In a 2012 project published by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, authors Ashley Spangler and Krista K Payne took previous studies suggesting that the seven-year itch was a common factor in divorce and compared them to up-to-date data on marriage duration from the American Community Survey (ACS).
SEVEN YEAR ITCH IN MARRIAGE FULL
Which seems to corroborate those seven-year itch rumours.īut that’s not the full story. While Lavner and Bradbury, 2010 (2) found that “most married couples experience a decline in marital quality after the first years of marriage, with tensions tending to culminate near the seventh year of marriage”. One article published in 2014 by Duke University Press (1) found that the risk increases up to the end of the fifth year of marriage, peaking at a maximum risk period followed by a decline over the next five years and beyond. Most studies show, unsurprisingly, that the risk of separation is low during the first months of being a married couple. There have been plenty of studies in the last decade or so that have looked at exactly this, setting out to compare length of time together with the risk of divorce. For whatever reason, married life becomes less shiny and divorce rates are rumoured to peak.īut is there any truth behind this seven-year itch? Is it related to a biological urge - something genetic leftover from our forefathers, ensuring maximum procreation during our lifetime? Does it stem from a modern life where we're often easily bored and distracted? Or is it just a random line drawn in the sand? Is the seven-year itch a myth? Perhaps more likely to resort to infidelity. Anecdotally, it’s said we’re more likely to go our separate ways around this time. Everything begins to feel a little bit mundane or routine. The seven-year itch is the idea that after seven years in a relationship, whether that’s as a married couple or cohabitees, we start to become restless. But just how much truth is in them? And what can we do to itch-proof our own long-term relationships to make sure we don’t just become yet another statistic? What is the seven-year itch? The ‘honeymoon phase’, the ‘terrible twos’, the ‘seven-year itch’… the ‘12-year itch’?įrom films to books to real-life anecdotes, these are common phrases that have entered our psyche.
It's easy for relationships to become a little stagnant if we don't put the work in and make an effort to keep them fresh over the longer term.The seven-year itch is said to be the amount of time, on average, that relationships or marriages last but in actual fact, science suggests it may be more like 12 years.Have you heard of the honeymoon period? The seven-year itch? The 12-year itch?.
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