every year in the United States alone
two million 77,000 couples make a legal
and spiritual decision to spend the rest
of their lives together and not to have
sex with anyone else
ever he buys a ring she buys a dress
they go shopping for all sorts of things
she takes him to Arthur Murray for
ballroom dancing lessons and the big day
comes and they'll stand before God and
family and some guy her dad once did
business with and they'll vow that
nothing not abject poverty not
life-threatening illness not complete
and utter misery will ever put the
tiniest damper on their eternal love and
devotion
these optimistic young bastards promise
to honor and cherish each other through
hot flashes and midlife crises and a
cumulative 50 pound weight gain until
that far-off day when one of them is
finally able to rest in peace you know
cuz they can't hear this snoring anymore
and then they'll get stupid drunk and
smash cake in each other's faces and do
the Macarena and we'll be there
showering them with towels and toasters
and drinking their free booze and
throwing birdseed at them every single
time even though we know statistically
half of them will be divorced within a
decade
of course the other half won't right
they'll keep forgetting anniversaries
and arguing about where to spend
holidays and debating which way the
toilet paper should come off of the roll
and some of them some of them will even
still be enjoying each other's company
when neither of them can chew solid food
anymore and researchers want to know why
I mean look it doesn't take a
double-blind placebo-controlled study to
figure out what makes a mare do not work
right disrespect boredom too much time
on Facebook having sex with other people
but you can have the exact opposite of
all of those things respect excitement a
broken internet connection mind-numbing
monogamy and that things still can go to
hell in a handbasket
so what's going on when it doesn't what
do the folks who make it all the way to
side-by-side burial plots have in common
what are they doing right what can we
learn from them and if you're still
happily sleeping solo why should you
stop what you're doing and make it your
life's work to find that one special
person that you can annoy for the rest
of your life well researchers spend
billions of your tax dollars trying to
figure that out
they stock blissful couples and they
study their every move and mannerism and
they try to pinpoint what it is that
sets them apart from their miserable
neighbors and friends and it turns out
the success stories share a few
similarities actually beyond they don't
have sex with other people for instance
in the happiest marriages the wife is
thinner and better-looking than the
husband obvious this leads right it's
obvious that this leads to
marital bliss because women we care a
great deal about being thin and
good-looking whereas men mostly care
about sex ideally with women who are
thinner and better-looking than they are
the beauty of this research though is
that no one is suggesting that women
have to be thin to be happy there than
our partners so instead of all that
laborious dieting and exercising we just
need to wait for them to get fat maybe
make a few pies this is good information
to have and it's not that complicated
research also suggests that the happiest
couples are the ones that focus on the
positives right
for example the happy wife instead of
pointing out her husband's growing gut
or suggesting he go for a run she might
say well honey thank you for going out
of your way to make me relatively
thinner these are couples who can find
good in any situation yeah it was
devastating when we lost everything on
that fire it's kind of nice sleeping out
here under the stars and it's a good
thing you've got all that body fat to
keep us warm one of my favorite studies
found that the more willing a husband is
to do housework the more attractive his
wife will find him because we needed a
study to tell us this but here's what's
going on here
the more attractive she finds him more
sex they have the more sex they have the
nicer he is to her the nicer key is to
her the less she nags him about leaving
wet towels on the bed and ultimately
they live happily ever after
in other words men you might want to
pick it up a notch in the domestic
department here's an interesting one one
study found that people who smile in
childhood photographs are less likely to
get a divorce this is an actual study
and let me clarify the researchers were
not looking at documented self reports
of childhood happiness or even studying
old journals the data were based
entirely on whether people look happy in
these early pictures
now I don't know how old all of you are
but when I was a kid your parents took
pictures with a special kind of camera
that held something called film and by
God film was expensive yeah they didn't
take 300 shots of you in that rapid-fire
digital video mode and then pick out
some nicest smiley ax store the
Christmas card huh no they dressed you
up they lined you up and you smiled for
the camera like they told you to
or you could kiss your birthday party
goodbye but still I have a huge pile of
fake happy childhood pictures and I'm
glad they make me less likely than some
people to get it worse so what else can
you do to safeguard your marriage do not
win an Oscar for Best Actress I'm
serious
Betty Davis Joan Crawford Halle Berry
Hilary Swank Sandra Bullock Reese
Witherspoon all of them Singles soon
after taking home that statue they
actually call it the Oscar curse it is
the marriage kiss of death and something
that should be avoided and it's not just
successfully starring in films that's
dangerous it turns out merely watching a
romantic comedy causes relationship
satisfaction to plummet apparently the
bitter realization that maybe it could
happen to us but it obviously hasn't and
it probably never will makes our lives
seem unbearably grim in comparison and
theoretically I suppose if we opted for
a film where someone gets brutally
murdered or dies in a fiery car crash we
are more likely to walk out of that
theater feeling like we've got it pretty
good drinking alcohol
it seems bad for your marriage yeah I
can't tell you any more about that one
cuz I stopped reading it at the headline
but here's a scary one divorce is
contagious that's right when you have a
close couple friend to split up it
increases your chances of getting a
divorce by 75% now I have to say I don't
get this one
all my husband and I have watched quite
a few friends divide their assets and
then struggle with being our age and
single in an age of sexting and viagra
and harmony and I'm thinking they've
done more for my marriage than a
lifetime of therapy ever could so now
you may be wondering why does anyone get
married ever well the US federal
government counts more than a thousand
legal benefits to being someone's spouse
a lists that includes visitation rights
in jail but hopefully you'll never need
that one
but beyond the profound federal perks
married people make more money we're
healthier physically and emotionally we
produce happier more stable and more
successful kids we have more sex than
our supposedly swinging single friends
believe it or not we even live longer
which is a pretty compelling argument
for marrying someone you like a lot in
the first place now if you're not
currently experiencing the joy of the
joint tax return I can't tell you how to
find a chore loving person of the
approximately ideal size and
attractiveness who prefers horror movies
and doesn't have a lot of friends
hovering on the brink of divorce but I
can only encourage you to try because
the benefits as I've pointed out are
significant the bottom line is whether
you're in it or you're searching for it
I believe marriage is an institution
worth pursuing and protecting so I hope
you'll use the information I've given
you today to weigh your personal
strengths against your own risk factors
for instance in my marriage I'd say I'm
doing okay
on the one hand I have a husband who's
annoyingly lean and incredibly handsome
so I'm obviously going to need to fatten
him up and like I said we have those
divorced friends who may secretly or
subconsciously be trying to break us up
so we have to keep an eye on that
and we do like a cocktail or two on the
other hand I have the fake happy picture
thing and also my husband does a lot
around the house and would happily never
see another romantic comedy as long as
he lives so I've got all those things
going for me but just in case I plan to
work extra hard to not win an Oscar
anytime soon
and for the good of your relationships I
would encourage you to do the same I'll
see you at the bar