According to a recent study, men who had one or two copies of a specific variant of a gene associated with the hormone vasopressin, actually behaved different in relationships than men without the variant.

Furthermore, men with two copies were twice as more likely to have marital crisis than their counterparts.

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According to a new study conducted by the Journal of Happiness Studies, midlife happiness tends to increase for men and decrease for women. The research was based on overall satisfaction pertaining to finances and family life. The study shows that women were happier than men in their 20’s and 30’s, but that at age 48 it shifts.

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Happiness Studies.

According to a recent LavalifePRIME survey of 1,001 adults ages 45-65 in the USA and Canada, 31% have never been married.

The author of So Why Have You Never Been Married?, Carl Weisman, also did a survey and found in 1,533 bachelors ages 40 and older, 48% said they were afraid of marrying the wrong person.

Since the 1960’s, men’s contribution around the house has doubled from 15% to 30%. A recent study by the The Council on Contemporary Families at the University of Illinois, Chicago shows more husbands are willingly sharing the responsibility of housework and childcare.

The study also shows the longer a wife is employed, the more her husband does work around the house.

Demographers are referring to the Second Demographic Transition, where the increase in divorce in the 1960’s and the trend for people to marry or remarry later in life has increased the potential for wider martial age gaps.

According to 2006 Census data, roughly one-third of husbands are at least four years older than their wives.

And a Stanford University report says, ‘the older a man is when he marries after 40, the greater the likelihood that his bride will be significantly younger – whether that man is wealthy or not.’

Experts say the male ideal of beauty is typically a woman in her early 20’s and this ideal remains as men grow older.

I just read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about women who hold professional degrees and their respective rate of divorce.

According to a soon-to-be-published study by Washington & Lee University School of Law Prof. Robin Fretwell Wilson, women with M.B.A.s are twice as more likely to divorce than men.

The study surveyed over 100,000 professionals in the fields of business, law, and medicine. Prof. Wilson’s conclusion was that professional degrees were hazardous to a women’s marital health.

Prof. Wilson’s study showed women who hold law or medical degrees divorce less than those with only a bachelor’s degree. However, they divorce more than their male counterparts (that is 10% of women with law degrees and 9% of women with medical degrees, compared with 7% of male lawyers and 5.1% of male doctors).

The study also showed women with M.B.A.s to divorce or separate more often than women with hold only bachelor’s degrees (that is 12% of female M.B.A.s compared with 11% of women with only bachelor’s degrees).

Why do people commit adultery? Edward Everett Hale, a Centennial Professor In Economics and Freakonomics guest blogger, says that economics may hold the answer.

It’s a term called hyperbolic discounting and it’s used to describe the human tendency to overemphasize current pleasure and pain in comparing actions at different points in time. Economists use it to describe spending, but Hale says it can be used to describe the rationality, or irrationality, of affairs.

He explains that if someone was asked to imagine the decision and outcomes of an affair in the future, they would never choose to have an affair, but their present choice inflates the current pleasure.

I just read an interesting op-ed piece in the Boston Globe about shared parenting in MA.

Divorcemag makes a good case about the effects of fatherless homes and the lack of a father figure in a child’s life.

According to their findings, fatherless homes account for:
-63 percent of youth suicides
-90 percent of homeless/runaway children
-85 percent of children with behavior problems
-71 percent of high school dropouts, 85 percent of youths in prison

In conclusion, research shows that children in joint custody arrangements have less behavioral problems and fare better overall.

According to a report recently released by the Council on Contemporary Families, men’s contribution to household work has doubled over the last four decades.

An there is a lot of correlation to show that men gain better intimately when they help out around the house.

Accordinging to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, the divorce rates among those over 60 is increasing.

What are the implications that cause couples to split in their twilight years?

According to a new survey, 88% of American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers say an increasing number of people going through a divorce use electronic data as evidence that their spouse has been cheating on them, hiding assets, and more.

Unofficially or officially, today is known as divorce day, as many attorneys say Jan. 7 is the busiest divorce day for couples to seek information about getting a divorce.

Some experts attribute this trend to holidays that often put a lot of pressure on couples.

According to a recent study by Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan Sate University whose analysis appeared in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, divorce is bad for the environment. Each time a family splits one household becomes two and households with fewer people are not good for the planet, Liu concludes.

In 2005, there were 16.5 million households headed in the U.S. by a divorced person and a little over 60 million households headed by a married person.

Liu calculated that per person, divorced households spent more per person per month for electricity compared with a married household.

According to a study by the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, couples where one partner is a workaholic are twice as more likely to divorce.

Bryan Robinson, who conducted the study at UNC, is also author behind a book, Chained to the Desk: A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children, and the Clinicians Who Treat Them, which has gotten some good reviews.

While U.S. Census data shows divorce has stabilized since the 70’s, the threat of divorce remains throughout a couple’s marriage, some experts say.

The risk of divorce in any marriage typically peaks between years 5 though 10.

Does this reinforce the ‘7 year itch’ idea?

According to a study by the European Cancer Organization recently presented at the European Cancer Conference in Barcelona, women who develop cervical tumors are 40 percent more likely to get divorced.

Some experts believe the increased divorce rate may be related to sexuality and intimacy issues. The study also reveals that a marriage is 20 percent more likely to collapse if the husband develops testicular cancer.

The World Health Organization says cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer among women.

I think the data seems a little inconclusive, though.

According to findings in the September issue of the Journal of Family Issues, married men worldwide report doing less housework than unmarried cohabiting men.

Researchers from George Mason University and North Carolina State University found this after conducting an international study of 17,636 men and women in 28 countries.

Though, cohabiting men still do less than cohabiting women.

In a recent study, couples cohabitating in the U.S. are on the rise and now account for 52% of all out-of-wedlock births. This is growing increasingly similar to trends in Europe, where babies of cohabitating parents make up around 66% of out-of-wedlock births and even higher rates in parts of Scandinavia.

How do out-of-wedlock babies affect couples who are living together, but not yet married?

Getting a divorce without setting foot in to a courtroom seems to be drawing more and more couples in as collaborative divorces are on the rise. This article I just read discusses the increasing trend and reasons that couples are seeking this method of divorce.

A new study reveals how you respond to situations in your relationship can ultimately determine how well you bond with your partner. A psychologist at the University of Illinois found that individuals who were prone to anxiety or avoided intimacy were more likely to push the relationship into a direction that leaned negative. Specific situations can determine how a relationship will function over time and each will impact that next.

A lot of people suffer from anxiety and experience intimacy issues. Is this just the nature of couplehood? How to you know if your behaviors are sabotaging your relationship?