What Makes a Good Marriage?

The wife burning dinner or the husband sneaking out of the house on a Sunday to play golf? The difficulties newlyweds face are not as trivial as TV sitcoms would have us believe.

To find out how some couples make it through the first five years of marriage, when 40 percent of all divorces occur, Ronald Rogge, assistant professor of psychology, plans to follow 800 couples through the first four years of marriage. He is examining how couples relate to one another—successfully and unsuccessfully.

Even though the study is still in its early stages, Rogge has already found some trends.

“We can see the seeds of divorce in the first month of marriage,” said Rogge on the Today show in January. “If they’re not handling things [they argue about] well, if they’re not keeping the fun in their relationship, or really nurturing their relationship, we can see that it’s probably going to head down the wrong path.”