Find out the secret behind happy marriages

A new research how now found that married couple who manage to stay together for 20 years reported greater levels of happiness.

These couples said that after two decades they felt happier and spent more time together doing shared activities.

The new research dispels myths that couples slide into a downward spiral after the initial honeymoon period of their relationship.

According to Paul Amato and Spencer James, the two men behind the study, despite high divorce rates the outlook for marriages which last a lifetime remains positive.

They were talking to Sunday Times.

Levels of appreciation, closeness and contentment are also likely to increase after a significant amount of time together. 

Furthermore, Harry Benson, research director at the Marriage Foundation, said, 'In fiction, all of us have seen couples sitting in stony silence in restaurants, resigned to what looks like a dry and lifeless marriage. It's a depressing and misleading stereotype that sitcoms like to portray. And until now researchers have generally agreed that marriages start well but thereafter drift into terminal decline. Only it's a complete myth.”

Amato and James, from Pennsylvania State and Brigham Young Universities, looked at 20 years of data which observed 2,034 married people.

When the study, Changes in Spousal Relationships over the Marital Life Course, started a fifth had been married for less than five years, a fifth for more than 15 years and most from five to ten years.  

Some couple's graphs were pointing in a negative direction from the start if they were heading for divorce and showed signs of quarrels, hurt feelings, jealously and cheating.

However those who were able to move past this stage developed a durability where they could move use their positive traits to settle arguments.