Low-Risk Marriage

I’ve been saying all along that an acceptance of proper gender roles is important to a healthy marriage. I stumbled across this old article this morning. It introduces a study that confirmed my opinion: Couples who “share a traditional interpretation of gender roles” have the lowest risk of divorce. Some other interesting points from the article:

• A husband who ignores his wife’s complaints (or a wife who complains too much) puts his marriage in the highest risk category. Wives, focus on what’s important, don’t cry wolf, and don’t nag. Husbands, pay attention. Every problem doesn’t need to be fixed, but you can’t be passive. Marital problems don’t go away if you ignore them. They grow into man eating monsters.
• Clingy can be bad, but distant is worse. Emotional detachment can be fatal.
• Egalitarian and casual isn’t the best, but may not be all that bad, either. I suspect that trust and selflessness are the real secrets here, and not ideological egalitarianism.
• A much older husband isn’t a problem, but a much older wife could be.

Definitely interesting stuff. I’ll try to get better info on this study.