Marriage

In a poll that appears to be from eHarmony (though it is reported on a UK website) found that 19% of married couples surveyed met online. The poll was conducted in 2006 and 2007 and surveyed 10,000 married couples. 17% of these couples met at work with the same percentage meeting through friends. In a similar poll conducted in 2004 and 2005, of the 5000 married couples surveyed, 14% met online, with 20% meeting at work and 17 percent through friends.

In the 2006-2007 poll if you looked at the age group 45-54 for couples, the result showed 31% met online. In the 20 to 44 age range this is much lower at only 18% of couples met online.

I was surprised by the poll results and I would have expected the numbers regarding married couples meeting online to be slightly lower than it was. I wonder what this percentage would be for couples who are not married yet? If this was an online poll (it is not mentioned if it is or not) then I would also expect the numbers of married couples who met online to be higher since the couples who are polled are people who are tech savvy and have been online.

These poll numbers are also backed up by some eHarmony statistics we reviewed a little while ago (see story). If you look at the comments section you will note it is calculated that eHarmony has a 32% to 40% success rate. A success is measured by if a couple who met on eHarmony actually got married.

Go to Mirror.co.uk News for the full story or check out our review of eHarmony for more information on this dating service.

Update - August 16, 2008

I found another news item regarding this survey which gave me a few more facts. It was an online survey and it was done by Harris Interactive.

On Tuesday members of Project Wedding got an email informing them that eHarmony had purchased the website. Looking at the home page of Project Wedding you will notice that the copyright at the bottom has been updated from WebShaka, Inc to eHarmony, Inc. The current owners, Joe and Margaret, will still maintain the site for an unknown period of time.

Project Wedding is as the name suggests, a place to help you plan your wedding. The site includes message forums and articles where you can seek advice. You can also find a list of vendors for weddings that include categories like photography, dresses and cakes. These vendor listings also include customer reviews which can be very helpful to the bride or groom to be.

What did eHarmony purchase this site? Well, it is a natural progression for the company to go from matching couples together to now help them plan a wedding. Last year eHarmony has said they were responsible for over 43,000 marriages in the United States. They already have generated goodwill with these couples and they are use to using eHarmony's service so it should be fairly easy to get them to use an online wedding planning site. This website may becoming a bit of a niche social networking site for eHarmony where couples can trade information from where the best place is to get pictures done in your city to, who has the best wedding dresses.

Currently eHarmony also runs eHarmony Marriage, which they call an online alternative to marriage counseling.

For more information about the dating service, eHarmony, please read our review.

USA Today had an article about singles finding love and marriage through online dating after the age 45. The article focuses mostly on older singles who have not married before. In 1990 only 0.4% of woman and 0.6% of men married for the first time between the age of 45 to 49. According to the U.S. Census, In 2006 on average men married for the first time at 27.5 years of age and woman at 25.5.

Recently dating sites have started to track this demographic of later life first marriages. Match.com reports an increase of 10% of new members since 2005 who are over the age of 45 and never have married. Currently this demographic makes up 14% of their members. Yahoo! Personals also has seen a increase of 33% in this demographic for 2006 and 2007.

Online dating has made it easier for these singles to meet. According to Craig Wax of Match.com:

As people get older, they tend to find themselves in fairly established patterns, so the ability to meet new people goes down over time. They've got to do something new if they want to meet different people.

By doing a new activity, it allows these singles to easily reach out beyond their circle of friends, family and co-workers and meet someone new. If you want to find love, online dating is your obvious choice since these services offer an environment that is geared towards matching compatible singles.

For more information about the dating services mention here, visit our Match Review (match.com) and our Yahoo! Personals Review (Personals.Yahoo.com).

Courant.com takes a look at eHarmony and their online marriage therapy service. It is different than traditional therapy since there is no talking, couples must fill out a detailed questionnaire instead. This paragraph from the article sums up how the 2 year old service works:

Based on that information, the service prescribes a series of self-directed exercises and interactive videos that target their trouble areas — communication, intimacy and conflict resolution, for example. Offered in 20-minute weekly sessions over three months, the site touts among its benefits at-home convenience and a $149 price tag that would otherwise buy them one, maybe two sessions with a traditional therapist.

eHarmony states that they receive between 300 to 500 new registrations to the service every day. They also state that 19% of the couples who are at risk of divorce are no longer after completing the 3 month session.

eHarmony does agree that it does not replace real talk therapy but it is designed more as a practical tool to get couples communicating in their relationship again. There are critics of services that offer online therapy sessions. The biggest complaint is they are not regulated by a governing body.

To find out more about this dating service, read our eHarmony review.

Related Story: eHarmony and being Divorced

"I don't know if I'm ready to think of myself as married" said a girl whom I'd known for maybe ten minutes. She was getting married in a few weeks time and clearly she was getting nervous. So I did what any good wife would do; I told her the truth. Marriage is just another title for your relationship in the present.

Before I got married, I was afraid that marriage would change me and my friendships. Another part of me thought marriage would make me a better person. The truth is, I had already built my own identity long before we took our vows and nothing could change the real me, for better or for worse. Let me explain...

Marriage Fear: My single friends won't want to hang out with me.

Every marrying woman worries about this. Especially women like me who only know five people who are married. Here's the reality; your friends don't care if you are single or not. Really. They will keep talking about sex and how horrible men are, but they will probably stop asking you for dating advice for a while. Then they'll realize marriage is just another relationship and you can rejoin the "My man is driving me crazy" discussions. If anything makes a single woman happy, it is knowing that no marriage is perfect.

Marriage Hope: I'll start acting more like a wife.

Everyone has this stereotypical image of a housewife who cooks and cleans and sits on her husband's slippers to warm them up before he comes home from work. That was never going to be me. But I had these fantasies about waking up together, eating at the dinner table, cooking with my husband and maybe; just maybe; finding some joy in cleaning the house. After all, it was our home. If I had been realistic about all this, I would have realized that I hate cleaning. I still can't cook and neither can he, and we are perfectly happy not doing it. So remember, it's your life and you don't have to live up to some stereotype. Besides, how does a wedding band change your cooking skills?

Marriage Fear: My ambitions will die.

No, that's what happens when you have kids. Just kidding. One of the main reasons I fell in love with my husband was that he encouraged me to succeed in life and for the first time ever, I really believed it. Every married woman I have spoken to (yes, all five) says that the emotional support of her spouse makes her work harder to achieve her goals. Then, of course, they all wonder if they are working too hard, where it will all lead and what they really want from life. Hey single girl; isn't that what you're doing right now, too?

Marriage Hope: Our arguments won't hurt as much.

Every time we fight, I cry. Every time we in fury threaten to be perfectly capable of living without one another, I take it as seriously as the first time I heard those words. I thought before our engagement that I would be able to fight "better" if he had promised himself to me forever. I thought the same when we were going to get married. Guess what? Fighting sucks. But, as my friend Christina says, "Arguing once in a while about the little things is good. It keeps you passionate and makes for good make-up sex."

Marriage Fear: I won't be able to have male friends.

"Of course you can have male friends!" says Katie, who has been married for four years. "You just have to have firm boundaries and be honest with your spouse about your relationships. Just remember if you wouldn't do it in front of your spouse, then you shouldn't be doing it!!" My husband and I face this problem occasionally, but the more secure we are in our relationship, the less he cares that my friend James wants to lend me his porn and I forgive the occasional catch-up dinner with his female friends. Let us emphasize the word occasional.

Marriage doesn't change you, but I had spent my entire adulthood building a me and now we were an us. This is what changed. Not who I was, what I liked to eat or what I liked in bed. Like in any relationship, what you should be most worried about is how to still love someone after being together for so long. Everyone will tell you that marriage gets more and more difficult with time, but so will any relationship; with or without a binding promise.

This article was originally published on SavvyMiss.com, a free website community dedicated to connecting, empowering and informing women everywhere.

Here's an interesting twist from eHarmony,

eHarmony Marriage

This online service is almost a year old and is designed to help couples achieve stronger, healthier and happier marriages. It is built around the idea of marriage wellness, every marriage needs a small amount of ongoing care to thrive and grow. Underscoring its commitment to building happy and lasting relationships, this marriage wellness service helps marriages flourish by empowering couples with the knowledge and tools to build a deepened sense of understanding, appreciation and connectedness.

There are a couple of programs to choose from. The first one called Couple Marriage Profile offers a customized marriage report based on a questionnaire you fill out as well as a positive, non critical assessment on how to improve your marriage. The second program called Couple Marriage Complete offers more, such as a guide book and online videos. There is a free trial and eHarmony does offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you don't see any improvements.

I haven't tried these programs so I can't personally recommend them but eHarmony has helped countless singles in the online world so I am sure they are on the right track with eHarmony Marriage. You can get more information on this service at eHarmony Marriage. For more information on eHarmony Dating see are eHarmony Review.