Who is the ultimate example of how to stay in love and cultivate a healthy marriage for a lifetime? Those who have actually done it! Karam and Katari Chand just celebrated their 87th wedding anniversary, making them Britain’s oldest married couple. The two have been through a lot together and still claim they are deeply in love. They shared their insights on how to stay in love with an interviewer from British dating website Zoosk. Here are a few gems of wisdom from the couple: Continue reading ‘How to stay in love: secrets from Britain’s longest married couples’
Monthly Archive for November, 2012
Communication problems in relationships are no new thing. Every couple has difficulty discussing highly emotional topics. And every one of us has bad communication habits such as using “you” statements or “but”, defensiveness, arguing, and nagging. At the same time, according to a new study from the University of Missouri, your spouse’s difficulty talking about his or others feelings could be a clinical condition.
Alexithymia is a newly recognized personality trait that refers to an inability to describe, understand and communicate emotions. Individuals with the condition also have difficulty associating their feelings with the physical signs of emotional arousal, i.e. sweaty palms for excitement or heat flush for anger. Continue reading ‘Communication problems in relationships may signal this disorder’
Abstinence and pro-marriage education claims that loose sexual relationship early in life will negatively impact later relationships. Aside from the moral or religious issue of early sex, is this true? And if it is, then why? Whether inside or outside marriage, previous studies have shown those who have sex at younger ages tend to have more extra-marital pregnancies, as well as earlier marriages with more divorces. Psychologist Dr. Paige Harden of the University of Texas at Austin used data from the Child and Adolescent Longitudinal Study to compare age of first sex with how their romantic relationships worked out later in life. Continue reading ‘Does abstinence or delayed first sex benefit relationships?’
Funny wedding quotes are great for spicing up wedding toasts, speeches, vows or cards. In addition to making us laugh, they can point out the importance of marriage skills such as communication and balancing individual desires with your spouse’s needs. Watch out for “funny” wedding quotes that are mean spirited. Many quotes use humor to spread nasty beliefs about marriage, and when we repeat them we can reinforce the faulty logic behind them. If we keep referring to marriage as a ball-and-chain, our expectations will help make it so. Continue reading ‘Funny wedding quotes’
The history of marriage is as old as human civilization, and just as complicated. Marriage as we know and debate it today is vastly different from marriages throughout history, involving different agreements and different purposes.
1. Tribal alliances
Early tribal communities in northern Europe and elsewhere had fewer power imbalances among their members than later societies. While there were leaders, warriors, priests, and other distinctions, the tribes were relatively egalitarian-that is, before land ownership and agriculture allowed some members to accumulate more wealth than others. In those days, marriages were either by choice within the tribe, or between tribes as a way of affirming friendly alliances, says Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. “You established peaceful relationships, trading relationships, mutual obligations with others by marrying them,” she writes.
But this all changed with the differentiation of wealth. Continue reading ‘A brief history of marriage’
For thousands of years marriage has implied monogamy. In fact, marriage developed because monogamy was crucial to confirm paternity and establish lineage rights. In all but a few polygamous or polyandrous societies, non monogamy is not tolerated and often punished harshly. But how does the idea of sexual faithfulness to one person play into modern and/or non-traditional and non-religious marriages?
Non monogamy is, by definition, not being romantically exclusive to one partner. It may also be referred to as an open relationship. Non monogamy includes all sorts of arrangements from allowing kissing, flirting or non-sexual dating, to one night stands, to full-blown outside relationships, to polyandry (a relationship between more than two partners). Non-monogamy groups claim their arrangement makes everyone happier, reflects more realistic expectations about marriage, and can prevent divorce. Pro-monogamy groups argue that relaxed standards of fidelity are exactly what are causing divorce and only lead to broken hearts. Both sides have statistics and studies to back their cases. Continue reading ‘The question of non monogamy’
