Satisfaction with the romantic relationship is not fixed but fluctuates over time. In moments of conflict and dispute, relationship satisfaction is often lower, while in moments of intimacy and close connection, relationship satisfaction goes up. However, relationship satisfaction does not only change temporarily, but it also changes over a longer period of time. But how exactly does relationship satisfaction develop across the life span? When are the high points and when are the low points?

A Look At All The Evidence

Researchers hadn’t so far looked at relationship satisfaction across longer periods in people’s life span. By compiling all the studies—each of which dealt with shorter time periods—we were able to piece together the bigger picture. Our data came from 165 samples of 165,039 people who ranged from 20 to 76 years old, who were in relationships lasting from 3 months to 46 years. Both age and relationship duration turned out to be important. What did we find?

A Low Point At The Age Of 40

First, a person’s age matters. Relationship satisfaction decreases from age 20 to 40 years and reaches a low point at the age of 40. Why is there a low point at the age of 40? The life period of around 40 years has often been described as a time of midlife crisis, as a moment of performing a personal audit. It seems that people also have a midlife crisis in their relationship when they are in their 40s. People look at the romantic relationships and perform their audits. They add up what they were able to accomplish in the relationship and subtract the plans they had to give up. But we also see that relationship satisfaction increases after the crisis and stabilizes at a relatively high level when people become older.  

What Is So Special About The 10-Year Anniversary?

The second time metric that mattered was relationship duration, and the findings suggest that the first 10 years of the relationship are the most critical. At the beginning of the relationship, couples are often in their honeymoon. But as time goes by, their satisfaction steadily decreases and reaches a low point after 10 years. We can only speculate about the reasons for this decline, but communication may be crucial: At the beginning of the relationship, couples often invest time and energy in in managing their conflicts constructively. When couples have been together for a while, they often invest less time and energy in communicating effectively, which may lead to lower relationship satisfaction. But the good thing is: Couples who have come through their 10-year anniversary will again become more satisfied in their relationship.

Lower Satisfaction When Couples Have Children

You might say, surely there are many other factors involved in how happy a couple is. We thought so too. But, from all sample characteristics, we found only one to be significant: presence of children. Couples with children were less satisfied than couples without children. A potential reason might be that couples with children, compared to couples without children, have less quality time as a couple. None of the other sample characteristics explained why people were more or less satisfied in their relationship. People from different countries, genders, or ethnicities showed the same trajectory of relationship satisfaction across the life span.

My Own Perspective

Being trained as a couples therapist it is essential for me that our research also has practical implications. I see mainly two practical values in the present findings. First, we all wish to maintain a happy and fulfilling romantic relationship, but our findings on more than 160,000 people show that relationship satisfaction generally decreases over time. What first feels disappointing, can also be relieving: It is okay that relationship satisfaction changes and that it decreases. These insights can be used in prevention and intervention programs with couples, to counterbalance the often unrealistically high expectations that burden romantic relationships. Of course, this does not mean that we should give up our attempts to have a happy relationship, but we may want to bring more acceptance to our relationships.

Second, we found that change in relationship satisfaction was relative. In fact, even at the lowest points—at the age of 40 and at the 10-year anniversary—relationship satisfaction never fell below 77% of the maximum possible. Thus, even if we sometimes feel less satisfied in our relationships, our happiness still is fairly high. Thus, satisfaction with the romantic relationship has its ups and downs across the life span. However, after each down, there may be an upward trend again.


For Further Reading

Bühler, J. L., Krauss, S., & Orth, U. (2021). Development of relationship satisfaction across the life span: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin,  147(10), 1012–1053. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000342

Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). Assessing longitudinal change in marriage: An introduction to the analysis of growth curves. Journal of Marriage and Family, 57(4), 1091–1108. https://doi.org/10.2307/353425

Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2020). Research on marital satisfaction and stability in the 2010s: Challenging conventional wisdom. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(1), 100–116. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12635


Janina Larissa Bühler is an Assistant Professor of Personality Psychology and Psychological Assessment at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She studies the ways in which people’s personalities and their romantic relationships develop over time.