As Canadians continue to live longer, they can expect to spend more years with their life partners, whatever old age brings, wrote The Globe and Mail May 7:

In fact, the research suggests that, while there’s no guarantee that sticking it out will lead to happiness, good marriages often get better later in life.

“They were like honeymooners, some of them,” says Rachel Aber-Schlesinger, a professor of social science in York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, who with her husband, Ben Schlesinger, recently studied 20 couples who had been married at least 45 years by intensively interviewing the husbands and wives separately.

What the happy couples said: Keep busy, maintain a strong social circle, invest energy in your grandkids. The couples reported working hard at their marriages, but not trying to change their partners. They had fun – “these were not dour people,” Aber-Schlesinger says. And they still made plans, even into their 90s. “They didn’t only look back, they also planned ahead.”

The complete article is available on The Globe's Web site.

Republished courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.