“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. “
— Henny Youngman
But a new study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Positive Psychology may shed some light.
Positive marriages are those determined to have resiliency, courage and strength of perseverance to endure, with the added virtue of partners being able to accept or forgive each other when the feces hits the oscillator. The usual transgressions that a typical marriage encounters assure that every couple will be tested, but statistics show that not all pass the forgiveness test.
Once a betrayal has occurred and trust has been broken, forgiveness, or lack thereof, will determine the couple’s future. Experts report that in the United States, the marriage failure rate increases with the number of tries: Half of first marriages fail. That increases to nearly two thirds of second marriages, and three quarters of third marriages. This daunting data demonstrates that learning how to forgive may be the most important skill for sustained marital happiness.