I am so happy and psyched for my Love Mentoring student, Midge Woolsey, who was my on-air PBS Pledge Show host!  She just married an awesome guy!  And our mentoring journey together is beautifully described in the Sunday, August 8th  New York Times article on page 12 of the Sunday Style section!  Read all about it here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/fashion/weddings/08woolsey.html?_r=1

I teared up when I read the story.  Finding lasting and true love is the best!!!  And the research on good marriages show that it is!  In comparison studies with singles, divorced or widowed, women in good marriages results showed that they had:

• the least amount of atherosclerosis in their arteries and lived much longer if they did have heart disease[i].
• fewer doctor visits[ii]
• lower blood pressure than singles or women in unhappy marriages[iii].
• fewer headaches and back pain[iv].
• Better immune systems and healed twice as fast from flesh wounds compared to marrieds who demonstrated hostility toward each other[v].

Two final brain studies show some of the more amazing benefits of a high-quality relationship. In the first, neuroscientists did fMRI scans of married women while they received a very mild electric shock. They were put in three groups: having their hands held by their husbands; by a stranger; and by no one at all. Quality of marriage determined the women’s brain responses to the threat with the strongest decrease in brain activity occurring with those who reported the highest marital satisfaction. It was as if they had taken a tranquilizer[vi].  In another fMRI study, men and women in long-term healthy marriages showed activation in the areas of the brain associated with dopamine, that is, the passion centers, as if they were newlyweds. But not only were they madly in love their scans showed another bonus: less anxiety than newlyweds[vii].

In case you haven’t heard– I just started a highly personalized Love Mentor™ coaching service. Now you can have coaching from a trained Love Mentor who is in a committed lasting love relationship (so they walk the talk). Each one has a long background in transformational work and is closely supervised by me.  Most importantly, each Mentor is gifted and can help you move forward to the love relationship you really want!

The best news is, right now, as we kick off the Love Mentor™ Coaching we can give you an introductory 40 minute one-on-one personalized session by phone or Skype for FREE.  No strings attached.  Just Click Here or go to  www.lovein90days.com/contact/ to get your own personal FREE session by phone or Skype ASAP, because the time slots are filling up very fast.

And don’t forget to get my FREE ongoing support: You can learn EXACTLY how to Find, Attract and Date terrific guys and create Lasting Love that is just right for you by subscribing to my Dating Tips & Relationship Advice Newsletter, absolutely FREE!  Click Here to get started now.

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D.

♥ Relationship advice from my heart to yours ♥

www.lovein90days.com

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & best-selling author of “Love in 90 Days” (dating advice book)” out now in paperback (at Amazon) with a new chapter on “Dating Games Men Play.” Love in 90 Days was the basis of her PBS Special on love. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE relationship & dating advice newsletter.

[i] See Review by Patti Howell, (2009). Healthy Marriages, Healthy Women & Girls available at www.camarriage.com/research/

[ii] See R. G. Wood, B. Goesling & S. Avellar (2007) The Effects of Marriage on Health: A Synthesis of Recent Research Evidence.  This is a review of 70 studies. Available at http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/marriagehealth.pdf

[iii] J. Holt-Lunstad, W. Birmingham, & B. Q. Jones (2008). “Is there something unique about marriage? The relative impact of marital status, relationship quality, and network support on ambulatory blood pressure and mental health.” Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 35, 239-244.

[iv] Center for Disease Control study of 128,000 adults. “Marital Status and Health: 1999-2002.” Available at cdc.org

[v] Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD; Timothy J. Loving, PhD; Jeffrey R. Stowell, PhD; William B. Malarkey, MD; Stanley Lemeshow, PhD; Stephanie L. Dickinson, MAS; Ronald Glaser, PhD (2005). “Hostile Marital Interactions, Proinflammatory Cytokine Production, and Wound Healing,” Arch Gen Psychiatry. 62, 1377-1384.

[vi] J. A. Coan et al (2006). Lending a hand: Social Regulation of the neural response to threat. Psychological Science, 17, 1032-1039.

[vii] B.P. Acevedo , A. Aron, H. Fisher, & L.L. Brown  (November 16, 2008).“Neural correlates of long-term pair-bonding in a sample of intensely in-love humans.”  Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience.

Research done in the 1970s claimed that married women were more depressed than single women or married men. Is that still true today?  The short answer is, no.

In 2007, using data from the largest national studies ever done[i] researchers found that marriage reduces the blues in both men and women. Here’s the skinny:

1. In studies of those continuously married versus, those single or living together, researchers found that entry into marriage significantly reduces depressive symptoms in women (and men).
2. Those who were single and stable reported increases in depression over a five-year period while the married women did not.
3. Depression doesn’t seem to be a factor in who gets married. In other words, the problem of self-selection in experimental designs doesn’t appear to screw up the results.
4. In short, we now know that a stable marriage helps women ward off the blues. Other studies[ii] show that when we look at overall mental health, married women are emotionally healthier than singles.

What about the argument that marriage is better for men than it is for women?  We know that married men are far better off than single men.  Granted, men may benefit from marriage even more than women, but those differences can be accounted for by the nature of male single life: the bachelor tends to have more unhealthy habits and is less likely to have emotional social support than the bachelorette.  So when he marries, he steps up to a much healthier lifestyle.

Single women on the other hand, are not significantly different in their lifestyles than their married counterparts.  So where do married women suffer relative to singles?  In two areas: when they are in bad marriages or when they have kids.  It’s as simple as that.  Women in bad marriages report having trouble sleeping, not feeling OK and being more stressed than gals who say they are in a satisfying marriage. This is true even when studies controlled for being prone to depression or having kids. In other words a good marriage may contribute a lot more to a woman’s well-being than we previously thought. More on this later.

As to having kids, women with young kids have more stress than women without kids. Duh!  Oh, and they feel they have no time for themselves, for self-caretaking, so they report more stress.  Duh, duh!

If you’re looking to have kids, be prepared for a heck of a lot more responsibility and a more stressful life than being single without kids.  If you are married and one of those lucky few who have a house husband, you’ll have more responsibility outside the home and have the privilege of feeling guilty about being a “bad mom.”  There’s no winning here ladies—stress comes along with young kids and teenagers.  Of course, if you’re a single mother with kids, countless studies have shown that your stress level is much higher than marrieds with kids or singles with no kids.

Nonetheless, here’s the bottom line: Contrary to myth, a stable marriage tends to be emotionally uplifting for women. It reduces depression and improves overall mental health. Does it help men even more? Yeah, but what woman didn’t know that?

So stay tuned for more on this Dating Advice for Women Series!

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

Dr. Diana Kirschner ♥ Relationship advice from my heart to yours ♥

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & best-selling author of “Love in 90 Days” (dating advice book)” out now in paperback (at Amazon) with a new chapter on “Dating Games Men Play.” Love in 90 Days was the basis of her PBS Special on love. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE relationship & dating advice newsletter.

[i] See R. G. Wood, B. Goesling & S. Avellar (2007) The Effects of Marriage on Health: A Synthesis of Recent Research Evidence.  This is a meta-analysis of 70 studies. Available at http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/marriagehealth.pdf

[ii] For a list of references contact the author.

So let’s say you’ve been following  my Dating Advice for Women, had “The Talk” and worked through the usual ups and downs of the commitment process. You’ve even gone so far that marriage looks like the next step and he’s willing, if not eager, to go for it.

But wait, as they say, there’s more! Is getting married in the 21^st century such a great idea for women?  My many friends (especially women) from around the world on www.youtube.com/lovein90days/ are constantly posting comments like “marriage is dying,” and that living together is “so much better.”  And there has been a global sea change where now more people are living together than are married. Plus, some studies have shown that singles with strong social support are basically as happy as married women in good marriages[i].

Then there are the skeptics who claim that marriage is a bad deal for women today.  For example, in her recent bestseller[ii], Elizabeth Gilbert quotes research which shows that married women are less successful, more depressed, less healthy and more likely to die a violent death than single women.  Citing what she calls the “Marriage Benefit Imbalance” Gilbert points out that, while women fare poorly, men actually benefit physically and psychologically from marriage.   Nonetheless, she winds up, like many other women, getting married herself by the end of her book.  Hmm.

In response to this controversy I decided to write a blog series in this Dating Advice for Women section of the website where I  look at the hundreds of studies conducted around the world on the impact of marriage on women’s mental health, longevity, lifestyle and marital satisfaction.   We’ll look at these areas one by one and see what the latest research shows.  Here’s a secret I learned when I got my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology: To find more of the whole truth, don’t rely on one study or one author’s work, especially if there are others that contradict it. So while I admire Gilbert as a writer I have to say I’m disappointed that she relied on the work of one sociologist who did her research way back in the 1970s.

The “Marriage Benefit Imbalance” was first popularized in 1982 by Jessie Bernard in her book, The Future of Marriage[iii]. This work created a lasting myth that women do not benefit from marriage.  Bernard argued that there are two marriages: his and hers. She tried to prove this by showing: that women were unpaid for their parenting and domestic responsibilities and as housewives were not as valued as men are for their work outside the home; that men, by controlling the finances had power over women in marriage; and that married men lived longer than single men. Bernard also claimed that married women, on the other hand, did not live longer than single gals. In her comparison studies, she also said that married men reported they were happier than single men but also that they were happier than married women.

And the list of the supposedly toxic effects of marriage continued. Bernard claimed that more women than men are unhappy in marriage, so unhappy that they are depressed and have poorer mental health than single women. In short, Bernard believed that marriage was a good deal for men and not so kind to women.

Well, a lot has changed since the 70s.  Marriage is no longer the hallowed institution it once was.  Greater numbers of unmarried couples are living together; the age at first marriage is higher; more women are participating in higher education; have better paying jobs and brighter career opportunities; and greater numbers of women are choosing to become single mothers, either through adoption or insemination with donor sperm. Women are more independent all the way around.  So they need marriage less.  And yet, despite all of these advances, many women still want to get married.

Let’s face it: we all would agree that nothing is worse than an abusive marriage and that for many women single life works just fine, thank you.  But I think it’s worth understanding if marriage really is a bad deal for women and what marriage can and can’t do for you.

So stay tuned for this Dating Advice for Women Series!

And don’t forget  to get  my FREE ongoing support: You can learn EXACTLY how to Find,  Attract and Date terrific guys and create Lasting Love that is just right for you by subscribing to my Dating Tips & Relationship Advice Newsletter, absolutely free! Just Click Here to get started now.

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

Dr. Diana Kirschner ♥ Relationship advice from my heart to yours ♥

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & best-selling author of “Love in 90 Days” (dating advice book)” out now in paperback (at Amazon) with a new chapter on “Dating Games Men Play.” Love in 90 Days was the basis of her PBS Special on love. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE relationship & dating advice newsletter.

[i] Contact author for references

[ii] E. Gilbert (2010). Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage,

[iii] J. Bernard (1982). The Future of Marriage.

Recently a research study on newly married couples done by the University of Iowa showed that providing too much support in the form of advice, emotional comfort, confidence-boosting and financial/material help is associated with less marital satisfaction. 

Of course, as we would expect, too little support was also associated with marital unhappiness.  

The bottom line for marital harmony is this: the giving of support has to be in line with what your partner actually wants and asks for!  Too much advice and too little building up of self esteem were the most problematic for men.  Too much advice, too much emotional support or the other extreme–too little advice–were most difficult for women.

So to create a great love relationship, think it through, speak your truth and ask for exactly the support you need from your partner.  And only that amount of support.

And read your partner’s signals.  Don’t just ignore him/her or simply keep overgiving.  Pay attention. Ask your Beloved to be clear about exactly the quantity and quality of support and encouragement they really need.