What is a Healthy Marriage?

What is a healthy marriage? A healthy marriage is a safe, secure, loving relationship that is built on friendship, passion, and commitment. Healthy marriages are strong relationships that can handle life's ups and downs. They are partnerships based on respect, trust, and a willingness to communicate and resolve differences. They also help each individual grow as a person.

Good marriages don't just happen. It takes work to build a loving, safe, and secure marriage. It is exciting to know that tools are available to anyone who wants to have a healthy marriage! Researchers have learned that people can learn how to:

Listen and be heard
Solve problems
Support each other
Understand your partner's background
Manage stress

Marriage education is available in a wide variety of formats such as workshops, classes, books, DVDs, and on-line formats.

Whether you are thinking about getting married, wondering how to make your marriage better, or looking to help others, our goal is to provide information, tools, and resources that will help you achieve the healthy marriage you want.

Marriage Myths

Marriage Myth – Married people have less satisfying sex life and less sex than single people.

According to a national survey, no they don't! Not only do married people have more sex, they enjoy it more, physically and emotionally. 1

Marriage Myth – Living together is just like marriage.

Living together, or cohabitation, typically does not bring the benefits – physical health, wealth and emotional well-being – that marriage does. 2

Read "Top Ten Marriage Myths" by David Popenoe, to see more marriage myths.

Additional Resources

Self-Assessment Screener NFCA — Self-assessment test to screen for depression.
Marriage is Good for your Health Associated Counselors & Therapists — A bad marriage can lead to health risks such as increased blood pressure and increased risk for diabetes and heart attack. Satisfying marriages lead to increased immunity and greater longevity.
What is a "healthy marriage?": defining the concept. Child Trends. This Research Brief addresses that question by examining the concept of healthy marriage and the elements that, taken together, help to define it, such as commitment, marital satisfaction, and communication, as well as two elements that pose obvious threats to healthy marriage: violence and infidelity.

1 Cited in David Popenoe's "Top Ten Myths of Marriage” - Linda J. Waite and Kara Joyner, “Emotional and Physical Satisfaction with Sex in Married, Cohabiting, and Dating Sexual Unions: Do Men and Women Differ?” Pp. 239-269 in E. O. Laumann and R. T. Michael, eds., Sex, Love, and Health in America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Edward O. Laumann, J. H. Gagnon, R. T. Michael and S. Michaels, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994)

2 Cited in David Popenoe’s “Top Ten Myths of Marriage” Stephen L. Nock, “A Comparison of Marriages and Cohabiting Relationships” Journal of Family Issues 16-1 (1995): 53-76; Amy Mehraban Pienta, et. al., “Health Consequences of Marriage for the Retirement Years” Journal of Family Issues 21-5 (2000):559-586; Susan L. Brown, “The Effect of Union Type on Psychological Well-Being: Depression Among Cohabitors versus Marrieds” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 41(2000):241-255; Susan L. Brown and Alan Booth, “Cohabitation Versus Marriage: A Comparison of Relationship Quality” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996):668-678.