Semi-Happy?

Are you semihappy or a workhorse wife? Five different kinds of modern marriage
From 'Avatar Affairs' to 'Ed McMahon Syndrome', author Pamela Haag reveals the unromantic reality behind so-called wedded bliss...
By TAMARA ABRAHAM I 6:15 PM on 6th June 2011 I dailymail.co.uk

Tamara Abraham said:

In Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting The Rules, author Pamela Haag outlines five different kinds of modern marriage, revealing how it is often security and children that keep a couple together, rather than love.

A large part of the book is dedicated to what she calls a semihappy marriage. She explained: 'A semihappy marriage lives in a shade of grey. It's not miserable at all, nor is it all that successful.

Ms Haag, a mother-of-one, explained that while children are often the one remaining reason for couples to marry and stay together, being a parent can overwhelm a marriage because children are so much more socially included these days. She writes: 'Parenthood is swallowing marriage... Children are at the center of a family now.

Ms Haag, a historian, based her research on a study of almost 2,000 people and even openly created online dating identities and personal ads with her husband for the book.

Her survey revealed startling findings. It showed that one third of married people say they wish they'd never married their spouses, and that as many as 65 per cent of wives and more than 85 per cent of husbands would have affairs if they knew they wouldn't be caught.

She told the Huffington Post that due to online dating sites and booming technological advances, trusting your spouse not to cheat has become more difficult.

'When we do get married, social media puts new stresses on monogamy - it’s easy to sign on to an online flirtation on Facebook or through email, and you can even use an online affair-finding site to find people to cheat with,' she said. 'If we do slip into infidelity, we could have what I call an "Avatar affair" where the "lovers" communicate online, but might never meet. It’s all smoke, no mirrors.'

For some couples she says the answer is to become a 'new monogamist' - her term for what is effectively an open marriage, or an 'Oreo Marriage' where the couple looks traditional from the outside yet might enjoy something untraditional, such as swinging, in private.

She told the Huffington Post: 'Many marriages are practising “Free Love Version 2.0,” in which spouses are actually trying to be honest and have decided that their marriage can tolerate some other attachments.'

 

Read more at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...-defines-different-kinds-modern-marriage.html

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