Happy ever after? Don’t count on marriage to bring lifelong joy
‘Staking happiness on being married isn’t a sure bet. It seems silly to put so much stock in being partnered’
BEING married does not make people significantly happier than if they were divorced or single, research spanning more than 40 years has shown.
A study quantified the happiness of married, formerly married and single people to find out just how much love and marriage played into their overall well-being.
The findings, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, followed the relationship histories of 7,532 people from the ages of 18 to 60. The researchers asked participants to complete a survey to determine who was happiest at the end of that time.
Psychologists from Michigan State University said that among participants, 79 per cent were consistently married, spending the majority of their lives in one marriage; 8 per cent were consistently single or people who spent most of their lives unmarried; and 13 per cent had varied histories or histories of moving in and out of relationships, divorce, remarrying or becoming widowed.
While married people showed a slight increase in happiness, the study found that the margin was not substantial or what was expected.
The consistently married group answered a 4 out of 5 on how happy they were, consistently single people answered a 3.82 and those with varied history answered a 3.7.
The findings are in contrast to a previous Office for National Statistics study, which found that being married or in a civil partnership was the third most important factor in happiness, behind only health and employment. Prof William Chopik, leader of the latest research, said: “People often think that they need to be married to be happy, so we asked the questions, ‘Do people need to be in a relationship to be happy? Does living single your whole life translate to unhappiness? What about if you were married at some point but it didn’t work out?’
Staking your happiness on being married isn’t a sure bet.
“When it comes to happiness, whether someone is in a relationship or not is rarely the whole story. People can certainly be in unhappy relationships and single people derive enjoyment from all sorts of other parts of their lives, like their friendships, hobbies and work.
“In retrospect, if the goal is to find happiness, it seems a little silly that people put so much stock in being partnered.”
Mariah Purol, co-author of the report, said: “We were surprised to find that lifelong singles and those who had varied relationship histories didn’t differ in how happy they were.
“This suggests that those who have ‘loved and lost’ are just as happy towards the end of life than those who ‘never loved at all’.”
The researchers said that if someone longed for a lifelong partner to start a family and build a happy life together, but the individual was not completely happy to begin with, their study suggested that getting married would be unlikely to cause a dramatic change.