The sad fact is, every single relationship before you find “The One” inevitably ends in a breakup — and sometimes even the life you planned with Mr. Right gets cut short and doesn’t really work out. That’s not to say that true love doesn’t exist and isn’t worth striving for, just that it’s hard to make it last forever, no matter how badly you want it. It’s not all bad news, of course, and while society would have you believe that all marriages end in divorce and that long-lasting love is all but impossible, that’s not actually the case. In fact, a new study out of Stanford University on proves just the opposite, thank God.
Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld began his study of over 3,000 people back in 2009 in order to answer two important questions: How often do people break up, and how much does that number change the longer a couple is together? The results are heartening, if not slightly unsurprising: the more time you spend with your partner, the more likely you are to stick it out for the long haul.
This generally applied to both straight and lesbian/gay couples, regardless of whether or not they were married, though those who were married were slightly more likely to stay together than their unmarried counterparts for obvious reasons (divorce is expensive as hell, for one thing). Here’s how the statistics break down:
This might not seem like a big deal if you’re currently single, but if anything, it should renew your hope of finding the right person to spend your life with. Once you find each other and start creating a life together, work at it, and it just might last forever.
