True Love After 40

What do happily  married couples do differently than the over 50% that get divorced (or remain unhappily stuck)?

A lot has been written about the secrets of happily married couples. Here are a few quick thoughts I'd like to share about this:

• Happily married couples have a sense of commitment to their marriage.             

They are committed to making the relationship work.  They don't spend time thinking about an exit strategy.  They are going to see it through "for better or for worse."

When they argue (of course they argue) they see it as a bump in the road, but they don't begin packing their bags.  They believe they can work through any conflict and they are sometimes stubbornly determined to do just that.

• Happily married couples have lower expectations.

Before you gasp in disbelief, keep reading.  Often couples in their teens and 20's have severely unrealistic, sky-scraper high expectations of their partners.  Couples who have managed to get through those expectations and reassess what is realistic and what is not are happier, I believe.

So, they expect less of their partner and perhaps more of themselves.  They are well-rounded and do not expect that their spouse is their "everything."  They both have friends and activities that they do separately and together.

What are your thoughts about what keeps happily married couples together?