereaved men and women both report desire to "remarry someday" at 6 months from the bereavement and a desire to "start dating now" at 18 months[xi].

Quality of the marriage: couples who had high levels of conflict were more likely to want to start dating again more quickly[xii]. I guess it’s important to remember that no marriage is perfect and just because a spouse passed away that unfortunately doesn’t always mean that the marriage was free from problems. And that’s bound to have an impact on the surviving spouse.

So these are some of the factors that come into play. Now we’re going to take a look at some of the benefits of remarriage but I also want to mention that we have created a bonus guide for our much-appreciated patrons.

Benefits of Remarrying

The research shows that remarriage is almost universally a good thing when undertaken in the right way.

First, remarried men and women have lower symptoms of depression. Research suggests that remarriage then is not a reaction to loneliness and lack of coping, but in fact, signals coming to terms with the loss and moving on[xiii]. I take it from this that the remarriage can act as a catalyst for grieving through all the stages, finding closure, and looking for creating the next part of your story.

Perhaps there’s also a cautionary note here: are you ready to move on, or are you looking for someone to help you through the grieving process? The former is a great reason to remarry; the latter is not a foundation for a fulfilling marriage.

The next research observation is more just a correlation, not necessarily a causation. But widows who remarried had higher household incomes and worried less about finances than those who did not remarry[xiv]. Obviously, nobody thinks it’s a worthwhile idea to remarry just for money, but financial considerations are real.

Another research study noted that widows/widowers dating or being remarried 25 months after the bereavement was highly correlated with greater overall psychological wellbeing[xv] . Again, yet another study noted that over time, remarried individuals showed improvements over non-remarried individuals in life satisfaction, resolution of grief, self-perceived coping, stress levels, self-esteem, physical health and levels of social support[xvi].

If you’re bereaved today and considering remarriage I hope that this can give you some factors to consider and that these findings are also an encouragement to you as well.

Attachment Ties

And now we come back to attachment. This is a concept we’ve addressed in previous episodes, such as our examination of the neuroscience of love and dating. Attachment refers to the love bond that exists between a couple. Now when you form that over 10, 25 or 40+ years and then one spouse passes away, this is a huge disruption in that bond. But you’re still left with your part of the bond.

Remarrying allows you the opportunity to form a new attachment bond, not plug the old one into someone else. That old bond still lingers and will continue to affect you as the bereaved spouse. To quote one researcher, "Human attachment bonds are established and maintained at emotional levels so deep that the mere fact of the physical death cannot disrupt these bonds.[xvii]" So then remarrying becomes a process of both letting go and holding on.

...

Perfectionism is not too far from any of our hearts. Certainly, anyone who is on Facebook or Instagram knows that we, just like everybody else, tend to present the perfect image of ourselves on these channels. But: we want to ask the question, how does this affect our marriage?

The topic of perfectionism was suggested by one of our readers, and it’s certainly an interesting one. What is perfectionism? Is it a good thing? How can it impact marriage when one spouse is only satisfied with perfection and the other finds it hard to live up to their standards?

What is Perfectionism?

Perfectionism usually comes in one of three flavors[i]:

Self-oriented perfectionism: requiring yourself to be perfect

Other-oriented perfectionism: requiring other people to be perfect

Socially prescribed perfectionism: belief that others hold unrealistic expectations about you: believing that others require you to be perfect.

A related concept is perfectionistic self-presentation, which is the desire to be seen as perfect by others[ii]. This includes actions such as self-promotion, desire to hide imperfections, and reluctance to talk about your own imperfections. Obviously needing to be seen as perfect is going to impact a marriage in quite a big way, especially if you’re afraid to be vulnerable around your spouse.

I think it’s helpful to take a step back from the role that perfectionism plays in your marriage and ask, “What kind of perfectionism do we each struggle with?” You’ll want to nuance your response based on whether it is self or other-oriented, or if it socially prescribed.

Is Perfectionism a Good Thing?

There are mixed thoughts on this.

When you have these perfectionistic traits, it is inevitable that you would feel unsatisfied or stressed if you do not meet the standards set on you (by yourself or by perceived others).

Some may argue that it is useful or essential for a high-achieving life while others argue that it is unhelpful or detrimental to your wellbeing.

Some researchers have differentiated between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, in which adaptive perfectionism is seen as a form of motivation and hard-working attitude, and so is linked to positive outcomes.

Adaptive perfectionism is correlated with higher achievement but neither perfectionism nor achievement are correlated with life satisfaction[iii]. However, both adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism are linked to highly negative outcomes such as anxiety, depression and low self-esteem, as well as a variety of interpersonal problems, which we’ll get to in just a moment[iv]. So even if perfectionism helps drive you to succeed it comes at a steep cost.

So the bottom line is it may help you achieve more but it will cost you. For me, I think perfectionism is contrary to the gospel. Those of us who are born again are all valuable, fallible children of God. So our worth is something instilled in us and given to us but we also acknowledge that we have an innate, undeniable potential to fail.

Perfectionism is incapable of helping with either point, although it attempts to. It cannot provide worth because when is perfect ever perfect enough? And it cannot preserve us from proving that we have a fallen nature: that we sin, we act in ways that are not congruent with our values or with God’s values, we let our spouses down from time to time.

So in my mind, perfectionism just becomes a breeding ground for shame. For that reason, it is unhelpful.

The Effect of Perfectionism on Marriage

So let’s look at how this touches marriage specifically.

The reality is that perfectionism in marriage is more likely to help us get our ugly on than anything else. Let’s break this down according to the three kinds of perfectionism: self-oriented, other-oriented and socially prescribed.

Self-Oriented Effects

The fear of being seen as imperfect may prompt you to hide parts of yourself from your spouse. Physically, yes, but I’m thinking mainly in terms of psychologically. This really then becomes a fear of intimacy: you can’t present a perfect version of yourself, so now you must conceal parts of yourself[v].

In so doing you create a barrier towards getting to know each other more deeply. But more importantly, you also miss out on the opportunity of disarming the perfectionism. If your spouse is a safe person, it is a profound experience to let someone see parts of you that you are ashamed about and to have them still accept and love and embrace you.

Also this touches your sex life. The belief that you have to be the perfect sexual partner (one expression of self-oriented perfectionism) is significantly related to marital distress and sexual dysfunction, particularly for men but also for wives[vi].

So this kind of perfectionism really can hold you back from experiencing deeper intimacy. And intimacy is the key to so much of marriage, from better sex to reigniting the passion.

Other-Oriented Effects

Requiring other people to be perfect leads to a variety of unhelpful interpersonal behaviors. That’s a nice way of saying that it can make you nasty. These behaviors can include authoritarian, exploitative and dominant actions towards other people, as well as the increased likeliness of blaming other people for problems rather than blaming yourself[vii].

What you’re likely to see is more conflict or more avoidance, and you’re likely to see wives taking on more self-blame or more likely to act out of self-interest than for the benefit of the marriage. And you’re likely to see husbands launching into conflict more readily.

As with self-oriented perfectionism, it’s going to impact your sex life too. As a wife if you have a high level of other-oriented perfectionism towards your husband the research shows that the higher that level of perfectionism, the lower your husband’s sexual satisfaction is likely to be and also the lower your own sexual satisfaction[viii].

The issue here is that other-oriented perfectionism creates very high expectations which make it harder to adjust to being happily married.

Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism

This is also linked to bad behavior. This kind of perfectionism is often linked to hostile and dominant behaviors as well as higher levels of blame and outwardly directed anger. It’s also linked to acting in an overly controlling way in intimate relationships and not letting your guard down[ix] . If you think everyone around you is expecting perfection from you it’s going to be hard to open up, even to your spouse.

As researchers studied 76 couples with regards to this kind of perfectionism, they found that it was strongly linked to lower marital satisfaction for both the self and the spouse. So this kind of perfectionism reduced happiness for both spouses in the marriage.

Socially prescribed perfectionism can lead to biases in how spouses behavior is interpreted, eg the perfectionist spouse may see simple requests like "Could you help tidy the living room?" as threats or attacks along the lines of "you are not doing enough to tidy the house”[x]

Couples (both men and women) with high levels of this trait showed more blaming, sarcasm and demands for change. If you think about it, we all tend to react with hostility when we feel perfectionistic standards are being imposed on us.

Husbands and wives both experienced reduced sexual satisfaction when they though their spouse required them to be perfect. And that’s a key point. It’s the expression of those beliefs that’s more impactful than actually having them.

Bottom line: perfectionism probably is not helping your marriage at all.

How to Deal with Perfectionism

We’ve seen so far that perfectionism comes in three flavors, none of which are particularly conducive to a healthy, trusting marriage. So what can you do about it?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one great option and has been shown to be highly effective[xi] . The goal with this kind of work is to increase self-compassion and change unhelpful beliefs. The exercise for today’s episode uses these principles.

Avoidance

One way to challenge yourself is around avoidance.

Believing that you have to do things perfectly can often cause you to avoid doing them altogether, thinking it’s better not to try and complete a specific task than to try, and end up failing[xii]. This pattern of behavior means that your beliefs about the negative consequences of being imperfect are never disproved. You’re always avoiding things for fear of doing them imperfectly, so you never get to see that doing them imperfectly actually doesn’t have as many bad consequences as you’re imagining.

So exposing yourself to situations where you perform imperfectly allows you to see that nothing bad comes of it, removing the belief that you have to be perfect. So: that went imperfectly and I’m still OK. Seeing that helps undermine the belief that I have to do it perfectly in order to be OK.

Communication and Conflict

But I’d like to help with communication and conflict as this is how it often becomes a struggle in marriage.

Now if you are perfectionistic your challenge is that being in that frame of mind makes it really hard to hear how you’re impacting yourself or your marriage. So I want to be gentle here. But the research does show that self-oriented perfectionism leads to depression because it creates conflict and interpersonal problems, both of which lead to isolation[xiii].

And other-oriented perfectionism is linked to low relationship quality for both the perfectionist and the non-perfectionist[xiv]. We saw earlier how socially-prescribed perfectionism is also an issue.

On the upside, you can not only choose to address the perfectionism, but you can also mitigate its effects by developing new communication and new conflict skills.

Let’s talk about this first for the non-perfectionist spouse and then for the perfectionist spouse.

For the non-perfectionist spouse

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Join us for a special episode of the Marriage Podcast for Smart People as we take an in-depth look at sex addiction: What it is, how how it differs from normal, healthy sex, how it can be caused and what the options are for treatment.

In our previous show, we talked about the neuroscience of romantic love. Today we’re going to address the behavioral side of things to help you rekindle the passion in your marriage.

Dating can be one of the most exciting times in any relationship: it’s when you’re constantly thinking about each other, finding out so much about each other and forming that deep connection. But what makes dating so awesome? How do men and women come at it differently? And how can a married couple make this come alive in their marriage again?

What Makes Dating & the Early Stages of Love so Enjoyable?

Last time we looked at our brains and how there are pleasure and reward systems built right into them. You’ll recall we talked about romantic love (which is out front during the courtship or dating phase of a relationship) and partner attachment (which is the steady, committed love of lasting marriages)

Romantic love is linked to systems in the brain which "reward" you with strong feelings of pleasure whenever you think about or spend time with your spouse[i]. This motivates you to want to spend time with your spouse or girl/boyfriend at the start of a relationship. Typically this phase of love lasts 12-18 months[ii], but can last an entire lifetime[iii]. We talked about extending that last time.

Self-expansion theory, developed by husband and wife researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron, speaks to this situation[iv]. In their view, romantic love is a period of rapid self-expansion by including the beloved in your sense of who you are.

During the very early stages of the relationship, you learn a lot about your beloved and get to grow as a person and experience new things by integrating aspects of your spouse into your own life. The rate at which you can do this declines after the initial period of the relationship: you start to run out of new things to learn about your spouse.

So dating is the most exciting phase of a relationship because you’re getting to grow as a person by getting to know your spouse, and this inevitably starts to taper off the longer a relationship lasts. The other side of the coin is the concept of habituation: the longer you do something/spend time with someone, the more you get used to it/them, and the less rewarding the time becomes[v]. Sniff.

Intimacy and sex then play into these early stages of love and then marriage. For those that are new to our podcast, we speak out of a Christian worldview and we practice and hold the value that extramarital sex is not only wrong, but it’s also unhelpful. On the ‘unhelpful’ point, we’ve noted before that the best sex is happening inside of marriage so we not only have moral reasons for asserting this value, but research-based evidence to support the benefits as well.

Back to our point. Let’s talk about how intimacy works. Remember that when we look at intimacy, we mean the whole enchilada, not just sex.

This is interesting. According to a study by Baumeister et al in 1999[vi], passion is a function of changes in intimacy.

So when intimacy is stable (either low or high), passion is low. But when intimacy is increasing, passion is high.

Intimacy is often increasing fastest at the start of the relationship, as you become more comfortable disclosing information about yourself and generally become closer. "As relationship partners gain an understanding of each other’s innermost thoughts and feelings, the rate of intimacy growth may taper off over time as they have less to learn about each other and the rate of engagement in novel relationship activities diminishes[vii]."

This intimacy growth during dating makes the start of a relationship a lot of fun. But sex comes into the equation once we get married too.

The frequency of sex (although not necessarily the quality of sex) is highest at the start of the relationship. In later years it becomes less frequent, and as the research, this points out this is often due to less interest, higher rates of dysfunction and difficulty, and major life events like having children[viii].

Sounds like a gloomy picture. But just stay with me. And let me say too, that having less sex is not necessarily a bad thing if you are both satisfied with the quality and quantity.

We’re going to look at how to get the excitement back into your marriage but first let’s just look at some gender differences. Just so we’re managing expectations.

Gender Differences in Romance and Dating

Men tend to fall in love more easily, and report higher scores on measures of romantic love than women in the early stages (first few months) of relationships[ix]. Later on, the scores balanced out. Men are also more likely to say "I love you" first in a relationship[x].

Men have more traditionally romantic beliefs: they are more likely to think that you fall in love at first sight and that love overcomes all boundaries like race, social class etc. That surprised me because  — pardon the stereotype — I thought women would be more prone to this from reading romance novels.

Men place a higher emphasis on sex in the early stages of relationships, but this was at least partly because they were "less aware of the emotional aspects of their relationship[xi]”. Very interesting. I would add (and here are my values coming through again) that this is another feather in the cap of waiting for sex until you’re married because it compels men to become more emotionally engaged to fill their intimacy needs.

Both men and women experience similarly high levels of passion at the start of the relationship, but this declines particularly strongly for women as the relationship goes on[xii].

What about our perceptions and our definitions of love? Perceptions of what love is were actually similar between men and women. Both placed importance on the value of companionate love, but men placed a higher value on passionate love[xiii].

So we have these dynamics going on and we are seeing some gender differences and some similarities. I don’t know how many we are socialized for vs. biologically programmed for, but there you have it.

How to Get the Excitement Back

Many of the things that make the start of a relationship so passionate and enjoyable can naturally decline as the relationship progresses, but they don't have to.

So we want to talk about several areas that you can work on in order to keep your marriage spicy or else bring back some heat. Again, we go deep on this in our bonus guide for the patrons of our show.

New Experiences

Such as joint leisure of professional activities, jointly supporting a cause, travels, etc. Gaining new experiences as a couple allows spouses to learn more about each other, increasing intimacy and self-expansion, both of which increase passion[xiv].

Doing novel and exciting things together also activates the same reward-pleasure systems in the brain as romantic love, so can boost romantic love by associating these feelings with the partner. It also counteracts the effects of habituation/boredom. So, shake it up a little. Try doing something you haven’t done before: together. It doesn’t especially matter what it is but aim for something that has elements of excitement and/or novelty.

Researchers have studied this. Aron et al[xv] surveyed couples for relationship satisfaction before and after completing an assault-course while tied together at the ankle. More exciting than your standard psychological test! Taking part in this exciting and novel activity increased reported relationship satisfaction compared to doing a more mundane physical activity.

Sex

Increasing the frequency of sex increases intimacy and passion[xvi]. It also activates the same brain areas as romantic love[xvii]. In a previous post, we looked at how emotional intimacy is the key to the best sex, but the link goes both ways. I was thinking Verlynda and I should set up a sex challenge for our readers, … after we try it first, of course.

Intimacy

If passion is caused by changes in intimacy[xviii] then increasing intimacy will increase passion. A study in 2011[xix] tested this on a day-to-day level by asking 67 couples to keep daily dairies and reports on intimacy. Daily changes in intimacy predicted relationship passion, sexual frequency and sexual satisfaction for both men and women.

Intimacy can be increased through self-disclosure and shared experiences. But it is also to do with how the partner responds when you self-disclose: responding with sympathy and making the partner feel validated increases intimacy and makes you more likely to want to self-disclose in the future[xx].

Share something with your spouse. Maybe there’s something from your childhood or youth that you haven’t shared yet. Something personal. Or just something you’ve been worried about that’s going on right now that maybe you need to bring your spouse in on.

Self Esteem

Higher rates of self-confidence and self-esteem are moderately linked to higher rates of romantic love in long-term relationships as they allow "an intense, exclusive focus on a partner but not possessiveness or jealousy". Being confident in yourself lets you feel love more strongly, without any element of fear or unworthiness.

This is also supported by the fact that romantic love in older couples does not have the obsessive or insecure components that can characterize love in younger couples[xxi]. Maybe choosing some self-esteem building activities or lifestyle changes would be helpful for you.

Motivation

This one is to do with your whole orientation when it comes to what motivates your actions. There are two motivation systems for behavior in relationships:

Approach: the desire for positive outcomes like fun, intimacy, and growth

Avoidance: desire to avoid negative outcomes like conflict.

Think about this in terms of your posture in your relationship. Are you all about chasing the good things or is your mindset focused on just avoiding the bad?...

Most couples do not wake up one day and decide the spark is gone. It fades quietly. You are still kind to each other. You still kiss goodbye. But somewhere along the way you notice you are living more like cooperative roommates than people who are actually in love. If you have wondered whether that shift is permanent, the neuroscience of love has something to say about it, and the answer is more hopeful than most of us have been led to believe.

The short version: your brain is not designed to make romantic love disappear. It is designed to let it evolve. Brain imaging studies of couples married for two decades or more show that romantic love can run alongside long-term attachment, activating the same pleasure and reward circuits that light up in newlyweds. The fade is common, but it is not inevitable. What makes the difference is specific, and we will walk through exactly what the research says, what it looks like clinically, and what you can actually do with it.

How Love Works in Your Brain (The Three Systems)

Romantic love is not a single emotion. It is three distinct brain systems working together, each with its own neurochemistry and its own role. Research by Helen Fisher, Arthur Aron, and Lucy Brown identified them clearly: sex drive, courtship attraction (also called romantic love), and partner attachment[i].

Sex drive motivates you to pursue sexual connection generally. Romantic love narrows that energy toward one specific person and makes you want to be with them above anyone else. Partner attachment is what keeps you bonded once that choice is made. Each system draws on different brain circuits and different neurotransmitters, and you need all three for a marriage that is passionate, committed, and stable over time.

If you have only heard the "fireworks fade and companionship takes over" story, that framing misses something important. Romantic love does not have to hand off the baton to attachment and exit the stage. The more useful picture is three layered systems, each capable of running in the background at the same time.

It is worth naming a second framework here, because it complements the neuroscience well. Psychologist Robert Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love describes three components: intimacy (emotional closeness), passion (arousal and longing), and commitment (the decision to stay). Different combinations produce different forms of love, and what Sternberg calls consummate love, the rare combination of all three, lines up cleanly with what Fisher's neuroscience describes. Enduring, passionate, committed love is not a myth. It is an observed pattern in a minority of couples, and the research tells us why some make it and others do not.

The Neuroscience of Romantic Love

Romantic love is one of the most potent brain states a human being can experience. A 2005 study by Arthur Aron used fMRI scans to watch what happens in the brains of people who had been "intensely in love" for 1 to 17 months while they looked at a photo of their partner[ii].

The activation pattern was striking. Romantic love lights up the dopamine reward system, the same circuit tied to pleasure, focused attention, motivation, and the drive to pursue something rewarding. This is why early love feels like more than a feeling. It is also a drive, pulling you toward your partner with a very specific focus. Dopamine is also what gives early love its euphoric, almost narcotic quality.

Norepinephrine plays a supporting role. Elevated norepinephrine produces the alertness, racing heart, blushing, and trembling that come with new love, along with the tendency to remember every detail about the person you are falling for[iii].

Then there is the serotonin twist. During the early stage of romantic love, levels of the serotonin transporter 5-HT mirror the pattern seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder, which helps explain why new love so often tips into obsession. You cannot stop thinking about them. Small details feel enormous. Research by Donatella Marazziti found that 5-HT levels return to normal between 12 and 18 months in[iv]. This is one of the reasons "intensely in love" is a time-limited brain state, and it is why the shift some couples describe as "we lost that spark" often maps onto a real neurochemical transition.

None of this means romantic love disappears at the 18-month mark. It means the obsessive, destabilizing intensity fades. What can remain, if you build it, is the pleasure-and-reward activation that makes looking at your spouse still feel good.

What Partner Attachment Actually Is (And Why It Matters)

If romantic love is the fire, partner attachment is the lava. It is slower, deeper, and more sustainable.

Elaine Hatfield and colleagues defined companionate love, the felt experience of attachment, as "a feeling of happy togetherness with someone whose life has become deeply entwined with yours"[v]. Neurologically, attachment recruits a different set of circuits. Oxytocin is the key player. It is released through touch, eye contact, shared laughter, physical closeness, and sex. It deepens the felt sense of belonging to each other.

A follow-up fMRI study of couples who had been in love for an average of 28 months showed brain activity in the same reward and motivation areas seen in new love, but with added activation in systems involving oxytocin, which is linked to stronger and more stable couple bonds[vi]. Attachment shows up in the brain as calm belonging, not as a fire.

Here is why this matters clinically. Partner attachment is what keeps a marriage intact when life gets harder. It is what you feel when your spouse walks into the room after a long day and your body relaxes without you consciously choosing it. It is also why a breakup after decades of marriage is so disorienting. You are not just losing a person. You are losing a neurological co-regulation system your brain has been using for years.

What we have seen in our practice is couples panicking when the initial romantic intensity starts to fade, interpreting the shift as evidence that they chose wrong or that love is dying. Most of the time, they are just moving into attachment. The work at that stage is not to grieve the fire. It is to keep the fire going while letting the deeper bond form underneath it. Both are possible at once, and that reframe changes what people do with the second decade of their marriage.

Does Romantic Love Have to Fade? What the Research Says

The perception that romantic love inevitably dwindles is nearly universal. Nisa, a !Kung woman from the Kalahari, described it this way: "When two people are first together, their hearts are on fire and their passion is very great. After a while, the fire cools and that is how it stays. They continue to love each other, but it is in a different way, warm and dependable"[vii]. That is the expected trajectory, and a meta-analysis by James Graham confirmed that passionate, obsessive love does tend to decrease as relationship length increases[viii].

"Tend to" is not "always." In 2012, Bianca Acevedo and colleagues published fMRI research on couples who had been married an average of 21 years and who still reported feeling intensely in love with their spouse[ix]. Their brains responded to pictures of their partners with the same dopamine reward activation seen in newlyweds. The pleasure circuit was still firing.

The difference was in the surrounding activity. Newlyweds' brains showed activation in regions associated with mania, obsession, and anxiety. The long-married couples did not. Their romantic love activation came with higher activity in brain regions linked to calmness and to secure attachment[x]. In other words, they were experiencing romantic love without the panic, the hypervigilance, or the sleeplessness of early love. They had the pleasure without the chaos.

High activation of both systems was associated with higher sexual frequency, stronger friendship-based love, and a greater tendency to include the spouse in one's own sense of self. That last finding matters. The couples who maintained romantic love over decades were not protecting a separate identity from their marriage. They were letting the marriage become part of who they were.

This is the part we want you to hear: the research does not say long-term romantic love is rare because it is biologically impossible. It is rare because most couples stop doing the things that sustain it. Which leads directly to the practical question.

What You Can Actually Do With This

If the romantic love brain state can be sustained, what sustains it? The neuroscience and the clinical pattern converge on a few specific answers. None of them are exotic. All of them are things we see couples who beat the statistics doing consistently.

Prioritize novelty together. The dopamine reward system responds to newness. Couples who keep taking on new experiences together, whether that is travel, a new hobby, a physical challenge, or a shared project, keep feeding the same brain circuit that fueled the early months of the relationship. Routine is not the enemy of marriage, but routine without any novelty is the quiet enemy of passionate love.

Keep touching each other. Not just sexually. Oxytocin release is driven by everyday physical contact: hand-holding, hugs that last longer than three seconds, a hand on the small of the back, sitting close on the couch. Couples who let touch disappear are cutting off one of the strongest biochemical supports of long-term bonding.

Actually date your spouse. Scheduled, intentional time that is not about logistics or kids or money. This is the practice the article's title points to and it is not a cliche. The couples who stay in love treat the marriage as something that requires tending, not something that sustains itself because vows were exchanged.

Protect sexual frequency. The Acevedo findings are clear: enduring romantic love correlates with higher sexual

Fear is a frightening thing. In marriage, it is usually an invisible force. Like the winds of a storm: invisible itself but threatening and destructive. However, fear is always extinguished by the steady flame of committed love.

I think we all carry some fear in our hearts, at some level. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more confidence you see in a person, the more likely they have fear issues. So this episode may be particularly relevant to those of us who feel that we really don’t need to hear it. I may just burst your bubble gently. Often confidence is a protective coping stance against the insecurity and fear that deeply troubles us. And nowhere are you more vulnerable to the effects of these fears than in your most intimate relationship: your marriage.

Fears About Me or Fears About You?

Most of us carry one or two kinds of fear. Either we have some level of fear that is really about ourselves: fear of rejection or fear of abandonment or fear of not being good enough, or fear of being unworthy of love and affection. These point at concerns within me and about me.

The other kind is fear about our spouse or significant people in our lives: fears of intimacy (afraid of letting people get too close to you) or fear of dependency (afraid to trust or afraid to count on other people). These are also fears that we carry within ourselves, but they are different from the previous in that they are indicative of our models of others.

So we all carry these models of self and models of others. Those are basic, nearly instinctive ways of relating to the humans around us based either on how we see ourselves or how we see other people. On the ‘other people’ part it’s about: are others reliable, are they trustworthy, can I depend on them. On the ‘self’ side it’s about am I worthy, am I lovable.

These are very deep but often when folks talk about them they use very simple language. For example, for me, I struggle most with the part of myself that asks the question: “if you saw me for who I am, would you still accept me?” The language is simple but the impact of that question touches the way I present myself in every social context of my life.

Another person may just say “I cannot trust others” or “people are just going to let me down”. Again: simple language, but this touches all of their social contexts and all their relationships too. We’ve looked before at issues of trust and why people may be unable to trust their spouse, and this attachment issue is often at the heart of it.

These deep fear constructs are indicators of our attachment style. Our attachment style is the way that we have learned to relate to the significant others in our life. Primarily our spouse, but it also impacts our children, our closest friends, and then to a lesser degree, our social network as well.

About half of the people are securely attached. That means they are secure in both themselves and their spouse: they believe themselves to be worthy of love and believe they can count on their spouse to love them and be there for them when they are needed.

The rest fall into three categories but we’re going to focus mainly on what we call avoidant attachment.

Those with avoidant attachment are insecure about the intentions of their spouse and they prefer to keep emotional distance in order to keep themselves safe. Often this comes across as coolness or distance or can even be interpreted as rejection. Usually, where one spouse is avoidant in their attachment style you’re going to see lower levels of intimacy[i]. If you aren’t sure your spouse is going to respond well to you, better to keep the really deep emotional stuff to yourself. See how this attachment style is about your view of yourself?

There’s also anxious-ambivalent attachment style which is more now about your view of your spouse — whether your spouse is actually like that or not. In this case, because of your view of others, you are not sure how your spouse will respond to you. You probably feel a strong desire for intimacy but fear rejection — if you struggle with low self-esteem and the negative self-image you may discover that this anxious-ambivalent is your attachment style.

On the other side, those with secure attachment know that their spouses are not perfect but they are confident that their spouse is available and there to support them in times of need. They understand that their spouse is not only accessible and available but will generally respond appropriately. Consequently, people with secure attachment are very comfortable with both closeness and doing things apart from each other.

Fear and Relationship Satisfaction

Now, if you’re both securely attached, your marriage is likely to be more stable, warm and satisfying and likely to exhibit higher levels of self-disclosure, trust, positive conflict solving skills and social support[ii].

Avoidant relationships (that’s fear about your spouse) tend to be more distant and filled with worry about the security of the bond between you. So you can see fretting over the connection, although that may look more like nagging or jealousy or just kind of being needy.

There may also be greater control or suppression of your own emotions — because you’re not sure, you don’t want yourself to be fully seen. There may be reduced frequency and intensity of positive emotions because you cannot allow yourself to fully enjoy your spouse in order to protect you from the disappointment that you expect will come. There are also more frequent and more intense negative emotions usually[iii]. So your fears relating to your spouse and your attachment to them affects not only your relationship but even the emotions you feel day to day.

The reason why this attachment issue is important is that attachment style is a stronger and more accurate predictor of relationship quality than personality[iv]. So when I am doing marriage counselling I am not working on making personalities get along; I’m just working on shifting attachment in the relationship. It’s a far more successful approach because it’s addressing the core ability of the couple to create and maintain an enjoyable, secure bond between them.

By this point, you’re probably like “oh boy I have some work to do. My attachment style is getting in the way of creating the kind of marriage I want”.

The second thing I suggest is that you consider marriage counselling with me because I can help you create that deep, secure enjoyable bond in your marriage that you’ve really been looking for. If you’d like to learn more about marriage counseling just head over to Therapevo and click the counseling link at the top of the page.

Now I want to focus in on three areas of marriage: communication, perceptions, and conflict. How does fear impact these?

Fear and Communication

Just a brief point here from a study in 1994[v] which looked at 261 married couples and, not surprisingly, found that secure attachment was predictive of relationship satisfaction. What was noted with regards to communication was very important: the link between attachment and relationship satisfaction was largely mediated by communication style, especially for women.

This means that how you communicate is very influential. Think about it this way. Attachment styles are deeply embedded in our psyche. They can shift and heal, which is great. But that’s turning the freighter around: give yourself time and space and compassion to do so.

What can help you continue to grow your marriage as you make that deeper shift is communication. In a simpler way, you can compensate for the attachment challenges by really just working on those communication skills. And anybody can learn those. So just take that as encouragement because I know this deeper stuff can be challenging, especially as we address a couple more complications shortly.

Fear and Perceptions

Because highly anxious people have a strong fear of being abandoned or rejected they show "hypervigilance" towards any perceived threats to their relationship. This means they tend to notice far more things which could be perceived as a threat, and show a bias towards interpreting their spouses' actions negatively. As such even minor issues are seen as a threat to the entire relationship[vi]. You’re constantly on the looking for warnings signs and primed to interpret anything and everything as a threat to your relationship. So you’re bound to end up finding these threats and reasons to get worried, whether they’re really there or not.

For those of you with anxiously attached spouses, this may help you to understand how things appear to get blown out of proportion quickly — in your mind.

But put yourself in the shoes of your spouse who was raised in a family where security and safety and accessibility to a comforting parent were very unpredictable and that, I hope, will start to give you some compassion.

What makes this even more challenging is that the anxious spouse will crave comfort and support from you. However, because they carry the insecurity internally, they tend to be unhappy with the amount of support available from significant others[vii] and can perceive attempts at support as having hurtful intent. Anxious individuals also believe that their own attempts to support and comfort their spouses' are less effective.

Now you start to see how fear can really impact your perception about your marriage, at so many different levels.

What I like to do here, for anxious spouses, is to ask them to consider if their fearful part is doing the interpreting or if their wise part is. Or, maybe put another way, are you seeing your spouse through the lens of fear or seeing your spouse through a lens that is wisely choosing to trust and to hold onto yourself at the same time?

Fear and Conflict

Note the gender differences here. As you can imagine, fearful relationships cause women to react to conflict with more stress,...

This one should be fun to look at as Verlynda and I personally sit on opposite sides of the field on this issue! But, as it turns out, there may even be some hope for folks like us!

It’s a classic scenario: you’ve got a free evening and one of you wants to go and hang out with friends and the other would rather curl up on the couch and watch Netflix. Or one of you is having the time of their life at a party and the other is secretly gritting their teeth through the entire thing.

When you have a marriage where one of you is introverted and one of you is extroverted it can seem like you’re on opposite wavelengths when it comes to how you spend your time, where your energy comes from, and how you make decisions and talk about important issues. If this is you, you may well be wondering if your differences along this dimension are going to impact your marriage.

Can Introverts and Extroverts Get Along?

I’m happy to say: yes! We can.

What I loved about the research on this episode is that it confirms what we suspected but it also has some very useful insights both for those who marry similar personality types AND those who marry other personality types.

A 2007 study[i] showed that similarity in the big 5 personality traits— those are the 5 traits researchers have identified as being the most fundamental part of our personalities, of which introversion/extroversion is one— predicted higher relationship quality. However, emotional similarity, which means experiencing and expressing similar emotions, was a strong mediating variable in this link.

So even if couples differ in personality, for example one is introverted and one is extroverted, they can still function well as a couple by being similar on an emotional level. This emotional similarity helps partners react to events in similar ways and feel understood by their spouse. That emotional connection is a deeper and more important predictor of happiness than similarity on a personality level.

So are introvert-extrovert marriages common? Generally, folks do not choose spouses with similar personality types. If you look at the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator (in which introversion-extroversion is one of the four dimensions), it is most common for couples to share two of the four parts and differ on the other two[ii]. We’ve looked before at whether opposites attract, and while it’s not a simple yes or no answer, there’s certainly plenty of evidence that very different people can have thriving, passionate marriage.

A small study based around that idea showed that differences in personality types were not linked to marital difficulty, and being opposites on introversion/extroversion specifically, did not predict any specific problems in marriage. Another study[iii] supported this finding — differences along the introversion/extroversion scale don’t negatively impact marriage quality in any noticeable way.

So it does look like introverts and extroverts can get along just fine. However, there was one interesting caveat. Moffit & Eisen[iv] found that levels of neuroticism and emotional instability for wives — but not husbands — were significantly linked to the degree to which the couple was apart on an introversion/extroversion scale.

So having one spouse who is highly introverted and one who is highly extroverted could lead to emotional instability for the wife. The mediating factor in this effect is thought to be communication: highly divergent couples showed lower rates of intimate communication and agreement, which may be the cause of the emotional strain the wives were experiencing.

Again: even if there is a big difference, it’s not a death blow to the marriage. Rather, it just requires that you step up your communication game.

What Makes for A Happy Introvert-Extrovert Marriage?

So here’s an interesting study[v] of 365 couples who reported they had happy marriages. They looked at the common characteristics of marriages where one spouse was extroverted and the other introverted, and then marriages where they were the same.

Characteristics of households where the one spouse was extroverted and the other was introverted, included:

A close, intimate relationship with each other and family members

Separate friends

Conflict solved through negotiation as and when the issue arises

Fewer common leisure activities

Moderate levels of expression of love

Joint decision making, but the extroverted spouse was responsible for economic management

And here are the characteristics of households where couples were similar on introversion/extroversion:

A close, intimate relationship with each other and family members

Joint friends

Same conflict resolution style as above

Many shared leisure activities

Frequent expressions of love

Shared all decision making and money management

So there were a couple of differences between similar and divergent couples: the introvert/extrovert couples had fewer shared activities, less expression of love, and some separate responsibilities, particularly money management.

Now that might seem like a bad thing — and maybe it’s something for these couples to work on — but remember that these were all couples who described their marriages as happy. So how they handled these issues was clearly working for them. And if you have a way of making it work for you, then that’s great, whether or not it looks like what we’ve described here.

While we’re on this topic, let me give you some tips for success in marriages where you’re paired introvert/extrovert[vi]:

Accept and appreciate your differences. "Although these differences provide fertile ground for increased conflicts, they also provide balance and potential for growth". You can choose how you see those differences: something to appreciate as variety? Or be dissatisfied with?

Understand your own, and your spouse’s personality, and factors which affect it. Some people's levels of introversion/extroversion are influenced by their energy levels or the specific situation they are in. These aren’t fixed traits that apply universally, so learning to see how they are nuanced for you individually can help you navigate them.

Commit to personally develop and grow. Couples who are different along this dimension can learn a lot from each other. Introverts can aim to expand their social world and gain new experiences from the outside world, while extroverts can "find themselves building a richer inner world".

"Understand the importance of give and take". In terms of socializing, time together, decision making etc. You’re going to have different preferences and ways of handling certain situations, and you’ll need to accommodate both.

Combine and play to your strengths: if one of you is better at dealing with certain social situations, or if one of you is more thoughtful and takes longer to reach a decision on something, then acknowledge and utilize those strengths in your marriage.

Introversion/Extroversion Changes Over Time

We often see personality as fixed — especially in others and especially when we are frustrated with them. But these traits can change over time. A study from 2006[vii]: studied 1,130 participants over 8 years and found that increases in extroversion increased relationship satisfaction.

To me, that seems to show that the introvert is learning to be more social. However, as an introvert myself, I don’t want to imply that there’s something wrong with introversion and that extroversion is the gold standard. Mind you, I adore my extroverted wife (you are the gold standard for me :-p) but you get my point, right?

It’s also interesting to note a phenomenon called personality convergence: spouses generally become more similar in terms of personality over time[viii]. Becoming more similar in personality traits such as extroversion/introversion increases relationship satisfaction while becoming less similar led to "steep drops in marital satisfaction".

So if major differences in extroversion/introversion are affecting your marriage, those traits can change. Again: let’s not get into a fight over who should change, but let’s help each other grow! So we need to think about these things in a healthy way.

Social Support

Of course, since the whole extrovert/introvert thing relates mostly to how we interact in social situations we have to consider this in light of the marriage too.

It’s a well-established fact that social and emotional support is one of the most important factors in a happy marriage[ix].

Look at this: extroverts offer more social support and perceive themselves as having more support than introverts[x]. The same study also found a positive correlation between extroversion and stress. Perceived availability of support, particularly feelings of belonging, mediate the relationship between extroversion and stress.

So perhaps for introverts married to extroverts, it is important to make them aware you are there for support, in order to buffer your spouse against stress. This might not come as naturally to you as it does to your extroverted spouse, but sometimes you need to remind them that they do belong, that they are appreciated, and that they matter not just to you but to a host of people. I think this is necessary because extroverts are more likely to draw energy from their social network.

Conflict Style

Finally, we should mention differences in conflict style between the two.

In a study in 1998[xi], 461 participants were measured for personality types and conflict style. They found that:

Extroversion is correlated with the integrating style of conflict

Extroversion is negatively correlated with avoidant conflict style

Extroversion is positively correlated with a "dominating" conflict style

So extroversion is linked to an integrative/collaborative conflict style and makes you less likely to avoid conflict. Which is good....

Now menopause isn’t something that I’m likely to experience but it is something that half of you are going to go through, or have gone through, and the other half will observe. And since it’s going to impact your marriage, we might as well be smart people and make sure we’re prepared for it!

Menopause can be a tricky time for marriages. Wives have to come to terms with changes in their body while dealing with all the hot flushes and night sweats life can throw at them. And husbands can often feel like they’re walking on eggshells trying to support their wives through unpredictable mood changes and other unpleasant side-effects.

The research shows that menopause can impact marriage in some surprising ways, but the overall picture is more nuanced, and overall more positive, than the simple perception that menopause = BAD.

Menopause and Marital Satisfaction

A survey of 326 midlife women[i] showed a significant negative correlation between marital satisfaction and menopause symptoms: as symptoms went up, satisfaction went down.

They also noted a correlation between menopause symptoms and feelings of anger and depression. As symptoms went up, anger and depressive symptoms increased too. However, they did note that married women reported fewer feelings of depression than non-married, suggesting that marriage guards against these feelings of depression. That fits with other research we’ve covered that shows that good marriages offer resilience against the challenges of life.

But the quality of your marriage is key: so if you’re listening today and not yet menopausal, this is another reason to work on your marriage! Check out what these researchers said: "Women in dissatisfying marriages, characterized by less social support, less depth, and higher conflict, reported increased stress and more menopausal symptomatology (symptoms such as sleep disturbance and vasomotor or blood circulation problems) than did women in satisfying marriages.[ii]”

So this is fascinating because now your marriage is impacting your menopausal symptoms. A supportive, stress-free marriage reduces the strain of menopause and makes the symptoms less severe and easier to deal with.

But menopause also affects one’s sex life.

Menopause and Sex Life Satisfaction

Menopause produces changes in a woman’s body, which may also decrease the enjoyment of sex: issues such as reduced libido, difficult orgasming and dryness in the vagina[iii]. However, these do not necessarily have to lower sexual satisfaction or the quality of your sex life. This merely becomes another life transition that couples go through and can learn to successfully navigate.

Follow me here.

A study by Deeks & McCabe in 2001[iv] interviewed 304 women aged 35-65. Menopause predicted higher rates of sexual dysfunction (inability to orgasm, reduced desire etc), but sexual satisfaction and frequency were better predicted by age than by menopause status.

Meaning that yes, complications came in, but it didn’t necessarily derail sexual satisfaction and enjoyment — for some it was getting better as they got older.

To understand this, we have to look at how couples going through this phase of life are facing the potential challenges of menopause. A study in 2003[v] interviewed 30 women about their sex lives post-menopause and found that "few women focused on menopausal changes when they discussed their sex lives".

Issues like relationship quality, communication and willingness to change sexual activities were more important. Many women with lower sexual satisfaction after menopause stated that this was due to their husband's reaction- for example complaining about their wives’ vaginal dryness or getting frustrated when the woman doesn't want to have sex because it is painful.

"These accounts suggest that some women continue to enjoy their active sex lives regardless of menopausal changes because they communicate openly with their partners and change the ways they have sex.[vi]" Focusing on activities other than intercourse, recognizing that it can take longer to orgasm, and using a lubricant to compensate for dryness are all strategies that post-menopausal couples used to still enjoy sex.

So we come back to the communication issue. You can either take these changes and take them personally or you can choose to face them with maturity and compassion and explore your way through this new phase of life. Menopause doesn’t have to spell the death of your sex life — it might create a couple of practical hurdles but these can certainly be overcome in the context of an open and supportive marriage.

One other thing to keep in mind is that our wives are also facing a change in perception of attractiveness as they age. Research from 2005[vii] found that women's perception of their own attractiveness decreased with age (although it was not directly linked to menopausal status), and lower self-rated attractiveness predicted lower sexual satisfaction and less sexual activity. Higher perceived attractiveness was linked to increased sexual desire, higher rates of orgasm and greater frequency of sex.

We went in-depth on how your body image impacts sexual functioning in episode 88 — we don’t need to rehash that here — but the important point is that you are the determinant of your body image and that plays a key role in this part of life, too.

Menopause and Wellbeing

The other thing to keep in mind is that wellbeing also plays a role in menopause, and by extension, your marriage as well.

Rates of depression are high among midlife women. High levels of menopause symptoms can lead to decreased mental wellbeing and lower perceived quality of life[viii].

However, higher depression rates are not always due to biological changes from menopause but are most often predicted by having multiple roles and causes of worry such as holding a full-time job while looking after adolescent children, aging parents or physically ailing husbands.[ix] Managing different responsibilities or being sandwiched between caring for toddlers and aging parents can definitely create a strenuous stage of life, and this stress can often be more of an issue than anything relating to the menopause.

This is important because we can make menopause the whipping boy of these issues and fail to recognize the number of challenges that we can have on our plates at a time of life like this. I think when that happens we lose the ability to show healthy compassion for all that we do carry through this phase of life.

Fortunately, there are things we can do. As an example, Elavsky & McAuley[x] found that physical activities such as yoga and walking reduce the severity of menopausal symptoms and improved mood and psychological wellbeing.

Another study showed that remaining physically active can reduce the perceived severity of menopause symptoms and help retain good physical health[xi]. So we can respond well and choose self-care and choose to find ways to show compassion and care for ourselves in this part of life.

Stress is also a significant issue during menopause. And menopause increases the cardiovascular response to stress. And, menopausal symptoms are exacerbated by life stresses (including marriage stress, amidst others). Then menopause makes the stress worse. And now you have a cycle.

However: in the midst of this, marriage can also be a buffer against stress. Here’s a quote from some researchers:[xii] "supportive relationships in which couples demonstrated care and concern, affection, helpfulness, and sensitivity toward one another appeared to provide a buffer against emotional distress for each other.”

Menopause and Marriage

Overall: yes, there are biological consequences. There can be sexual difficulties that arise[xiii], as well as depressive feelings[xiv] and increased reactivity to stressful events[xv]. But relationship factors have a strong influence on all these variables. So create a thriving, passionate marriage — and know you can lean on that in times of change.

It’s just so important that we create a strong marriage so that we do have that in place for this time of life. Listen to this quote: "The less satisfying the marriage, the less perceived social support, and depth and more perceived conflict in the relationship, and the more distress related to self, husband, and family, the more menopausal symptomatology reported.[xvi]” So instead of worrying about how menopause may affect your marriage, take hold of the ways your marriage can improve your experience of menopause.

Maybe you’re going through menopause right now, or maybe it’s a long way off. Either way, I hope this is an encouragement to you to create that marriage that is thriving and resilient and strong, and that acts as a buffer against challenges such as menopause.

References:

[i] Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, Megan Foley Nicpon, and Susan E. Maresh, ‘Mood, Marriage and Menopause.’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48.1 (2001), 77–84 .

[ii] Katherine Vaughn Fielder and Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, ‘Marriage, Stress and Menopause: Midlife Challenges and Joys’, Psicologia, 19.1–2 (2005), 87–106.

[iii] Julie A. Winterich, ‘Sex, Menopause, and Culture: Sexual Orientation and the Meaning of Menopause for Women’s Sex Lives’, Gender and Society, 17.4 (2003), 627–42.

[iv] Amanda A. Deeks and Marita P. McCabe, ‘Sexual Function and the Menopausal Woman: The Importance of Age and Partner’s Sexual Functioning’, The Journal of Sex Research, 38.3 (2001), 219–25.

[v] Winterich.

[vi] Winterich.

[vii] Patricia Barthalow Koch and others, ‘“Feeling Frumpy”: The Relationships between Body Image and Sexual Response Changes in Midlife Women’, The Journal of Sex Research, 42.3 (2005), 215–23.

[viii] Steriani Elavsky and Edward McAuley, ‘Physical Activity, Symptoms, Esteem, and Life Satisfaction during Menopause’, Maturitas, 52.3–4 (2005),...

Suggesting that it is possible to porn-proof your marriage may appear to be preposterous. Porn is so prevalent in our culture that it may be simply impossible to prevent yourself from seeing and coming into contact with pornography. However, what if you could build a marriage relationship and a shared worldview where pornography was not even attractive?

To begin with I want to clarify what we’re proposing, and who this is for.

You cannot walk through a mall, drive on a major highway, watch TV or use the Internet without being exposed to pornographic images. By ‘pornographic images’ I mean images capable of provoking sexual attraction, thoughts or fantasies. Such images are nearly impossible to avoid on a daily basis. That’s a sad but true commentary on our society's sexualization of women in particular.

So when I talk about porn-proofing your marriage, I’m not necessarily talking about living a life where you don’t ever come into contact with these images: that would be pretty much impossible. Which is sad. But what I’m aiming at is creating a marriage and a shared worldview where pornography holds no traction (there’s no grip) and no attraction (there’s no real desire to pursue it).

I also want to point out who this post is for and not for.

Who it is for: If you’re currently in the grip of pornography addiction, I hope you will find this useful. If pornography is not a factor in your marriage and you want to keep it that way: this is for both of you. If one or both of you are recovered pornography addicts then I believe this will be helpful as well.

Who it is not for: If your spouse is in the grip of pornography addiction and you want to single-handedly shape your marriage in order to out-compete or even just eradicate pornography than you’re probably coming at this the wrong way. This post is not really for you until you fall into the previous category.

You see, it’s not your job to manage your spouse’s recovery.

Your job is to both confront and refrain from enabling, and I think you should even go so far as to refuse to take responsibility for your spouse’s recovery. It’s the addict’s job to own all aspects of his or her recovery, not yours. We do have a previous post on steps you can take when you’ve just discovered your husband’s porn addiction, so that may be helpful for people in this situation.

Having said that, it’s not fair for you to choose movies with pornographic scenes while also holding the conviction that pornography is wrong, and expecting your previously- or currently-addicted spouse not to be triggered by this. I mean, if you’re comfortable with some pornography, then you should be comfortable with your spouse viewing some pornography too, right?

Finally, we should mention for those who are new to our website and podcast that Verlynda and I speak from a born-again Christian worldview. It is our belief that pornography does not have anything to add to your marriage because the Bible and even secular research both support the notion that the best sex is happening inside marriage. We could go a lot further explaining our beliefs and the theological underpinnings but I think that is an adequate summary for now.

Pornography and Marriage Quality

Let me cite some research relevant to pornography and marriage quality. Stack et al[i] noted that high marriage quality was linked to lower porn use. Another researcher[ii] also observed that satisfaction with real-life sex is not linked to rates of porn use (i.e., porn use is not compensating for lower satisfaction with sex, and increasing porn use is not equal to increasing sexual satisfaction). In fact, Poulsen et al[iii] showed that high levels of porn use lead to lower sexual satisfaction for both men and women.

A Barna Group study called the Porn Phenomenon also reported a number of other potential impacts of pornography, including:

A dramatic reduction in a spouse’s capacity to love their wife and children

Difficulty achieving orgasm with your spouse

Increased likelihood of having multiple sexual partners in both paid sex and extramarital sex

Wives’ reporting their husbands’ sexual advances as conveying a message of objectification as opposed to a meaningful interaction

Increase in sexless marriages

We could go on and on.

The point is that porn is not helping marriages — I really, truly believe that pornography has nothing to offer and nothing to add to creating a healthy, vibrant, enjoyable marriage — including sexual intimacy within that marriage.

Porn-Proofing Your Marriage

This is a multi-faceted issue so we’re going to touch on this at different levels, from behavioral all the way to examine our worldview.

Behavioral Safeguards

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this. But I want to mention it because curiosity is a powerful thing. You can see something sexual that piques your interest and then it becomes a rabbit trail into pornography until you get lost in that world.

So I think there is value in doing whatever we can to protect ourselves even from accidental exposure to pornography. You might not be able to totally shield yourself from sexually provocative images, but you can certainly remove some of the temptation and make it harder for yourself to engage with overtly pornographic material, especially online.

It’s for that reason that our family uses a device called Circle, and we have Covenant Eyes accountability for adults and accountability and filtering for our kids, and we use Google Safe Search all the time. To be candid, we probably need more.

Social Circles that Resist Pornography

Now let’s look at how your friends and social circle can protect against porn use. Social control theory states that people may want to engage in deviant behavior (such as porn use) but their social bonds provide motivation not to[iv].

For example, things like bonds to society, to a particular religious or political view, or to the family may prevent a person from doing something that their society of family would deem unacceptable. You might want to look at porn but thinking about how your family or friends would react may influence your decision one way or the other.

A study from 2004[v] analyzed 531 surveys of internet users and found that three particular kinds of social bonds were related to cyberporn use:

Church attendance negatively predicted cyberporn use

Being happily married reduced likelihood of cyberporn use by 61%

Political liberalism increased odds of porn use

I just thought it was really interesting to look at this. It challenges us to step back and examine our most influential social circles. Who do you choose to put in your circle?

Think about this in terms of your marriage: you want to have a circle of friends that you move among who uphold the sanctity of marriage. You may have Christian friends but have an unacknowledged contract between you that it’s OK to watch inappropriate movies, or maybe there’s the odd porn or sex joke that just communicates the idea — we all do it, what’s the big deal? Having this element of permissiveness in our social circles increased our vulnerability to pornography.

Religiosity and Pornography

This one is more interesting. Let me start with a poignant quote: "while religiosity is consistently negatively associated with an acceptance of pornography, these same attitudes do not always translate to a lack of use.[vi]"

People from Christian backgrounds often have negative attitudes to porn use but actual usage levels don't always reflect this. For example, a study by Nelson et al in 2010[vii] interviewed 192 Christian men aged 18-27 and found that 100% of them thought porn use was unacceptable, but that 45% of them had still used porn at some point in the last 12 months.

This was lower than porn use rates in the general population for a similar age group (87%) but still shows that beliefs and actions don't always tie together.

So just calling yourself a Christian, or even having closely held beliefs, doesn’t necessarily porn-proof your marriage.

However, there are some specific characteristics noted by Nelson et al.[viii] that were found to be linked to not using porn in Christian men: (keep in mind as we list these that this is from a research perspective, not a preaching-at-you perspective)

Higher levels of current and past involvement in religious practices (prayer, scripture reading, attending church etc).

Regularly connecting with God and other Christians in this way was thought to serve as a reminder that porn use was unacceptable. "Even if an individual is taught that pornography is unacceptable, religious beliefs may not be enough to prevent pornography use without the regular, maybe even daily, participation in activities (praying, reading scriptures) that reinforce those religious beliefs."

A stronger sense of identity and self-worth, particularly relating to family, dating, and faith. Having a stronger sense of who you are and what’s important to you strengthens you against the temptations of porn.

Stronger relationships with the family, particularly a stronger relationship with your mother, and higher involvement in religious activities as a family.

Lower levels of depression. For this one it’s unclear which direction the effect is: it could be that those who used porn felt guilty about it, leading to depression, or could be that depression causes weaker impulse control or the need to use porn to raise your mood. In either case, porn use is closely linked to depression, so if either of them affects you it’s important to seek help.

So a strong personal belief, supported by regular practice and a close family, can guard you against porn where simply having a faith does not. But there’s a flip side. There are also some risk factors associated with religiosity that can increase risk of porn use and addiction.

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