科学也能教你如何"快乐厮守到老"

As Daniel Jones, author of Love Illuminated, explains: we spend our youth asking "How do I find love?" and midlife asking "How do I get it back?"
《启蒙的爱》的作者丹尼尔·琼斯（Daniel Jones）说：“年轻的时候，我们总是在问‘我怎样才能找到真爱’？到了中年，我们又会问‘我怎样才能找回爱’？”

Anyone in a relationship or who plans on being in one needs to know how to keep love alive over the long term. But how do you learn the secret to this? Everyone is happy to explain "how they met" but few give the details on "how they stayed together."
恋爱中或者准备恋爱的人需要了解怎样才能让爱长期保持鲜活。但你又怎么知道其中的奥妙呢？人人都乐于讲述“和爱人相遇的过程”，但却几乎没人会细致地描述“两人是怎样在一起”的。

So let's look at what science has to say.
那么我们来看看科学的解释。

"Happily ever after" ain't easy
“快乐厮守到老”并非易事

Aside from being the epitome of lazy writing, "happily ever after" is not simple.
除非是随口说说，否则“快乐厮守到老”并不容易。

Ty Tashiro explains that couples in their first year of mrriages score 86 percent for marriage satisfaction. By the seventh year, it's under 50 percent.
泰·田代（Ty Tashiro）解释说，夫妻在结婚的第一年对婚姻的满意度是86%。而到了第七年，满意度便不超过50%。

Yes, about 50 percent of couples get divorced. Another 10-15 percent separate but do not file paperwork. And 7 more percent are chronically unhappy.
的确如此，有半数的夫妻最终都以离婚收场。另有10%—15%的夫妻会采取分居的方式，但却不愿意签署离婚协议。而有7%的夫妻长期过着不幸福的生活。

So the real stat is two-thirds of marriages do not live "happily ever after."
因此，真实的情况是有三分之二的婚姻都不会“快乐到老”。

The divorce rate often reported by the media is 50 percent, which is based on Census Bureau data. However, census data does not capture the 10 to 15 percent of couples who permanently separate but do not file formal paperwork for a legal divorce. This means that a conservative estimate of the divorce and permanent separation rate is 60 percent. Add the additional 7 percent of chronically unhappy couples who do not divorce or permanently separate but are consistently unhappy in their marriage, and this means that two-thirds of all married couples do not live happily ever after.
根据人口统计局的数据，媒体经常报道的离婚率是50%。但事实上，统计局的数据并没有将分居而始终因未签署正式的协议而合法离婚的10%—15%计算在内。这就意味着，保守来讲，离婚及永久分居率是60%。而额外7%的夫妻既没有离婚，也没有长期分居，而是长期处于不幸福状态。也就是说，有三分之二的夫妻都没有快乐地生活到老。

Why is marriage so hard over the long term?
为什么想要长久地维持婚姻如此之难？

One of the main reasons is what science calls it "habituation." Which is a fancy way of saying we get bored.
原因之一就是科学家所谓的“习惯化”。也就是我们常说的“对彼此感到疲倦了”。

Early on, when a couple can finish each other's sentences it's romantic. But over time "predictable" is a huge negative.
从前，如果一个人能够说出伴侣没说完的话，那便是一件浪漫的事。但随着时间的推移，这种“预测”变成了极大的否定。

Chris Rock gets the point across humorously in this video (NSFW):
基思·洛克（Chris Rock）诙谐地在他的节目中解释了这一点。

Robert Greene, author of The Art of Seduction, explains that surprise is key to romantic feelings:
《诱惑的艺术》一书的作者罗伯特·格林（Robert Greene）说，惊喜是制造浪漫的关键。

Seduction involves a degree of surprise, which is generally the first thing that disappears after you've been in a relationship, and why there's no more seducing that goes on. Everything is familiar and you're no longer surprised by the other person. [The Art of Seduction]
诱惑也含有惊喜的味道，通常情况下，这是恋爱后第一个消失的东西，也是不会再有诱惑的感觉的原因。一切都变得如此熟悉，你也再不会从对方那里得到惊喜。

So is there any way to bring those tingles back?
那么是否有办法可以找回那些东西呢？

Yes. Here's how.
是的，这样做。

What you can learn from arranged marriages
从包办婚姻中学到的东西

"Arranged marriage! AGH! Weird!"
“包办婚姻！真是不可理喻！”

Hold on a sec. We can learn something here. What do researchers find when they compare at 50 arranged marriages and 50 "love" marriages?
等一下。我们可以从中学到些什么。研究人员对比了50对包办婚姻的夫妻和50对自由恋爱的夫妻，那么他们有什么发现呢？

Love marriages start out happier — but that declines quickly.
自由恋爱的婚姻在开始的时候都是快乐的——但是这种快乐很快就会过去。

Arranged marriages start out less happy, but after 10 years, they're happier than love marriages. And stay that way.
包办婚姻的夫妻开始的时候不是很幸福，但十年以后，他们会比自由恋爱的夫妻还要快乐，并会一直持续这种状态。

The couples who had married for love and been together less than a year averaged a score of 70 points out of a possible 91 on the love scale, but these numbers steadily fell over time. The love couples who had been married ten years or longer had an average score of only 40 points. In contrast, the couples in arranged marriages were less in love at the outset, averaging 58 points, but their feelings increased over time to an average score of 68 at the ten or more years mark.
因爱情结婚，在一起不到一年时间的夫妻平均得分是70分，但这些数据会逐年递减。那些以爱之名结婚，并在一起十年甚至更久的夫妻得到40分。相比之下，包办婚姻的比例在起初时间里较少，平均58分，但他们之间的感情随着时间逐渐变浓，十年或超过十年之时，平均得到68分。

What's the secret behind the long term success of arranged marriages?
从长远看，包办婚姻之所以能够成功的秘诀又是什么呢？

They have to work at it.
他们需要经营婚姻。

They don't passively rely on "magic" and intense emotion. They have to spend a lot of time thinking about how to make it work.
他们不会被动地相信“奇迹”或者激情。他们需要花费很长时间思考怎么样让自己的婚姻持续下去。

That process of discovery is ostensibly the fun of courtship, too, except that in arranged marriage the goal is to figure out how to be married, not whether to marry.
发现其中奥妙的过程从表面上看也是一种求爱的过程。除了在包办婚姻中，主要的目的是弄清楚怎样经营婚姻，而不是要不要结婚。

Research shows expecting a fairy tale relationship is a prescription for disappointment.
研究显示对童话故事般恋爱的向往会导致失望。

Elements of fairy tales such as Cinderella were present in 78 percent of people's beliefs about romantic love. Those people were more likely to have experienced disillusionment, devastation, and angst in their relationships than were those who gave less credence to fairy tales.
有78%的人在树立恋爱的信仰中都会出现像灰姑娘这样的童话故事元素。这些人比不相信童话故事的人更容易在恋爱中经历醒悟、荒废以及焦虑。

Feeling like it's all magic means it's out of your control — and that without that initial magic, it's hopeless.
如果把爱情完全看成是奇迹，意味着它是不可控的——但如果起初就没有奇迹可言，那也就不抱希望了。

The happiness of arranged marriages means a couple can make magic if they try.
包办婚姻的幸福意味着夫妻二人可以努力去创造奇迹。

So you need to actively keep the marriage happy. How do you do that?
也就是说你需要积极地让婚姻保持鲜活。怎么做呢？

Don't fix the bad. Increase the good.
别去纠正缺陷，去创造美好。

Look at your spouse as something you purchased "as-is." Research shows trying to change themdoesn't work:
将你的伴侣视为“就是这样的人”。研究显示试着改变他们根本无济于事。

When participants focused their relationship improvement attempts on changing the partner, individuals reported more negative improvement strategies, lower improvement success, and, in turn, more negative relationship evaluations. Results suggest that targeting the partner may do more harm than good despite that relationship evaluations pivot on whether the partner produces change.
当参与者试着用改变对方的方法来增进感情时，每个人都表示这是种消极的方法，成功率很低。结果，这种消极的方法导致对方更容易做出伤害自己的事情，尽管评估报告是随着其中一方改变而改变的。

John Gottman, researcher and author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, says 69 percent of a couple's problems are perpetual. These problems don't go away yet many couples keep arguing about them year after year.
《婚姻七定律》的作者及研究人员约翰·高特曼（John Gottman）称，夫妻间69%的问题都是永久性的。这些问题不会消失，所以很多夫妻都会不停地为其争论下去。

Most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other's mind – but it can't be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. [The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work]
大多数夫妻间的争论都是没法解决。夫妻二人年复一年地试着改变对方的想法——但这是不可能的。这是因为大多数争论都植根于各自基本生活方式、人格或者价值观的不同。为这些不同之处争论不休，他们只能浪费各自的时间并伤害他们的婚姻。