Expert: Dr. Dennis W. Neder - 8/11/2008

Question
Hi,

In all the long term marriages that you see, which have not ended in divorce, what was the secret? I'm talking about those elderly people who are married for 75-80 years and never leave each other's side. How do they do it? How do they not get bored with each other? How do they keep sex interesting after all those years of marriage and after that age? Wouldn't they get tired of having sex with only one person? Also tell me something. So in the long term 70+ year marriages that you see, when did the couple first start having sex? Did they wait until marriage to have sex? Does this lead to a more successful marriage? Or did they start having sex about one month after they met each other? Also, how many times a week should a married couple have sex throughout their lives to have a successful union?

thanks
Prudence

Answer
Hello Prudence!

You're asking me to do something that nobody has EVER been able to do - define a single set of parameters under which all successful marriages work. In fact, that just doesn't exist.

There are many problems with your question. First of all, you have to understand that these people got together at a time when relationships had an entirely different meaning than they do today. They drew from a much small pool of available partners and focused on specific - and different - goals than people have today. You can't use most of the tools from the past to positively affect relationships today - they just don't translate.

If you're looking for some lofty, romantic description of their relationships; something like "they were deeply and profoundly in love", then you're also on the wrong track too. This overly-romanticized view of relationships unfortunately doesn't keep them together.

I'm afraid the very best essence I can draw from my research and from the research of others is this: habit. But, before you think I'm some non-romantic, cold-hearted scientist archetype, let me explain:

The habit these people seemed to stay together for was a lack of being alone. They are willing and able to put aside personal needs in order to see the benefit of staying together in order to continue the habit of not being lonely. Interestingly, that need to be bonded is more important than getting other, more selfish needs met.

Prudence, here's the reality that so few people want to admit, let alone understand:

Humans, just like 98% of all the mammals that walk the Earth are not designed to exist in "pair-bond" relationships. Nature has imbued humans (in particular, males) with a common need to be polygamous. Pair-bonding is a feminine trait, not a masculine one.

[Warning: science content ahead]

For males that have competition for mating partners, we produce lots of sperm with every ejaculation. Why? First, it's because it's so difficult to find and reach an egg to fertilize. Further because we are a competitive species, males increase our chances of siring offspring (and furthering our own genetic patterns into the next generation) by produce so many sperm. Think about the biological resources involved in all of this: we have to we to produce each of these little guys, physically defend our turf (which has caused us to evolve specific physical traits to do so), etc. That's a lot of energy giving to reproduction.

Human females on the other hand don't have to compete in the same way - they have an entirely different set of competition parameters under which you operate. Your biological goal is to form these pair-bonds at least until your offspring grow to sexual maturity - about 12-16 years; interestingly, about the length of many "long-term" marriages today - coincidence? During that time it's in your best interest to establish pair-bonds in order to give those children the chance of survival.

Remember too that pair-bonding is actually pretty new to the human experience - being only about 5,000 years old. We've been around according to recent discoveries for about 7.5 million years. If you do the math, that means that pair-bonding is only about 0.007% of our genetic experience. In effect, we haven't had enough time to evolve to where pair-bonding will regularly successful.

Prudence, I know that's not really what you want to hear, so let me try to give you what, in my experience are the best tools to build a successful relationship or marriage:

* Focus on the relationship itself as the primarily-important element.
* Giving up the need for personal gratification in order to achieve that relationship-focus
* Having goals larger than our personal needs such as children, family, friends, etc.
* Having fun! Nothing is more important to a healthy relationship than actually enjoying your partner's company because it's fun to be together.
* Getting your need for personal-gratification met outside the relationship, i.e. "personal growth"
* Being realistic by realizing that both you and your partner will find others attractive - that's normal, not something to be avoided
* Growing your sexuality well before you meet that life-long partner of your dreams - you need to have something to bring to the relationship

In general, these are the best traits of "relationship-minded" people.

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
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