Many single people complain about how unbearable and boring their married friends are. Is this really the case? When you get married, does it change?
Although psychologists have yet to answer the question of whether married people become content with each other, or whether satisfied people are more likely to marry, research shows that connecting and living with another person causes both positive and negative changes in our personality.
Marriage requires loyalty and forward thinking. For many people it means a big change in lifestyle. It is also patience and diplomacy to live with the same person all the time.
But there is little research on how marriage changes personalities. One of the most recent research has been carried out on nearly 15,000 people in Germany, and for four years it has been looked at what kind of personality change they have had.
The effect on men and women is different
During the research conducted by Jule Specht of the University of Münster, 664 people got married. Thus, it was also possible to look at the differences in personality changes between those who remained single and married.
In the study, in terms of extroversion and openness to new characteristics, there was a decline in married people compared to single ones. The difference is very small, but it doesn’t seem unfounded that singles blame their married friends for being boring.
In a study conducted in a smaller group in the USA in 2000, a similar result was obtained especially in women. The personalities of more than two thousand middle-aged people were tested twice for 6-9 years.
During this period, 20 of the women were married and 29 were divorced. Compared to marriages, divorced women had progressed in extraversion and openness to new experiences. Newly married men were more reliable and responsible than the divorces, and showed less emotional instability.
A study published this year confirmed that married men exhibit improved responsibility and reliability.
Two important skills in marriage
Under the direction of Tila Pronk, a psychologist from Tilburg University in the Netherlands, the two most important skills in marriage were highlighted: married people are more backward in terms of extraversion and openness to new experiences. The researchers contacted 199 newly married couples and tried to measure how forgiving each spouse was and how much they could control themselves within three months of their marriage based on their testimony. These measurements were then repeated every year for four years.
The results showed that these two characteristics of the spouses were partially developed during this period. Pronk said that this development is at the level of those participating in special psychological programs for self-control.
So, what was the development of happiness and satisfaction with life after marriage? Data on this issue show that progress has been made in terms of satisfaction with life until some time after marriage, but has returned to its former level after about a year.
Premarital personality
Although the general data is in this direction, the same cannot be said for everyone. One of the most important factors that determine how marriage affects a person’s happiness is the personality traits before marriage.
For some, marriage can be a source of lifelong happiness. It was seen that life satisfaction increased after marriage of women and extroverted men, especially those with responsibility, reliability and introversion. Perhaps marriage is more suited to people of this nature; but there has not been any work on this.
Do spouses look alike?
So, is it true that married couples take the characteristics of each other over time? It’s probably a myth. If this were the case, the longer married couples would be more alike.
However, researchers from the University of Michigan, 1200 married couples evaluated the personality characteristics of such data did not come across. Rather, it was seen that people with similar characteristics married. Taken as a whole, research also shows a slight change in personality traits as a result of marriage.
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