Source: Pasadena Star-News
Published: Thursday, February 14, 2008

To measure by the fields of roses and tons of chocolates given each Valentine's Day in the United States, all seems rosy for love and marriage in this country.

But the landscape of marriage is shifting, and researchers are debating whether it's for better or worse.

Although divorce rates have gradually dropped since the early 1980s, marriage rates are now falling as well. Americans are increasingly choosing to cohabitate or stay single rather than take a trip down the aisle to the altar.

"If present trends continue, then marriage will continue to weaken, and I think that adults won't be as happy or fulfilled and I think more children would be hurt," said David Popenoe, an emeritus professor of sociology at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Surveys do show a strong positive connection between marriage and emotional and economic satisfaction, "but it would be a mistake to leap to the conclusion that marriage causes happiness or causes wealth," said Benjamin Karney, a UCLA social psychologist and co- director of the university's Relationship Institute.

"There's a lot of data that shows that if you're a happy person, it helps your marriage. If you're a wealthy person, it helps your marriage."

To Popenoe, a stable marriage is the key to happiness; to Karney, happiness is one key to a stable relationship - a relationship that doesn't necessarily need legal recognition.

"There's been no decline in the value of marriage, there's been no change in the value of marriage," Karney said. "Everyone says, 'I want to get married.' The problem is that people have trouble getting what they want to get in marriage."

One tool that researchers agree upon is the benefit that marriage education can bring to a relationship.

Although the research is in its infancy, "the studies that have been done have been positive and hopeful" about marriage education's effect on the divorce rate, Popenoe said.

"We can already see that it's going to be beneficial for us," said Jacob Magdaleno, a college mentor in Rancho Cucamonga who has started attending a class with his wife, Cristina, offered through the San Gabriel Valley Marriage Resources Center.

"We thought we had a pretty OK marriage, but once a baby comes along, your time is really taken away a lot," Christina said.

The classes, which include discussions about differences in personalities and dealing with conflict, helped her become aware of the adjustments she needed to make to preserve a strong relationship, she said.

Awareness is also a major topic discussed at Relationship Institute seminars, Karney said.

"One of the things that we try to teach couples is to pay attention to the way that their environment outside during the day affects the way that they act inside the house," he said.

But whereas Popenoe also believes that the country would benefit from a strong cultural shift toward advocating marriage, Karney believes that marriage and strong relationships will blossom on their own, given other life improvements.

"I think that a lot of social policies, if they change people's lives, are going to change people's marriages," he said. "It means that the health care debates are a debate about marriage, indirectly. The debates about the minimum wage is a debate about marriage. Every foreclosure, almost, is a marriage."

Karney has three parting suggestions for couples.

"We know that people are bad at empathy when they're stressed, so be sensitive about the timing of your conversations," he said. "Second, a lot of research shows that negativity isn't always a problem. It's the lack of positivity that's a problem, so seize opportunities for positivity, even if they're small.

"Finally, try to distinguish between big problems and little problems," Karney said. "Little problems, keep them little, but big problems need to be addressed directly. The wisdom lies in knowing the difference."