A new study says weight doesn't hurt a marriage—so long as you weigh less than your husband.
It's no secret that a walk down the aisle most often brings about a weight gain of about six to nine pounds. But what's been a secret or a misinformed public opinion is that your weight gain is a key factor in determining marriage satisfaction. Actually, marital satisfaction is better determined by a wife's weight gain relative to her husband's.
University of Tennessee psychologist Andrea Maltzer's team tracked 165 couples over a four-year timespan. The couples completed questionnaires every six months to determine their level of satisfaction. Findings? Husbands that were satisfied at the time of marriage remained so over time, to the extent that their wives maintained lower BMIs than their own, researchers reported.
A "baker's dozen" tips from happily married people for making your marriage last.
This guest article from Psych Central was written by Marie Hartwell-Walker, ED.D.
The statistics can seem daunting. The U.S. divorce rate, although in some decline for the last few years, is still close to 50 percent. That brings Americans second only to Sweden for the highest divorce rate in the world! That’s certainly a dubious honor.
The bad news is that 50% of all marriages fail. The good news is that 50% of marriages succeed. There are many things you can do to create a happy marriage if you're willing to learn.
What do you do when your fiancé isn't as smart as you? Cathi and Dan give advice.
For the best advice on sex, love, dating and relationships we ask two experts with personal experience. Cathi Hanauer is the author, most recently, of Sweet Ruin, a novel about love, marriage, and adultery. Daniel Jones is the editor of both the "Modern Love" column for The New York Times, and Modern Love, an anthology derived from the column. They've been married for 15 years, and together they provide a his and hers take on relationship questions. This round: intelligence inequality. Question: I'm in a terrible quandary. I'm 32 and ready to settle down, and I've been dating my boyfriend for three years. The good news is the sex is great, he treats me like gold—and we went ring shopping a few weeks ago. But the bad news is that I fear we're not compatible intellectually. We don't read the same books, and don't share any of the same cultural reference points. Everyone keeps telling me that it's OK—even preferable—to have different interests from your spouse. But what if we end up with nothing to say to each other in five years? I don't want to marry the wrong man just to get married. –Gold Medalist
