# POLL: How happy are you in your marriage?



## L.M.COYL

POLL: How happy are you in your marriage?

Very happy

Mostly happy

Has its ups and downs (50/50)

Mostly unhappy

Very unhappy


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## Riverside MFT

It would be interested to see the poll results of these same couples 5 years from now. There is some similar research done on this topic. 
_
How many unhappy couples turn their marriages around? The truth is shocking: 86 percent of unhappily married people who stick it out find that, five years later, their marriages are happier, according to an analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households. Most say, they’ve become very happy indeed. In fact, nearly three-fifths of those who said their marriage was unhappy in the late ’80s and who stay married, rated this same marriage as either “very happy” or “quite happy” when interviewed again in the early 1990s. 


The very worst marriages showed the most dramatic turnarounds: 77 percent of the stable married people who rated their marriage as very unhappy (a one on a scale of one to seven) in the late ’80s said that the same marriage was either “very happy” or “quite happy” five years later. Permanent marital unhappiness is surprisingly rare among couples who stick it out. Five years later, just 15 percent of those who initially said they were very unhappily married (and who stayed married) ranked their marriage as not unhappy at all._

From Linda J. Waite, Don Browning, William J. Doherty, Maggie Gallagher, Ye Luo, and Scott M. Stanley, _Does Divorce Make People Happy: Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages _(New York: Institute for American Values, 2002) 148-49


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## Jellybeans

^ Yeah I've read that study before and it seems to make sense.


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## Rafaelinan

Interesting study. I guess sometimes it's about sticking with each other.. You know there are gonna be good and bad days.. ups and downs but the important thing is that you do your best to hold on. Love makes the impossibles possible anyway.


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## Blanca

Riverside MFT said:


> How many unhappy couples turn their marriages around? The truth is shocking: 86 percent of unhappily married people who stick it out find that, five years later, their marriages are happier, according to an analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households.


My H and I are going on five years and this holds true for us. I would say we are mostly happy now. In the beginning we were miserable.


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## L.M.COYL

Please select only one option, however unrealistic or superficially imperfect the response. Use an "average" selection.

Looking better now, I think. Should prove useful to the newbs out there in seeing the distribution-hopefully it will be pinned up permanently.

Thanks again!

-COYL


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