Page 32 - MidWeek - Nov 3, 2021

32 MIDWEEK NOVEMBER 3, 2021
I’m a 43-year-old woman in my second marriage with a man who’s also on his second marriage. We are both determined to make this marriage our last! We have a scheduled date night. We make sure sex happens week- ly. I’d like to know whether there are other things we can do to keep from walking down the aisle a third time. –Hopeful
THE SCIENCE ADVICE GODDESS Amy Alkon How To Stay Happily Hitched
uncritically) accepted among researchers: “On average, married people report higher well-being than singles.” And sure, there are studies that con- clude this. However, social psychologist Bella DePaulo points out rather glaring flaws in some of the research making this claim. For example, she observes that even respected developmental psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington couldn’t see her faulty reasoning in concluding: “Happily married couples are healthier, happier, wealthier and sexier than are singles.” The problem? She’s comparing a subset of married people with all single people. Yes, shockingly, happily mar- ried people are happier than clinically depressed single people.
In fact, people who are un- happily single — who feel “distress” about being single — tend to be those who’d pre-
In some marriages, some- body could lose consciousness and it wouldn’t be all that no- ticeable.
She suggests you bring oth- er people into your marriage — though not like they did in the ’70s at those suburban parties with all the couples dropping their keys into a bowl. She’s talking about friendships with people be- yond your spouse, and ideally, not just one or two others but a whole group.
Because it seems “the more” really is the (maritally) merri- er, you and your husband could also host regular dinner parties, cocktail hours, brunches and/or game nights.
Date nights are good for keeping the marital jets fir- ing, as is having sex weekly, but regular dates and sextiv- ities don’t change how being married is like subscribing to Netflick. (No, my copy edi- tor isn’t day-drinking; I mean “flick.”) Netflick would have only one movie, and you and your partner would be forced to watch it every night of your life together ... until you both shrivel up and die of boredom or start dialing jackals with law licenses (aka divorce lawyers).
As for how you two could put this into practice, you might start by making some date nights double-date nights. This might seem like a bad idea — a date-night romance- and intimacy-killer. However, Coontz describes a date-night experiment in which research- ers “assigned some couples to spend time by themselves and have deeply personal conver- sations,” while others were set up with a couple they’d never
However, it’s also important that you each maintain indi- vidual interests, activities and friendships. Ironically, regular- ly spending less time together should help you avoid going your separate ways. It’s great if your relationship starts to remind you of an iconic one in a classic movie, but not if the movie is Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks and a volleyball he draws a face on so he won’t be all alone on a desert island.
viously been married (and es- pecially those newly divorced or widowed), notes Coontz.
met “and told to initiate simi- lar conversations.” Afterward, all of the couples “reported greater satisfaction with their relationship,” but only those who’d been on the double date reported feeling more “roman- tic passion” for each other!
What can help is making your married life more like single people’s lives — uh, in ways that don’t remodel your vows into something more along the lines of suggestions. In a New York Times op-ed, so- cial historian Stephanie Coontz explains, “Single people gener- ally have wider social networks than married couples, who tend to withdraw into their couple- dom.” Though marriage “can provide a bounty of emotional, practical and financial support ... finding the right mate is no substitute for having friends and other interests.”
Disappointingly, Coontz trots out a view widely (and
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