Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Sunday, May 08 2011 @ 09:53 am
Last modified on
Does where you meet your spouse make a difference in how happy the marriage is and if the relationship lasts?
According to a marriage study conducted for eHarmony in December of 2010, online dating is currently the 3rd most popular way for newlyweds to meet (following work/school and friends/family), and eHarmony is now responsible for nearly 100,000 marriages per year in the United States. Bringing couples together is an admirable occupation - but it doesn't mean much if the relationship isn't built on a strong foundation that can stand the test of time. In the words of eHarmony's Dr. Gian Gonzaga: "my colleagues and I aren't doing our jobs correctly if all we do is bring people together.... It's not about creating a lot of relationships; it's about creating a lot of good relationships."
With that idea in mind, Gonazaga and his team asked themselves the question posed at the start of this post. Does where you meet your partner have an effect on how happy you are in your relationship, and whether or not the relationship lasts? After failing to find any studies that investigated the matter, Gonzaga and his researchers decided to take matters into their own hands, in conjunction with Opinion Research Corp.
RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION
The first study, an online survey of 7,386 adults who married within the last 5 years, examined relationship satisfaction. Participants were asked how they met their spouse, and were then directed to use the Couples Satisfaction Index, a well-known test developed at the University of Rochester, to measure their relationship satisfaction. eHarmony users scored well: couples who had met on the site were more satisfied with their marriages than couples who had met on Match.com, via friends or family, or at a bar or other social gathering. Couples who had met on eHarmony also reported higher relationship satisfaction than those who had met through their jobs or at school, but the difference was much less significant.
KEEPING THE SPARK ALIVE
Participants in the study were also asked if their relationship had "lost the spark," as a loss of chemistry between partners is often a precursor to relationship dissatisfaction. Once again, people who met on eHarmony fared well: couples from the site were least likely to feel that the magic was gone from their relationship.
But what about the major issue of divorce? Does how a person meets their spouse have any relation to the likelihood that they will get divorced? eHarmony researchers asked people whether they or their spouse had ever seriously suggested separating or divorcing, and it turns out that the "proportion of couples who discuss divorce doesn't differ widely across the various ways couples met." eHarmony couples were the least likely to discuss divorce, but the numbers were not statistically different from couples who met at church/place of worship, work/school, and through family/friends. There were, however, "statistically significant differences between the eHarmony couples and those who met at bars/social events and those who met on Match.com."
Talking about divorce is, of course, only an indicator of divorce - it is not a divorce itself. To get a clearer picture of the link between divorce and the location where couples met, eHarmony conducted a second study. Read on to hear more about what they found.
For more information on the dating site which conducted this survey please read our eHarmony.com review.