3 ways to build a happy marriage and avoid divorce

Choosing to marry and share your life with someone is one of the most important decisions you can make in life. But with divorce rates approaching fifty percent in some parts of the world, it's clear we could use some help picking a partner. In an actionable, eye-opening talk, psychiatrist George Blair-West shares three keys to preventing divorce -- and spotting potential problems while you're still dating.

Almost 50 years ago,

psychiatrists Richard Rahe
and Thomas Holmes developed an inventory

of the most distressing
human experiences that we could have.

Number one on the list? Death of a spouse.

Number two, divorce.
Three, marital separation.

Now, generally, but not always,

for those three to occur, we need
what comes in number seven on the list,

which is marriage.

(Laughter)

Fourth on the list is imprisonment
in an institution.

Now, some say number seven
has been counted twice.

(Laughter)

I don't believe that.

When the life stress inventory was built,

back then, a long-term relationship
pretty much equated to a marriage.

Not so now.

So for the purposes of this talk,
I'm going to be including

de facto relationships,
common-law marriages

and same-sex marriages,

or same-sex relationships
soon hopefully to become marriages.

And I can say from my work
with same-sex couples,

the principles I'm about
to talk about are no different.

They're the same across all relationships.

So in a modern society,

we know that prevention
is better than cure.

We vaccinate against polio, diphtheria,
tetanus, whooping cough, measles.

We have awareness campaigns
for melanoma, stroke, diabetes --

all important campaigns.

But none of those conditions come close

to affecting 45 percent of us.

Forty-five percent: that's
our current divorce rate.

Why no prevention campaign for divorce?

Well, I think it's because
our policymakers don't believe

that things like attraction
and the way relationships are built

is changeable or educable.

Why?

Well, our policymakers currently
are Generation X.

They're in their 30s to 50s.

And when I'm talking to these guys
about these issues,

I see their eyes glaze over,

and I can see them thinking,

"Doesn't this crazy psychiatrist get it?

You can't control the way in which
people attract other people

and build relationships."

Not so, our dear millennials.

This is the most information-connected,
analytical and skeptical generation,

making the most informed decisions
of any generation before them.

And when I talk to millennials,
I get a very different reaction.

They actually want to hear about this.

They want to know about how do we
have relationships that last?

So for those of you who want to embrace
the post- "romantic destiny" era with me,

let me talk about my three life hacks
for preventing divorce.

Now, we can intervene
to prevent divorce at two points:

later, once the cracks begin to appear
in an established relationship;

or earlier, before we commit,
before we have children.

And that's where I'm going to take us now.

So my first life hack:

millennials spend seven-plus hours
on their devices a day.

That's American data.

And some say, probably not unreasonably,

this has probably affected
their face-to-face relationships.

Indeed, and add to that
the hookup culture,

ergo apps like Tinder,

and it's no great surprise that
the 20-somethings that I work with

will often talk to me about
how it is often easier for them

to have sex with somebody that they've met

than have a meaningful conversation.

Now, some say this is a bad thing.

I say this is a really good thing.

It's a particularly good thing

to be having sex outside
of the institution of marriage.

Now, before you go out
and get all moral on me,

remember that Generation X,
in the American Public Report,

they found that 91 percent of women

had had premarital sex by the age of 30.

Ninety-one percent.

It's a particularly good thing that
these relationships are happening later.

See, boomers in the '60s --

they were getting married
at an average age for women of 20

and 23 for men.

2015 in Australia?

That is now 30 for women and 32 for men.

That's a good thing, because
the older you are when you get married,

the lower your divorce rate.

Why?

Why is it helpful to get married later?

Three reasons.

Firstly, getting married later allows
the other two preventers of divorce

to come into play.

They are tertiary education

and a higher income, which tends
to go with tertiary education.

So these three factors all
kind of get mixed up together.

Number two,

neuroplasticity research tell us

that the human brain is still growing
until at least the age of 25.

So that means how you're thinking
and what you're thinking

is still changing up until 25.

And thirdly, and most importantly
to my mind, is personality.

Your personality at the age of 20

does not correlate with
your personality at the age of 50.

But your personality at the age of 30

does correlate with
your personality at the age of 50.

So when I ask somebody
who got married young why they broke up,

and they say, "We grew apart,"

they're being surprisingly accurate,

because the 20s is a decade
of rapid change and maturation.

So the first thing you want to get
before you get married is older.

(Laughter)

Number two,

John Gottman, psychologist
and relationship researcher,

can tell us many factors that correlate
with a happy, successful marriage.

But the one that I want to talk about

is a big one:

81 percent of marriages implode,
self-destruct, if this problem is present.

And the second reason why I want
to talk about it here

is because it's something
you can evaluate while you're dating.

Gottman found that the relationships
that were the most stable and happy

over the longer term

were relationships in which
the couple shared power.

They were influenceable:

big decisions, like buying a house,
overseas trips, buying a car,

having children.

But when Gottman
drilled down on this data,

what he found was that women
were generally pretty influenceable.

Guess where the problem lay?

(Laughter)

Yeah, there's only
two options here, isn't there?

Yeah, we men were to blame.

The other thing that Gottman found

is that men who are influenceable

also tended to be "outstanding fathers."

So women: How influenceable is your man?

Men:

you're with her because you respect her.

Make sure that respect plays out
in the decision-making process.

Number three.

I'm often intrigued by
why couples come in to see me

after they've been married
for 30 or 40 years.

This is a time when they're approaching
the infirmities and illness of old age.

It's a time when they're particularly
focused on caring for each other.

They'll forgive things
that have bugged them for years.

They'll forgive all betrayals,
even infidelities,

because they're focused
on caring for each other.

So what pulls them apart?

The best word I have
for this is reliability,

or the lack thereof.

Does your partner have your back?

It takes two forms.

Firstly, can you rely on your partner
to do what they say they're going to do?

Do they follow through?

Secondly,

if, for example,

you're out and you're being
verbally attacked by somebody,

or you're suffering from
a really disabling illness,

does your partner step up
and do what needs to be done

to leave you feeling
cared for and protected?

And here's the rub:

if you're facing old age,

and your partner
isn't doing that for you --

in fact, you're having
to do that for them --

then in an already-fragile relationship,

it can look a bit like you might
be better off out of it rather than in it.

So is your partner there for you
when it really matters?

Not all the time, 80 percent of the time,

but particularly if it's important to you.

On your side, think carefully before you
commit to do something for your partner.

It is much better to commit to
as much as you can follow through

than to commit to more
sound-good-in-the-moment

and then let them down.

And if it's really important
to your partner, and you commit to it,

make sure you move hell
and high water to follow through.

Now, these are things
that I'm saying you can look for.

Don't worry, these are also
things that can be built

in existing relationships.

I believe that the most important decision

that you can make

is who you choose as a life partner,

who you choose as
the other parent of your children.

And of course, romance has to be there.

Romance is a grand and beautiful
and quirky thing.

But we need to add
to a romantic, loving heart

an informed, thoughtful mind,

as we make the most important
decision of our life.

Thank you.

(Applause)