What Is Normal in a Marriage?

Should we count on our nose to find us lasting love?

Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key points

• What a person smells can influence what they see in terms of their partner's attractiveness.
• If someone finds a mate who has different strengths and weaknesses, their child is likely to be stronger.
• It is possible that a person's relationship was written into their pheromones and genetic code.
• The more familiar one becomes with a person, song, advertisement, or food, the more one likes it. 

Marriage is weird. Two fully independent people meet, stumble into like, fall in love, and agree to split tasks and triumph unequally for the rest of their lives together.

What other abnormal normalcy has marriage taught us?

1. We are more attracted to partners whose natural smell is different than our own.

A 2021 study by Charles Spence found that what you smell can influence what you see in terms of your partner's attractiveness. Participants exposed to pleasing odors tend to rate faces as more attractive.

Even more interesting, the relationship between body odor and romantic attraction is heavily related to your and your partner's genetic makeup: Research shows that we are more attracted to partners whose genetics are different from our own.

Why does this matter?

Our genetic makeup gives us our human superpowers, such as immunity against diseases and other inherited strengths and weaknesses.

If we mate with someone who has all the same strengths and weaknesses as we do, we have simply reproduced a carbon copy of ourselves—for better or for worse. Maybe you end up with a child who is really great at math but also really terribly allergic to bees.

But if you find a mate whose strengths and weaknesses are quite different than yours, your child is likely to be stronger and more diverse because of the variety of genetic components.

Since nature likes to mess with our minds a bit, it is possible that your relationship was written into your pheromones and genetic code at first sight—er, sniff.

This same study also found that couples who prefer the same scents may have higher relationship satisfaction.

Is it possible that the right air freshener can improve your marriage? If the scent you both respond positively to is one you both like, then it seems worth a try!

2. The secret to lasting love may be repeated exposure.

You know that song that you're not a fan of at first, but it slowly seeps into your subconscious, and after a while, you can't get enough of it?

Love can be like that, too, according to psychologist Robert Zajonc's "Mere Exposure Theory." Simply put, the more familiar you become with a person, song, advertisement, or food, the more you like it.

This is a protective, adaptive response to your environment in that familiar people and surroundings become more predictable and appear safer. Therefore, we are more likely to feel good around these people, places, and things we feel comfortable with.

Including our spouse.

3. The longer you have known each other, the less you know each other.

On February 13, 2018, researcher Robert Waldinger had couples watch videos of themselves arguing and had each partner guess what the other one was thinking during this argument.

Think of it as a "guess what your partner will say next" scenario. Surprisingly, the longer a couple knows each other, the more they think they know about each other—and the less they actually know about each other.

It's easy to get caught up in the idea that you know your partner better than anyone—and many of us do. But do you know your partner as who they were at 25, when you first met them, or do you know them at 45, the age they are now?

Always remember to be curious about your partner as they grow and change. You will no doubt be doing the same growing and changing as they are as the years pass, and you both deserve the credit for the person you have become.

4. How much we think our spouse is committed to us determines our happiness.

A 2020 study by Samantha Joel et al. asked 12,000 couples how satisfied and committed they feel their partners are in their relationship and how much they feel appreciated by their partner.

Results determined that the greatest predictor of a happy marriage (weighing in at 45 percent of the determination of how an individual felt about their marital satisfaction) is the belief that our partner is committed and invested in us and in the marriage itself.

Even slight feelings of asymmetrical commitment (where one partner feels more committed than the other) can predict unhappiness in a marriage.

5. Two-thirds of couples have doubts before their wedding day—and that's OK.

If you are having doubts before saying I do, it's perfectly fine. Two-thirds of couples have doubts before their wedding day, according to the Gottmans, and unfortunately, these doubts can be indicative of future relationship satisfaction.

But not in the way you would imagine.

It's not having doubts in the short term that matters; it's whether you address the doubts that concern you with your partner that is indicative of longer-term marital success.

Put simply, don't be afraid to speak up and share your concerns with your partner. It has the potential to help you feel less alone—and more connected to your partner.

In Conclusion

Life, love, and marriage are full of the strange, weird, and unexpected. Go easy on yourself and your marriage. And don't forget to appreciate the weirdness in all of us.