March 18, 2022 • 22 mins
With divorce rates around 50 percent these days, is there any point to tying the knot? Dr. Saltz reveals the very real mental and physical benefits of marriage—and tells how to address an upcoming bride’s cold feet.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I help? I'm doctor
Gale Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. I hear from many
people who feel like they're struggling with their marriage and
wonder is it worth staying married? Would I be happier
if we threw in the towel? Are we really meant
to be married as people? And actually is marriage on
(00:50):
the wane in general? So today I'm answering a question
about the value of marriage. Marriage originated as an institution
of business. The original conceit was to have a method
of perpetuating wealth and of making sure that the wealth
(01:11):
was passed on to your actual genetic progeny. This didn't
have much to do with love, although it is worth
noting than in many partnerships of marriage back then, plenty
of partners did road love each other. Even in arranged marriages.
Many partners came to love each other and feel happy
(01:34):
in their marriages. But in more recent history, marriage has
become about partnership and love. In that evolution, the rates
of divorce have actually gone up as the expectation for
the marriage is to be happy together and one has
(01:54):
the choice to end a marriage. Today, about a little
less than half of all marriages end in divorce, and
actually that number has been stable for the past decade. Personally,
I believe many marriages end because the two people involved
(02:15):
do not really know what they are opting out of
and because they have let too much water go untreated
under the bridge. By the time they think about whether
to split up, and I have arrived in a terrible
place in the relationship, one that would take a lot
of work to come back from. Marriages do need tending
(02:38):
and caring, and they do have ups and downs. In addition,
your partner cannot make you happy, only you can help
you to be happier. Marriage does have many benefits, though
married people live longer and healthier lives. The power of
(03:01):
marriage is especially notable in late middle age. Nine out
of ten married men who are alive at forty eight
will make it to age sixty five, compared with just
six out of ten single men, and this was controlled
for race, and for education and for income. For women,
(03:22):
the protective benefits of marriage are also present, but they're
not quite as large as they are for men. Nine
out of ten women alive at age forty eight will
live on to be senior citizens, compared with just eight
out of ten divorced and single women. Having heart disease
reduces a man's life expectancy by just under six years,
(03:46):
while being unmarried takes almost ten years off a man's life.
This is not just the effect of selection, because even
controlling for one's initial health, sick people or married live
longer than their unmarried counterparts. Having a spouse, for example,
(04:06):
lowers a cancer patient's risk of dying from the disease
as much as being in an age category ten years younger.
A recent study of outcomes for surgical patients found that
just being married lower to patient's risk of dying in
the hospital. For perhaps more obvious reasons. The risk a
(04:27):
hospital patient will be discharged to a nursing home was
two and a half times greater if the patient was unmarried.
Scientists who have studied of unifunctioning in the lab have
found that happily married couples had a better functioning immune systems.
Divorce people even years after the divorce, show much lower
(04:50):
levels of immune function. This probably has to do with
stress and its impact on immune function. Overall, the data
show that staying married is good for your health. It's
also good overall for your mental health. Married men and
(05:10):
women are less depressed, less anxious, and less psychologically distressed
than single, divorced, or widowed people. By contrast, getting divorced
lowers both men's and women's mental health, increasing depression, anger,
and lowering on self esteem. Of married people, compared with
(05:35):
about a quarter of singles or cohabitors, say they are
very happy with life in general. Married people are also
only about half as likely as singles or cohabitors to
say they are unhappy with their lives. Divorced adults say
they are very happy, and divorced adults are twice as
(05:57):
likely as married people to say they are not too
happy with life in general. So you can see statistically
that there is something about being married that does seem
to lend to people feeling happier. Overall, only a very
small number of adults who divorce go on to make
marriages that are happier than the one that they left.
(06:21):
You may also be surprised to know that marriage is
still a financially productive institution. Getting married can increase a
man's salary by as much as a college education does.
Married men make as much as more money than comparable
single men, even after you control for education and job history,
(06:47):
and the longer a man stays married, the more money
compared to non married he's making. Again, women do get
the shorter end of the stick. While women's earnings you
benefit from marriage, they do decline when motherhood enters the picture.
Childless white women who are married get a marriage wage
(07:12):
premium of four, and black women who are childless earned
ten more compared to single women. So there is an effect,
just not as great as it is for men. Married
people not only make more money, they actually, it seems,
manage money better and build more wealth together than either
(07:35):
would alone. So at identical income levels, for example, married
people are less likely to report economic hardship or trouble
paying their basic bills, and the longer you stay married,
the more assets you build. By contrast, the length of
time that people live together has no relationship if they're
(07:58):
unmarried to wealth accumulation, and when you're on the verge
of retirement. The average married couple has accumulated assets worth
about four hundred thousand dollars, compared with a hundred and
sixty seven thousand for the never married and a hundred
fifty four thousand for the divorce Because in divorce generally,
(08:22):
each person has to give up about six of their
household income, so health, wealth, and personal happiness are given
a leg up with marriage generally speaking. And after the
short break, we'll get to my listeners really wonderful question
that really asks about the value of marriage. Let's turn
(08:54):
to my listeners question and ask how can I help,
dear doctor Saults. I have a twenty eight year old
secretary that is going to be married in three months,
and she has voicing concerns and demonstrating anxiety over the
fear that she may be divorced in the next four
years based on what she is reading on the internet.
(09:19):
I am sixty four years old and have been married
for the past thirty eight years, and I am in
a wonderful relationship with my wife. So I was taken
by surprise when she was talking this way. So I
went on the internet to search to try to understand
her concerns. No matter how I tried to search for
(09:41):
positive reasons for successful marriages, the majority of articles were
on divorce rates, Why marriage benefits the man but is
harmful for the woman, That marriage is a failed social institution,
Why monogamy is detrimental to a marriage, and how open
marriages help with communication in the primary relationship, et cetera.
(10:04):
How on earth does a couple navigate through all this?
And every time I thought I found something positive, the
article was filled with all the red flags of a
doomed relationship. Dr Gail, do you have advice to help
couples grow in their marriages? With all this destructive information
(10:24):
on the web. My wife and I were platonic friends
for years before we started dating. We had fostered a
respect for each other's worth and value as a human
being on this earth. I guess you could say we
were feminists in the sense that we treated each other
as equals, never at war over the X or Y chromosome.
(10:48):
Because of this respect, we could talk about anything in
our personal lives because of the trust we built. When
we decided that maybe we could date, we discover that
we didn't show respect for each other. We felt respect
for each other. It was in this feeling of respect
for each other that created a very tight bond of trust.
(11:12):
Because we always felt respect for ourselves and now that
same feeling was intertwined between us. This allowed for communication
to just flow. We didn't have to work at it.
We found that we seldom fought because we could discuss
problems and perceptions, knowing that the resolution would never lead
(11:33):
to a winner and a loser. The one with the
most expertise in situation could take the lead so that
we wouldn't let our emotions cause us to bounce off
the walls just to end up at the same starting point.
We learned to work the problem with what we had
available from what I just read on the internet. Not
(11:54):
arguing is a big red flag for a relationship, and
yet here we are years later, still in love and
respecting each other. I think the biggest difference with our
marriage is that we didn't follow the formula of the
need to always communicate, which would lead to trust and respect.
We learned that having value in ourselves first, then valuing
(12:18):
the other with the same respect allowed for a deeper trust,
allowing for truly meaningful communication. I tried to convey this
to two of my psychology professors in the nineteen seventies,
but they pretty much dismissed me, saying communication was the
most important. They are both now divorced, so I guess
(12:40):
they didn't communicate enough with their spouses. It's interesting that
this type of marriage we are in helped prepare us
for cancer, dementia, taking care of our parents, dealing with
their deaths, raising a well adjusted daughter without damaging our bond.
(13:00):
We never even scheduled sex on our calendar. We were
too busy planning games that would fuel our desire for
each other. Even now, with libidos being affected with menopause
medications occasional erectile dysfunction, we still come up with games
because it doesn't matter if the fantasy goes as planned
(13:21):
or fails miserably. It's the desire that counts in our relationship.
James Barry wrote that God gave us memories so we
could have roses in December. We have spent our lives
together gathering our roses. This is why I don't know
what to say to my secretary. The value, the dignity
(13:44):
of being a human being is so precious, and we
are on this earth for such a short period of
time that I don't understand why we don't teach love
and respect to our young, but we sure post destructive
messages on the web. Any direction you can give for
young couples to navigate the internet for personal growth ideas
(14:06):
would be so productive for them. Well, that was quite
a question I got, and I have to say that
I think he has incredibly valuable lessons for all of
us in here about what communication really means, what respect is,
(14:26):
and how he built and I think how others often
do build really wonderful marriages. So first of all, I
would like to say, it is amazing and dear that
you have such a wonderful life mentoring a relationship with
this person who works for you, And clearly she is
(14:48):
discussing her fears with you as a role model of
a happy marriage, and I can see why. Also, you
are correct that there is a lot of frightening stuff
on the web about marriage, but just as there is
a lot of frightening stuff about just about anything, Hopefully
(15:09):
reading these things is not what is driving her anxiety.
And in fact, I think it's plain to say that
if you believe everything you read on the web, you
would be anxious about an awful lot of things. But
that's kind of where I'd like to start. Is there
something bothering her about this relationship that she's so noting
(15:32):
what she's reading on the web that's negative? Or is
it that any relationship for her, not just this relationship,
or anything about the institution of marriage, seems frightening to her.
As a wedding approaches, it is not unusual to get
some cold feet. It is a major commitment, so it's
(15:56):
important to start asking yourself, and you do ask yourself,
are you sure? And part of that can degenerate into
a focus on any problems the two of you have,
and every relationship does have some problems, and it also
causes you to focus on any problems the institution seems
(16:19):
to you to have, And of course it's not a
perfect institution. So the question might be better to turn
back to her. You will have troubles, tell her because
more couples struggle with some issues. But the real question
is does life with this person feel much better to
(16:41):
travel than life without them? Are you willing to put
in the work to compromise and have differences and struggle
to keep your marriage whole? Is this the person you
see traveling the road of life with whatever they may bring.
(17:01):
Stats about how many marriages fail and monogamy is dead
aren't really helpful because you aren't a stat The reality
is actually that married couples are far more likely to
be monogamous and not cheat than couples who live or
cohabitate together. Surely, you and your wife are fortunate to
(17:26):
have found each other and done what it takes to
value and respect each other through the years, and for
that you have clearly gained much. But importantly, as you
pointed out, you felt that way about yourselves and then
you felt that way about each other. First, perhaps advising
(17:47):
her to look more in her own mind, unless at
the internet, in thinking about what she wants from marriage
from herself and from her partner, as well as what
is she is willing to give. You might also tell
her that having some premarital counseling since she is questioning things,
(18:08):
can really help calm the anxieties about these what if
something bad happens feelings. Because you talked through many of
these issues quite concretely, and talking them through with a
counsel as you see the path of how this can
work in the long term, I don't think your wonderful
(18:29):
marriage is only a function of your age and the
time in which you grew up and married, and the
lack of the Internet. I see many couples just as
happy as you are, and they are younger. The key
to your answer was already answered by you when you
said positive growth. There are many bad stories or Internet
(18:52):
stories a person can choose to focus on if lacking
the confidence that comes with really knowing yourself first and
really knowing your partner, of trusting yourself because you know,
and having confidence in your ability to work things through
looking to those things that do make marriage work growing
(19:16):
mutual trust and respect, support, compromise. Yes, a lot of
communication and while you say, hey, I tried to tell
people that we didn't need to communicate all the time clearly,
whether it was verbally or not, you do a lot
of communicating and honesty. These are the building blocks of
(19:39):
great marriages. In addition, marriage is something you share with
another person, not a solution to your own mood and
state of being, which is why figuring out your own mind,
your own strengths and weaknesses, your own wants and needs
is important before you enter marriage. Then assessing all those
(20:03):
things for the partnership as a whole. I hope that
was helpful. In addition to the benefits of marriage to
the two people involved, there are many benefits to their children.
Children of divorce are more likely to slip into poverty,
become victims of child abuse, fail at school, and drop out,
(20:27):
use legal drugs, have early sexual activity, become unwed teen mothers, divorce,
die by suicide, and experience other signs of mental illness,
becoming physically ill, and even the commission of crimes. And
there are also benefits to your sex life. Married people
(20:49):
are more likely to have a sex type. Single men
are twenty times more likely and single women ten times
more likely not to have had sex even once in
the past year than those who are married. Married people
are also the most likely to report a highly satisfying
sex life. Wives, for example, are almost twice as likely
(21:13):
as divorced and never married women to have a sex
life that exists and is extremely satisfying emotionally. Of husbands
say sex with their partner is extremely physically satisfying, compared
with thirty of men who live with their partners. Can
(21:34):
women be very happy outside of marriage, of course, they
can are their circumstances where divorce is really the better path,
for example, where abuses involved. Absolutely, But in many, many
cases it is worth knowing the many benefits that marriage
can bring and trying to maintain it. Do you have
(21:59):
a problem I can have up with? If so, email
me yet? How can I help? At Seneca women dot Com,
all centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday too. How
can I help with me? Doctor Gail's Salts
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I help? I'm doctor
Gale Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. I hear from many
people who feel like they're struggling with their marriage and
wonder is it worth staying married? Would I be happier
if we threw in the towel? Are we really meant
to be married as people? And actually is marriage on
(00:50):
the wane in general? So today I'm answering a question
about the value of marriage. Marriage originated as an institution
of business. The original conceit was to have a method
of perpetuating wealth and of making sure that the wealth
(01:11):
was passed on to your actual genetic progeny. This didn't
have much to do with love, although it is worth
noting than in many partnerships of marriage back then, plenty
of partners did road love each other. Even in arranged marriages.
Many partners came to love each other and feel happy
(01:34):
in their marriages. But in more recent history, marriage has
become about partnership and love. In that evolution, the rates
of divorce have actually gone up as the expectation for
the marriage is to be happy together and one has
(01:54):
the choice to end a marriage. Today, about a little
less than half of all marriages end in divorce, and
actually that number has been stable for the past decade. Personally,
I believe many marriages end because the two people involved
(02:15):
do not really know what they are opting out of
and because they have let too much water go untreated
under the bridge. By the time they think about whether
to split up, and I have arrived in a terrible
place in the relationship, one that would take a lot
of work to come back from. Marriages do need tending
(02:38):
and caring, and they do have ups and downs. In addition,
your partner cannot make you happy, only you can help
you to be happier. Marriage does have many benefits, though
married people live longer and healthier lives. The power of
(03:01):
marriage is especially notable in late middle age. Nine out
of ten married men who are alive at forty eight
will make it to age sixty five, compared with just
six out of ten single men, and this was controlled
for race, and for education and for income. For women,
(03:22):
the protective benefits of marriage are also present, but they're
not quite as large as they are for men. Nine
out of ten women alive at age forty eight will
live on to be senior citizens, compared with just eight
out of ten divorced and single women. Having heart disease
reduces a man's life expectancy by just under six years,
(03:46):
while being unmarried takes almost ten years off a man's life.
This is not just the effect of selection, because even
controlling for one's initial health, sick people or married live
longer than their unmarried counterparts. Having a spouse, for example,
(04:06):
lowers a cancer patient's risk of dying from the disease
as much as being in an age category ten years younger.
A recent study of outcomes for surgical patients found that
just being married lower to patient's risk of dying in
the hospital. For perhaps more obvious reasons. The risk a
(04:27):
hospital patient will be discharged to a nursing home was
two and a half times greater if the patient was unmarried.
Scientists who have studied of unifunctioning in the lab have
found that happily married couples had a better functioning immune systems.
Divorce people even years after the divorce, show much lower
(04:50):
levels of immune function. This probably has to do with
stress and its impact on immune function. Overall, the data
show that staying married is good for your health. It's
also good overall for your mental health. Married men and
(05:10):
women are less depressed, less anxious, and less psychologically distressed
than single, divorced, or widowed people. By contrast, getting divorced
lowers both men's and women's mental health, increasing depression, anger,
and lowering on self esteem. Of married people, compared with
(05:35):
about a quarter of singles or cohabitors, say they are
very happy with life in general. Married people are also
only about half as likely as singles or cohabitors to
say they are unhappy with their lives. Divorced adults say
they are very happy, and divorced adults are twice as
(05:57):
likely as married people to say they are not too
happy with life in general. So you can see statistically
that there is something about being married that does seem
to lend to people feeling happier. Overall, only a very
small number of adults who divorce go on to make
marriages that are happier than the one that they left.
(06:21):
You may also be surprised to know that marriage is
still a financially productive institution. Getting married can increase a
man's salary by as much as a college education does.
Married men make as much as more money than comparable
single men, even after you control for education and job history,
(06:47):
and the longer a man stays married, the more money
compared to non married he's making. Again, women do get
the shorter end of the stick. While women's earnings you
benefit from marriage, they do decline when motherhood enters the picture.
Childless white women who are married get a marriage wage
(07:12):
premium of four, and black women who are childless earned
ten more compared to single women. So there is an effect,
just not as great as it is for men. Married
people not only make more money, they actually, it seems,
manage money better and build more wealth together than either
(07:35):
would alone. So at identical income levels, for example, married
people are less likely to report economic hardship or trouble
paying their basic bills, and the longer you stay married,
the more assets you build. By contrast, the length of
time that people live together has no relationship if they're
(07:58):
unmarried to wealth accumulation, and when you're on the verge
of retirement. The average married couple has accumulated assets worth
about four hundred thousand dollars, compared with a hundred and
sixty seven thousand for the never married and a hundred
fifty four thousand for the divorce Because in divorce generally,
(08:22):
each person has to give up about six of their
household income, so health, wealth, and personal happiness are given
a leg up with marriage generally speaking. And after the
short break, we'll get to my listeners really wonderful question
that really asks about the value of marriage. Let's turn
(08:54):
to my listeners question and ask how can I help,
dear doctor Saults. I have a twenty eight year old
secretary that is going to be married in three months,
and she has voicing concerns and demonstrating anxiety over the
fear that she may be divorced in the next four
years based on what she is reading on the internet.
(09:19):
I am sixty four years old and have been married
for the past thirty eight years, and I am in
a wonderful relationship with my wife. So I was taken
by surprise when she was talking this way. So I
went on the internet to search to try to understand
her concerns. No matter how I tried to search for
(09:41):
positive reasons for successful marriages, the majority of articles were
on divorce rates, Why marriage benefits the man but is
harmful for the woman, That marriage is a failed social institution,
Why monogamy is detrimental to a marriage, and how open
marriages help with communication in the primary relationship, et cetera.
(10:04):
How on earth does a couple navigate through all this?
And every time I thought I found something positive, the
article was filled with all the red flags of a
doomed relationship. Dr Gail, do you have advice to help
couples grow in their marriages? With all this destructive information
(10:24):
on the web. My wife and I were platonic friends
for years before we started dating. We had fostered a
respect for each other's worth and value as a human
being on this earth. I guess you could say we
were feminists in the sense that we treated each other
as equals, never at war over the X or Y chromosome.
(10:48):
Because of this respect, we could talk about anything in
our personal lives because of the trust we built. When
we decided that maybe we could date, we discover that
we didn't show respect for each other. We felt respect
for each other. It was in this feeling of respect
for each other that created a very tight bond of trust.
(11:12):
Because we always felt respect for ourselves and now that
same feeling was intertwined between us. This allowed for communication
to just flow. We didn't have to work at it.
We found that we seldom fought because we could discuss
problems and perceptions, knowing that the resolution would never lead
(11:33):
to a winner and a loser. The one with the
most expertise in situation could take the lead so that
we wouldn't let our emotions cause us to bounce off
the walls just to end up at the same starting point.
We learned to work the problem with what we had
available from what I just read on the internet. Not
(11:54):
arguing is a big red flag for a relationship, and
yet here we are years later, still in love and
respecting each other. I think the biggest difference with our
marriage is that we didn't follow the formula of the
need to always communicate, which would lead to trust and respect.
We learned that having value in ourselves first, then valuing
(12:18):
the other with the same respect allowed for a deeper trust,
allowing for truly meaningful communication. I tried to convey this
to two of my psychology professors in the nineteen seventies,
but they pretty much dismissed me, saying communication was the
most important. They are both now divorced, so I guess
(12:40):
they didn't communicate enough with their spouses. It's interesting that
this type of marriage we are in helped prepare us
for cancer, dementia, taking care of our parents, dealing with
their deaths, raising a well adjusted daughter without damaging our bond.
(13:00):
We never even scheduled sex on our calendar. We were
too busy planning games that would fuel our desire for
each other. Even now, with libidos being affected with menopause
medications occasional erectile dysfunction, we still come up with games
because it doesn't matter if the fantasy goes as planned
(13:21):
or fails miserably. It's the desire that counts in our relationship.
James Barry wrote that God gave us memories so we
could have roses in December. We have spent our lives
together gathering our roses. This is why I don't know
what to say to my secretary. The value, the dignity
(13:44):
of being a human being is so precious, and we
are on this earth for such a short period of
time that I don't understand why we don't teach love
and respect to our young, but we sure post destructive
messages on the web. Any direction you can give for
young couples to navigate the internet for personal growth ideas
(14:06):
would be so productive for them. Well, that was quite
a question I got, and I have to say that
I think he has incredibly valuable lessons for all of
us in here about what communication really means, what respect is,
(14:26):
and how he built and I think how others often
do build really wonderful marriages. So first of all, I
would like to say, it is amazing and dear that
you have such a wonderful life mentoring a relationship with
this person who works for you, And clearly she is
(14:48):
discussing her fears with you as a role model of
a happy marriage, and I can see why. Also, you
are correct that there is a lot of frightening stuff
on the web about marriage, but just as there is
a lot of frightening stuff about just about anything, Hopefully
(15:09):
reading these things is not what is driving her anxiety.
And in fact, I think it's plain to say that
if you believe everything you read on the web, you
would be anxious about an awful lot of things. But
that's kind of where I'd like to start. Is there
something bothering her about this relationship that she's so noting
(15:32):
what she's reading on the web that's negative? Or is
it that any relationship for her, not just this relationship,
or anything about the institution of marriage, seems frightening to her.
As a wedding approaches, it is not unusual to get
some cold feet. It is a major commitment, so it's
(15:56):
important to start asking yourself, and you do ask yourself,
are you sure? And part of that can degenerate into
a focus on any problems the two of you have,
and every relationship does have some problems, and it also
causes you to focus on any problems the institution seems
(16:19):
to you to have, And of course it's not a
perfect institution. So the question might be better to turn
back to her. You will have troubles, tell her because
more couples struggle with some issues. But the real question
is does life with this person feel much better to
(16:41):
travel than life without them? Are you willing to put
in the work to compromise and have differences and struggle
to keep your marriage whole? Is this the person you
see traveling the road of life with whatever they may bring.
(17:01):
Stats about how many marriages fail and monogamy is dead
aren't really helpful because you aren't a stat The reality
is actually that married couples are far more likely to
be monogamous and not cheat than couples who live or
cohabitate together. Surely, you and your wife are fortunate to
(17:26):
have found each other and done what it takes to
value and respect each other through the years, and for
that you have clearly gained much. But importantly, as you
pointed out, you felt that way about yourselves and then
you felt that way about each other. First, perhaps advising
(17:47):
her to look more in her own mind, unless at
the internet, in thinking about what she wants from marriage
from herself and from her partner, as well as what
is she is willing to give. You might also tell
her that having some premarital counseling since she is questioning things,
(18:08):
can really help calm the anxieties about these what if
something bad happens feelings. Because you talked through many of
these issues quite concretely, and talking them through with a
counsel as you see the path of how this can
work in the long term, I don't think your wonderful
(18:29):
marriage is only a function of your age and the
time in which you grew up and married, and the
lack of the Internet. I see many couples just as
happy as you are, and they are younger. The key
to your answer was already answered by you when you
said positive growth. There are many bad stories or Internet
(18:52):
stories a person can choose to focus on if lacking
the confidence that comes with really knowing yourself first and
really knowing your partner, of trusting yourself because you know,
and having confidence in your ability to work things through
looking to those things that do make marriage work growing
(19:16):
mutual trust and respect, support, compromise. Yes, a lot of
communication and while you say, hey, I tried to tell
people that we didn't need to communicate all the time clearly,
whether it was verbally or not, you do a lot
of communicating and honesty. These are the building blocks of
(19:39):
great marriages. In addition, marriage is something you share with
another person, not a solution to your own mood and
state of being, which is why figuring out your own mind,
your own strengths and weaknesses, your own wants and needs
is important before you enter marriage. Then assessing all those
(20:03):
things for the partnership as a whole. I hope that
was helpful. In addition to the benefits of marriage to
the two people involved, there are many benefits to their children.
Children of divorce are more likely to slip into poverty,
become victims of child abuse, fail at school, and drop out,
(20:27):
use legal drugs, have early sexual activity, become unwed teen mothers, divorce,
die by suicide, and experience other signs of mental illness,
becoming physically ill, and even the commission of crimes. And
there are also benefits to your sex life. Married people
(20:49):
are more likely to have a sex type. Single men
are twenty times more likely and single women ten times
more likely not to have had sex even once in
the past year than those who are married. Married people
are also the most likely to report a highly satisfying
sex life. Wives, for example, are almost twice as likely
(21:13):
as divorced and never married women to have a sex
life that exists and is extremely satisfying emotionally. Of husbands
say sex with their partner is extremely physically satisfying, compared
with thirty of men who live with their partners. Can
(21:34):
women be very happy outside of marriage, of course, they
can are their circumstances where divorce is really the better path,
for example, where abuses involved. Absolutely, But in many, many
cases it is worth knowing the many benefits that marriage
can bring and trying to maintain it. Do you have
(21:59):
a problem I can have up with? If so, email
me yet? How can I help? At Seneca women dot Com,
all centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday too. How
can I help with me? Doctor Gail's Salts
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