Skip to main content * * CNN Edition Health * * * ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SEARCH The Web (*) CNN.com ( ) [ ] enhanced ● [Search] by Google ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Home Page * World Researchers: Marriage doesn't make you happy [advertisement] U.S. [1] Weather Study found outlook on life mostly same before, after tying Business at CNN/ knot [1] Money Sports at SI.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ * Politics Story Law Tools * Technology ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Science & Space * Health WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Most newlyweds experience a brief Click Here Entertainment emotional bounce after their wedding, but they eventually Travel return to the same outlook they had on life before they tied Education the knot, according to a study released Sunday. Special Reports Click Here "We found that people were no more satisfied after marriage SERVICES than they were prior to marriage," the researchers said. Video Newswatch The study was published in the March issue of the Journal of E-Mail Services Personality and Social Psychology, a publication of the CNN To Go American Psychological Association. SEARCH Researchers tracked more than 24,000 people from 1984 to Web (*) CNN.com ( ) 1995, asking participants every year to rate their overall [ ] life satisfaction from zero (totally unhappy) to 10 (totally [Search] enhanced happy). by Google The average boost from marriage was small -- one-tenth of one point on the scale, researchers said. The study, which took 15 years to complete, also found that people who were already satisfied with their lives before marriage were more likely to stay married longer. "People who get married and stay married are more satisfied than average long before the marriage has occurred," the study said. Researchers said the results were based on an average and that happiness is an individual experience, reflecting "the fact that marriage can be very pleasant and rewarding but has the potential to be very stressful." Dorian Solot, co-founder of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, said the study showed marriage was not a cure-all. "I think it reminds us that there's no magic ticket to happiness. Wedding bells might do it for some people, but true happiness is about you and your own life, not your marital status," said Solot, who also co-wrote "Unmarried to Each Other." While long-term marriages tend to be happy, a constant search for that initial euphoria could be disastrous, said David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project, a Rutgers University-based think tank on marriage trends. "It may be one reason for divorce is they are looking to maintain that high level of happiness throughout the marriage, which is kind of impossible for most people," he said. The study also found that widows and widowers were less likely to regain the same level of happiness they had during their married years, especially if their marriages were satisfying. Most people who lost a spouse but did not remarry took about 8 years to recover emotionally. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Story Tools * Click Here to try 4 Free Trial cover Issues of Time! * * * * Top Stories * Top Stories [1] [1] [1] [1] Health agency seeks [tz] U.N. pulling out [tz] cause of mystery • CNN/Money: Dow, S&P post illness best gains of year • More findings against • France: Most on council hormone therapy oppose war • Report questions Ground • Lawyer: Suspect 'loves' Zero air quality Elizabeth Smart • Study: Marriage doesn't make you happy * * * International [Languages ] CNN CNN Headline Transcripts Preferences About Edition TV International News CNN.com * The Web (*) CNN.com ( ) [ ] enhanced SEARCH [Search] by Google * * (C) 2003 Cable News Network LP, All external sites will open LLLP. external link in a new browser. An AOL Time Warner Company. All CNN.com does not endorse Rights Reserved. ● external sites. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Premium Denotes premium content. Read our privacy guidelines. content icon Contact us. *