Love is No Guarantee! What you Need to Know before You fall in Love

One in every three first marriages in the U.S will end within ten years, and one in five will end within five years, according to a November 2001 report issued by Centers for Disease control and Prevention. The report "First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage: United States," also notes that 43% of first marriages will end within 15 years.

Although recent statistics paint a bleak picture of the future of marriage, it seems that most people have not totally lost faith in the institution itself. Also, newer studies have revealed that the statistics on the success of remarriages are even less encouraging; remarried couples divorce at an even higher rate than first timers. Yet it is not uncommon to see many divorced people remarry for a second and even a third time.

It should be no wonder that, despite the statistics so many people are willing to risk the heartbreak, sorrow, and economic losses resulting from failed marriages. People need companionship, and marriage has been the accepted structure for men and women to live with each other for as long as we can remember.

However, over the past few decades, the staggering increase in the divorce rate in America has left young people in doubt about the idea of marriage itself. Many have opted for the less traditional arrangement, i.e., living together without the benefit of the marriage vows. One U.S. Census report "Marital Status and living Arrangements, 1996", showed an 85% increase in cohabitation within the last decade alone. But does this ensure compatibility in marriage?

According to numerous studies, the rate of failure in common law relationships is 50% higher than that Air jordan shoes of traditional marriages. So the question is: What can couples do to reduce the rate of failure in their own relationship? Even more significant questions are: What are the reasons for these failures in so many relationships. Why do people who want to share their lives together find it so difficult to sustain long term relationships with each other?

The answer to these questions and more is the focus of this book. One of the principal causes of the high casualty rate in marital relationships lies in the sources of our life- long teaching and information about marriages. Most of us are familiar with the emotional side of romantic love. Less commonly known are the biological connections to these emotions. Anthropologist Helen Fisher (more about this in Chapter 7) has documented evidence that links the biological and chemical processes of our bodies to love and attachment between males and females.

In her study, Fisher notes that our bodies produce chemical substances known to cause attachment in humans. She suggests that nature has provided a way to bring couples together and keep them sufficiently motivated until the creation of offspring is accomplished. Additional clinical experiments link reduced levels of these "love-enhancing compounds" in the human body with the decline of passionate love and attachment between couples. Fisher believes that the reduced levels of these chemicals may be directly responsible for separation and divorce in romantic relationships.

Most young people entering Michael jordan shoes a relationship for the first time are not sure what is expected of them to be a good partner. The majority of the people we interviewed admitted they were not looking very far into the future when they got married. All they knew was that they were in love with someone who met their social and sexual requirements-at least the way they saw them at the time. For most of us, our parents have been our only source of first-hand information about marriage. But times have changed; what may have worked for our parents in their time may not work for us today. And with the high rate of failure reported in present-day marriages, it would seem unwise for us to use past-day examples of marriages as role models for our own relationships. We need to find better solutions.