How of Happiness

but there was a new study done comparing married and single people in relationships. And it showed over time that the married people and the single people in a relationship had no difference in happiness after 5 years.

I barely know how to compare being unmarried to being married, on some simplistic linear quantitative scale. I've been married over two years now, and married life has no resemblance to my old unmarried life. I mean, no resemblance whatsoever. I might as well moved to a different planet. Therefore, I don't know how to compare meaningfully. The best I can think of is to draw up different axes of criteria. For example, losing a huge amount of my former "free time" could be considered a huge loss in marriage. On the other hand, having someone who is always (well, almost always) there for you, and feeling loved, cannot compare to anything in my single life. Being forced to compromise on a thousand different things where I once had "freedom" is both negative and positive: I've shed bad habits that nobody was around to help me kick, but I'm also having to accept various annoyances and oddities.

There's just no simple comparison between being unmarried and being married.

There's obviously tons of money to be made measuring happiness and producing "findings". Where can I get my hands on one of those disneyometers? (It seems reasonable to name the fundametal unit of happiness the "disney".) They didn't have one at my Walgreen's. Maybe it's because they're not used orally.

Come to think of it... why isn't there one in every home already? Is this a multi-billion dollar business just waiting to be invented? Or maybe it's the one thing we can't get China to make for us?

Thank you for clearing up the correlation/causation confusion that the media loves to abuse. I think too many people are not happy with the themselves, and they turn to marriage (supported by many of the articles that arose out of this study) to become happy. Looking to an external source to provide your own happiness is always a recipe for failure. I'm of the happy self first, then happy marriage camp.
http://lessonsfromtheendofamarriage.com

Hi,

I love your blog but I don't use an RSS reader. Can I subscribe by email? Thanks, Mollie

After completing 51 years of marriage, 5 children, 13 grandchildren I do believe that I speak with a tad bit of authority/experience on this subject. Marriage SHOULD make you happy. Ours does! If ypur marriage does not do everything you can to fix it but if its not "fixable" give each other the gift of moving on in life.

We have had our good times, our great times and our hard times, but through all of it no matter what, I always knew there was one person in this world who loved me -- truly loved me for who I am. I feel the same about him. Just the other day I looked at my wonderful husband and said, "how did we get so lucky to find each other!"
Absolute love trust, commitment, are important ingredients in our recipe for a good marriage.

My husband suffered from the horrible effects of diabetes for over 20 years. In 2002 I told our 5 grown children that in 6 months I would be pushing dad in a wheelchair and I meany it. He could not walk over 75 feet because of the severe painful neuropathy in both his feet, he was on 43 units of insulin and climbing, he was morbidly obese, irritable and always tired. I read a book that lead me to research and study diabetes. I put everything together and came up with a program. Within 3 months he came off of all insulin. He lost 80 pounds within 9 momths and recently he lost 20 more making it a total of 100 pounds lost. He has been in 2 5k races, nueropathy gone! Check the changes out www.marythediabeteslady.com

Marriage is loving each other. Caring and helping each other..marriage is about being 100 % honest with each other.
We both ageed that if it ended tomorrow, it's been a great ride!!

I have mixed thoughts on this- another person should never make you happy or be responsible for your happiness. It's dangerous to give someone else that kind of responsibility. But a good, healthy marriage will ADD to your happiness and shold, in essence, make you more fulfilled and affect your well-being positively.

As for having less free time or more rules to adhere to (going out all night long with female friends, flirting and drinking, in a club or bar is not really acceptable married behavior, IMO) should be a fair tradeoff to feeling supported and loved. And each person is different, whether they want that tradeoff.

Very interesting article and comments as well.
GoingHappier.com

As a therapist and life coach out of Los Angeles, I loving reading studies and thoughts on what makes us live the best life possible. Looking forward to more great reads! www.davidvendig.com

Thanks so much for your comment!