The Science of a Happy Marriage

By Nature, men & women aren’t made for each other. How to outsmart our DNA & live happily ever after.

Can a married couple be too close for their own good? Can intimacy lead a couple to break up? New brain science shows us that it can. If couples have not mastered the changing stages of marriage, break-up is possible & often predictable because the human brain dictates a series of natural responses during the life of a relationship. How we handle those stages can make or break a marriage.

For 20 years I have been studying how women’s & men’s brains affect marriage, from the first blush of romance all the way through to lifelong partnership. Understanding the behavioral differences involved can be the key to making love last a lifetime.

Stage 1: Romance

When two lovers come together, their brains begin to “fall in love.” The couple’s pheromones – chemical signals that work through our senses – are very high, so when they smell each other or look into each other’s eyes, their separate male & female minds become like one. High levels of oxytocin, a bonding hormone, may hide irritating behaviors from each other. But “lovers’ bliss” ultimately ends, & a new biological stage of the relationship begins.

Stage 2: Disillusionment

After a few months or even a year, our hormones & brain chemistry begin to change, & our “thinking” brain – the cerebral cortex – may notice that our partner is flawed. We feel anger towards each other, irritation, even fear at times. If we married our partner during the Romance stage, we might, in Stage 2, begin to have second thoughts. Perhaps the wife starts wondering. What could he be thinking? as he lies on the couch watching TV instead of doting on her. She feels rejected, especially since he no longer tells her what he’s feeling when he feels it. He can’t understand why she’s become critical of him about little things. They’ve been together a few years; they may have a child by now. What else could she want? He feels he’s doing something wrong, but can’t figure out how to fix it. The brain chemicals that took over during the early stages of courtship & romance have dissipated, as if a rug was pulled out from under love. How easy it is to think there’s now something wrong with ourselves or our partner. How easy to say, “He/she is not the person I married.” But this confusing place is a normal stage, a chemical letdown in both their brains. It’s also a necessary next step in helping two very different brain systems come together for life.

Stage 3: Power Struggle

Two people who experience Disillusionment will usually initiate Power Struggle. They will counter the invisible chemical letdown by trying to change each other back to who they were – or thought they were – in the Romance stage. A man & a woman who are in love & struggling in this way will have the added difficulty (& ammunition) of being neutrally different” – for the male & female brains think, act, behave & even love quite uniquely. This is a painful time. But couples who are locked in Power Struggle don’t realize their brain differences can actually be the key to long-term marriage. After Romance ebbs, the man may want more independent activities, the woman more contact with friends. While this tendency has a foundation in learned behaviors & gender roles, hormones such as testosterone & oestrogen support these differences. What’s the impact of this on marriage? Well, one of the main reasons we pick at each other mercilessly during the Power Struggle stage is our differing attitudes towards marital independence. Not surprisingly, first marriages that end in divorce last an average of seven to eight years – the very time we are trying to “change” the other person. Yet nature does not allow us to turn back the chemical & neural clock. Nature keeps moving forwards in the life cycle. A new stage of marital love awaits when the couple can finally discover each other, both as lovers & as men & women. It will require one or both to awaken to something that has been hiding beneath the surface.

Stage 4: Awakening

What many couples don’t understand is that before drifting apart, there is an earlier step that goes unnoticed, In Romance, Disillusionment & Power Struggle, the man & woman become too close, erasing one another’s individuality. A man might see his wife’s emotionality, need to communicate, desire for sensual romance, even attitude towards housework as a waste of time. She might see her husband’s habits, hobbies, preoccupation with work & need for independence as dangerous or selfish. In stage 4, the couple awakens to the realization that they’ve been too close to each other in unhealthy ways & must now psychologically separate. This separation does not mean divorce – it means understanding. In this new stage, the thinking brain overrides emotional responses that could cause conflict & a feeling of grief over their lost romance. A man might step back & say nothing when he sees his wife doing something that irritates – he just mentally steps around it. A woman might supportively say, “I get what that’s about now,” when he does something equally irritating to her. Ultimately man realize that women are right: A relationship is the most likely doomed if there isn’t enough togetherness. But men are right, too: It is most likely in serious trouble if there is not enough independence.

When we are too far away from each other, that amazing love we knew at the beginning will die. Yet when we are so close that one person will not allow the other to be himself or herself, the marriage can’t survive. Understanding the strengths of male & female chemistry is the key to success.

Stage 5: Long-Term Marriage

The balance between the prototypical male & female ways of relating is a balanced state of love I call Intimate Separateness. The Power Struggle of Stage 3 dissipates, & strategies of mature love that nurture both intimacy & separateness take over. Couples live together, raise children, love & are loved, but not because they’ve become the same as each other – in fact, because they’ve learned to be happily different.

To Foster Intimacy

• A happy couple in a happy marriage develops bonding rituals, like date nights, family dinners, talking on the phone or e-mailing when one of them is traveling. These rituals become the pillars that hold up to the marriage. Every moment of the relationship does not have to be intimate – the husband & wife know that the bonding rituals will sustain the power of love when life gets busy & stressful.
• They practise kindness & politeness with each other in at least 95 per cent of their interactions. There is perhaps no one who deserves better treatment than one’s spouse, but when we’re locked in Power Struggle, we think our partner should be our constant object of stress ventilation. The frontal lobes are really doing their mature job when we realise how a good marriage depends on kindness.
• They resolve arguments rather than letting things faster. Sure, they get angry & argue, but they make sure they apologise for meanness, & solve their conflicts. When needed, they get help from friends, extended family or professionals.

To Protect Separateness

• They appreciate each other’s eccentricities & differences, especially as woman & man. Perhaps he hogs the remote control when they watch TV. Instead of reacting, she chuckles. Or perhaps she wants to talk about her feelings with him; he understands how important this is to her as a woman & takes the time to listen.
• They develop different sets of friends, generally female for her & male for him, & encourage each other in these friends. Over the years they may find that even while their spouse is their best friend, they are still getting much of their emotional needs met through others.
• They allow each other different marital domains. If a project, a hobby or sport, a way of socializing is very important to one, the other helps promote that. This way, each partner has a personal place, a time, an activity that brings meaning & power. There’s tremendous value in knowing that your feelings towards one another are likely to change over time & that change is normal. Your brain chemistry plays a role, & there’s no point in fighting it. Instead, let biology guide you towards understanding & natural, long-term love. After all, human beings are creature of nature, & nature is very wise indeed.

MATTERS OF THE HEART

Ruminations on love & relationships:

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

-Mother Teresa

Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.

-Oscar Wilde

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

-Mark Twain

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.

-Lao-Tzu

Make love not war. –Anonymous

Tell me who admires you & loves you, & I will tell you who you are.

-Charles Augustin Sainte-Beauve

Sometimes I wonder if men & women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door & just visit now & then. –Katharine Hepburn

We are all born for love. It is the principle for existence, & its only end.

-Benjamin Disraeli

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it’s what you are expected to give – which is everything. –Anonymous

Adapted from the Reader Digest, By Michael Gurian