Zhang Ziyi and Wang Feng end their eight-year marriage. Does the "seven-year itch" really exist?

Wang Feng and Zhang Ziyi officially announced their divorce on Weibo. The two used the same picture and claimed that they would raise their child together as family. Although both of them will start a better life in the future, it is still regrettable.

Image source: Internet

The marriage crisis affects everyone equally, regardless of whether they are celebrities or not. According to the civil affairs statistics for the fourth quarter of 2022 released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of marriage registrations nationwide in 2022 was 6.833 million, but the number of divorces in the same year also reached 2.1 million pairs, which is about one-third of the total number of marriages.

Maintaining a marriage has become a common problem, and there may be some critical stages. Some people believe that the seventh year of marriage is the most prone to crisis, which is commonly known as the "seven-year itch". This time, many netizens also hotly discussed that Wang and Zhang only lasted a little longer than seven years. But in fact, the "seven-year itch" is not a golden rule, and the crisis in marriage comes earlier than we think.

When you enter marriage , you need to face the "four-year itch"

A psychology professor at Wright State University conducted a ten-year follow-up survey of 522 newlyweds, and only 92 couples completed the questionnaire for the ten-year period. The results showed that in the early stages of marriage, each couple had a high level of relationship quality. But in the fourth year, their marital satisfaction experienced a rather steep decline.

The professor explained that this change may be because at the beginning of the marriage, the higher quality of marriage makes us selectively ignore the minor flaws of the other party, such as throwing socks around or not closing the door. But as time goes by, our tolerance for each other begins to decrease, so those minor flaws become the driving force for us to dislike each other more and more.

Coincidentally, Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, studied global marriage and divorce data and found that among those divorced couples, most of them divorced in the fourth year of marriage. Fisher gave her own speculation from a biological perspective. She believes that most mammals will not stay with their spouses forever. They will separate after giving birth to offspring and raising them until they are four years old and have basic independent abilities. (It should be pointed out that this is a speculation by scientists, don't use it as a poor excuse for getting tired of the old and loving the new)

So, why do some people’s marriages fall apart after just a few years, while others can go all the way to silver, golden, and diamond wedding anniversaries and truly grow old together?

This may require us to manage our marriage well.

How to manage your marriage

When it comes to love and marriage, many young people first think of love, passion, surprises, etc. Few people think of management. Management includes planning and management, which means that marriage needs to be regarded as a long-term career, and it is necessary to make continuous efforts, give it new vitality, and eliminate various hidden dangers in time.

To manage a marriage successfully, it requires the joint efforts of both husband and wife. Its complexity is probably no less than running a small business. Due to limited space, we will only talk about the most important points.

The first thing is communication. The management of marriage cannot be separated from active and effective communication.

Some people may think that romance is only about candlelight dinners and little surprises, but in real life, romance is sparked by the connection between couples. Staying connected means communicating well.

Compared to going on vacation, communication between couples will make the marriage more stable and passionate.

There is a technique in psychology called "stress relief talk". For example, after work, get together with your family and talk about how you spent the day. This can help everyone deal with stress from outside of marriage life. This is very important for the long-term health of marriage and should be an important lesson for couples. Choose a time when both of you want to talk, but remember a basic principle: you can talk about anything except marriage. Why? Because talking about marriage itself does not relieve stress, but instead makes everyone fall into a tense mood.

At the same time, we also need to strengthen the bond between each other. Entering into marriage makes couples become a mutually dependent community, which is why the fear of being abandoned by the other party is so binding. The deeper this bond is, the stronger a person is in the face of temptation and the trade-off between the current marriage.

Image source: pexels

To enhance this dependence, couples should develop common goals and work hard for them. This can include developing common interests and hobbies, establishing annual family plans, sharing each other's lives and social circles, and achieving the greatest possible integration of both lives. But this common goal does not mean raising children together, and children cannot help couples resist the risks of marriage. Therefore, these goals and hobbies should come from the lives of both people and help each other to be closely connected with themselves.

Love is easy, but marriage is not. It is not like the finale in movies and TV shows that ends abruptly after reaching the climax. After the grand ceremony, we still need to face the test of reality and the trivial daily life. But when we have enough understanding of marriage, we can move forward with more confidence.

When faced with a marriage breakdown , which is more useful: anger or forgiveness?

Of course, ideals are always full, but reality is always skinny. In marriage life, emotional breakdown is not uncommon. If it is difficult to repair, a decent breakup can be a good way and a new beginning.

Like this time when Wang and Zhang broke up, there was a peaceful and relieved statement in the announcement. At least from the literal meaning, this attitude is very worth promoting.

On the contrary, many couples will hold grudges against each other after the relationship ends and find it difficult to let go. This feeling is understandable, but it is not a good thing for the parties involved. When encountering such a thing, perhaps what we should do is to fight for our rights financially, but choose to "let it go" psychologically.

Research by psychologists shows that perhaps "forgiveness" is more effective than "anger." A study recruited 20 people who had been hurt in their relationships, aged between 32 and 45, and had been divorced or permanently separated from their ex-partners for at least 2 years. The 20 people were divided into two groups, one group used anger strategies, and the other group used forgiveness strategies. The results showed that forgiveness therapy scored higher in self-esteem, anxiety, environmental control, finding meaning, changing from the old story (victim) to the new story (survivor), and improvement of post-traumatic stress disorder.

After the separation, the injured party has difficulty recovering for a long time after the relationship ends, largely because people still hold resentment for the unfair harm caused by the abuse. This resentment, as a temporary strategy, helps people get through the extreme experience of mental abuse, but it seriously hinders the recovery of trauma. In contrast, although the forgiveness strategy also supports victims to appropriately express anger at the abusive relationship and feel sad about the pain caused by the abuse, its ultimate goal is to help victims let go of resentment, thereby greatly easing people's inner conflicts and gradually making their inner selves stable and powerful.

Finally, it is natural for people to watch the show, but don't get too involved. Whether you are a celebrity or an ordinary person, everyone has their own troubles when it comes to marriage. If we understand our limitations and the real side of married life, communicate frequently, strengthen our ties, and try to move our marriage in a positive direction, we don't have to care about the so-called "X-year itch".

Planning and production

Author: Tang Yicheng, Master of Applied Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Level 3 Psychological Counselor

Reviewer: Yang Xiaoyang, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Sichuan Normal University

Planning丨Ding Zong

Editor: Bai Li