More than a century ago, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote, Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

    The words have become immortalized, and the unhappy story of Anna Karenina is considered one of the greatest novels ever written. Recently, however, psychologists and sociologists are starting to question the observation.

    I think Tolstoy was totally wrong, said John Gottman, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Unhappy families are really similar to one another - there's much more variability among happy families.

    Gottman and others are trying to understand why as many as one in two marriages end in divorce, and why so many couples seem to fall out of love and break apart.

    Some of the most revealing answers, it turns out, come from the couples who stay together.

    While conventional wisdom holds that conflicts in a relationship slowly erode the bonds that hold partners together, couples who are happy in the long term turn out to have plenty of conflicts, too. Fights and disagreements are apparently intrinsic to all relationships--couples who stay together over the long haul are those who don't let the fighting contaminate the other parts of the relationship, experts say.

    Why do people get married in the first place? asked Thomas Bradbury, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles. To have someone to listen to--to have a friend, to share life's ups and downs. We want to try to draw attention to what's valuable in their relationship.

    Researchers are finding that it is those other parts of relationships--the positive factors--that are potent predictors of whether couples feel committed to relationships, and whether they weather storms and stick together. As long as those factors are intact, conflicts don't drive people apart.

    What we've discovered is surprising and contrary to what most people think, said Gottman, the author of The Mathematics of Marriage. Most books say it's important for couples to fight fair - but 69 percent of all marital conflicts never get resolved because they are about personality differences between couples. What's critical is not whether they resolve conflicts but whether they can cope with them.

    Every couple has irreconcilable differences, agreed Diane Sollee, the founder of www.smartmarriages.com , a Web site devoted to teaching couples the skills to improve their relationships. She explained that such differences ought to be managed, instead of being grounds for separations, split-ups and divorce.

    Almost 90 percent of Americans marry at some point in their lives. An overwhelming number of those who get divorced marry a second time, meaning that although they may have lost faith in a partner, they have not lost faith in the promise of the institution. At the same time, changing social mores and expectations have placed stresses on long-term relationships. Two-income couples juggle demanding jobs, and professional advancement can sometimes detract from family and intimate relationships.

    Simultaneously, the rising number of women in the work force has given women the economic security to leave unhappy relationships, the sexual revolution has made sex before and outside marriage common, and the destigmatization of divorce has contributed to the phenomenon of serial monogamy.

    Despite these pressures and temptations, most Americans still seek lifelong soul mates--and expectations from love and marriages have never been higher.

    The juxtaposition of high expectations with the stress and cycles of relationships appears to be an important reason why many relationships don't work, said Ted Huston, a professor of human ecology and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who tracked 168 couples over 13 and a half years

    Huston found that changes in the first two years of marriage often predicted the outcome of relationships. Almost half of divorces occur within the first seven years of marriage, according to national census data, and many of these early exiters report a decline in bliss right after marriage.

    When you look at them as newly-weds, they look like they are mutually enchanted and deeply in love and a prototype of your perfectly wed couple--they hug, kiss, say 'I love you' all the time, he said. Two years later - they've lost a lot of that romance. They think, 'We once had this great romance, and now we don't.'

    People have this fairly unrealistic idea: 'I have got to have bliss and it's got to stay or this is not going to work,' he said. at some level, you don't need the bliss. The Hollywood romance may not be the prelude to a long-term happy marriage.

    Couples who were happy over the long term reported being content at the start of relationships and still content two years later. Some of these couples told Huston, 'I wasn't sure I was in love because I didn't have the tingly feelings you are supposed to have,' he said. They worried their feelings were positive but not intense.

    一個(gè)多世紀(jì)以前，俄國(guó)小說(shuō)家列夫·托爾斯泰寫道，幸福的家庭都是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。

    這句話已成為不朽的名言，《安娜·卡列尼娜》的不幸遭遇則被認(rèn)為是有史以來(lái)寫得最好的一部小說(shuō)之一。可是最近，心理學(xué)家和社會(huì)學(xué)家卻開始質(zhì)疑這一評(píng)價(jià)。

    我認(rèn)為托爾斯泰完全錯(cuò)了，位于西雅圖市華盛頓大學(xué)的心理學(xué)教授John Gottman說(shuō)道。不幸的家庭其實(shí)是彼此相似的，而幸福的家庭才各不相同。

    Gottman等人試圖弄懂為何多達(dá)一半的婚姻都以離婚而告終以及為何如此多的夫妻不再相愛(ài)，彼此分開。

    研究表明一些最能說(shuō)明問(wèn)題的答案恰恰來(lái)自那些長(zhǎng)相廝守的夫妻。

    一般人都認(rèn)為婚姻關(guān)系中的矛盾會(huì)慢慢侵蝕夫妻間的紐帶，但是調(diào)查卻表明其實(shí)那些長(zhǎng)相廝守的快樂(lè)夫妻也存在著這樣和那樣的矛盾。顯然，爭(zhēng)斗和鬧意見(jiàn)存在于所有的婚姻關(guān)系中——專家認(rèn)為那些長(zhǎng)相廝守的夫妻只是沒(méi)有讓這些爭(zhēng)斗波及影響到婚姻關(guān)系的其它方面。

    人們結(jié)婚最主要是為了什么？位于洛杉磯加州大學(xué)的心理學(xué)教授Thomas Bradbury問(wèn)道。是為了找一個(gè)說(shuō)話的人？是找一個(gè)朋友，來(lái)共同走過(guò)充滿歡樂(lè)與痛苦的坎坷的人生道路。我們?cè)噲D要人們注意他們關(guān)系中有價(jià)值的一些方面。

    研究者們發(fā)現(xiàn)正是婚姻關(guān)系中的這些其它方面——積極的因素——能有效地用來(lái)預(yù)測(cè)配偶們是否會(huì)忠誠(chéng)于他們的婚姻，是否能共渡難關(guān)，攜手走過(guò)人生道路。只要這些積極的因素完好無(wú)損，矛盾就不會(huì)導(dǎo)致夫妻離婚。

    我們的發(fā)現(xiàn)與大多數(shù)人的想法相反，令人驚訝，《婚姻數(shù)學(xué)》一書的作者Gottman說(shuō)道。大多數(shù)書都說(shuō)重要的是夫妻間的矛盾要公平解決，然而69% 的婚姻矛盾因?yàn)榉蚱扌愿竦牟町愒斐桑�永遠(yuǎn)都無(wú)法解決。所以關(guān)鍵不是看他們能否解決這些矛盾，而是看他們能否處理好它們。

    每一對(duì)夫妻之間都存在著不可調(diào)和的差異， Diane Sollee同意這一觀點(diǎn)說(shuō)道。她是www.smartmarriages.com網(wǎng)站的創(chuàng)立者，該網(wǎng)站致力于教授夫妻們學(xué)會(huì)改善他們關(guān)系的技巧。她解釋說(shuō)對(duì)這些差異應(yīng)該 管理，而不是用來(lái)作為分居、斷絕關(guān)系乃至離婚的理由。

    幾乎有90%的美國(guó)人在他們?nèi)松�的某個(gè)階段都會(huì)結(jié)婚。在那些離了婚的人中，絕大多數(shù)又會(huì)再次結(jié)婚，這意味著盡管他們可能對(duì)某個(gè)配偶失去了信心，但他們對(duì)婚姻習(xí)俗的美好希望卻沒(méi)有喪失信心。與此同時(shí)，變化的社會(huì)習(xí)俗和人們對(duì)婚姻的期望值也在使人們開始重視長(zhǎng)期的婚姻關(guān)系。雙收入的夫妻面對(duì)高要求的工作，努力做到兩邊兼顧，而精力過(guò)多的用于事業(yè)的發(fā)展有時(shí)會(huì)影響人們對(duì)于家庭和夫妻親密關(guān)系的關(guān)注。

    同時(shí)，越來(lái)越多的婦女加入到就業(yè)大軍中，這使她們?cè)诮Y(jié)束不幸婚姻之后有了可靠的經(jīng)濟(jì)保障，性的革命使得婚前和婚外性行為變得普遍，而隨著離婚漸為人們所接受，是造成連續(xù)的離婚再結(jié)婚現(xiàn)象的部分原因。

    但是，盡管存在著這些壓力和誘惑，大多數(shù)美國(guó)人仍然追求終生的心靈伴侶，并且人們對(duì)愛(ài)情和婚姻的期望值則達(dá)到歷史最高。

    高期望值和婚姻關(guān)系中壓力和周期循環(huán)的并存似乎是很多婚姻失敗的一個(gè)重要原因，位于奧斯汀德州大學(xué)的人類生態(tài)學(xué)和心理學(xué)教授Ted Huston說(shuō)道。他對(duì)168對(duì)夫妻進(jìn)行了為期13年半的跟蹤調(diào)查。

    Huston發(fā)現(xiàn)婚后最初兩年的變化常常能夠預(yù)言婚姻關(guān)系的最后結(jié)果。全國(guó)人口普查數(shù)據(jù)表明，近一半的離婚發(fā)生在婚后的最初7年中，而這些早退者中又有很多說(shuō)在婚后不久對(duì)婚姻的幸福感就有所降低。

    觀察一下新婚燕爾的夫婦生活，他們顯得彼此迷戀，深陷情網(wǎng)，似乎是完美的結(jié)合-他們擁抱，親吻， '我愛(ài)你 '不離口，他說(shuō)。但是兩年以后他們就已經(jīng)失去了很多這種浪漫。他們?cè)谙耄?我們?cè)��?jīng)擁有浪漫，而現(xiàn)在卻沒(méi)有了。'

    人們有著這樣一種很不切實(shí)際的想法：'我必須得有幸福感，而且得一直有，否則我的婚姻就是不行的，' 他說(shuō)。其實(shí)在某些層次，你并不需要這種幸福感。好萊塢似的浪漫并不一定是長(zhǎng)期、幸福的婚姻的序幕。

    那些長(zhǎng)相斯守的快樂(lè)夫妻在關(guān)系初建時(shí)就有一種滿足感，而兩年后也仍然彼此滿意。他們中的一些人告訴Huston，我并不能肯定我戀愛(ài)了，因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)我并沒(méi)有那種戀愛(ài)中似乎應(yīng)該擁有的觸電的感覺(jué)，' 他說(shuō)。他們當(dāng)初還擔(dān)心，盡管他們的感情是積極的，但似乎來(lái)得不夠強(qiáng)烈呢。