Search Here

Everyone has heard of those pre-wedding jitters or 'cold feet': that panicky feeling you get when the fact that you are about to spend the rest of your life with someone other than a close family member begins to settle in and that guilty moment where you have the urge to flee.

The question of whether or not he e is "the one" pops into a woman's head almost every time things start to feel a bit too serious (and sometimes even on the first date...sorry guys), and especially after a marriage proposal. But while having second thoughts is often touted as ubiquitous among brides and husbands-to-be, new research now shows that women especially should almost always trust those instincts.

According to a study conducted by UCLA psychologists, women who have doubts before their wedding should heed them as a warning sign of trouble in their martial future.

Pre-wedding uncertainty, specifically among women, predicts a higher divorce rate and less martial satisfaction in the future. Justin Lavner, a UCLA doctoral candidate in psychology and lead author of the study explains:

"People think everybody has premarital doubts and you don't have to worry about them, but we found they are common but not benign. Newlywed wives who had doubts about getting married before their wedding were two-and-a-half times more likely to divorce four years later than wives without these doubts. Among couples still married after four years, husbands and wives with doubts were significantly less satisfied with their marriage than those without doubts."

Psychologists studied 464 newlywed spouses (232 couples) in Los Angeles within the first few months of marriage and conducted follow-up surveys with the couples every six months for four years. At the time of marriage, the average age of the husbands was 27, and the average age of the wives was 25.

The report notes:

" In 36 percent of the couples, where the husband and wife had no doubts about getting married, 6 percent got divorced within four years. When only the husband had doubts, 10 percent of the couples got divorced. When only the wife had doubts, 18 percent of couples got divorced. When both partners had doubts, 20 percent of the couples got divorced."

While survey results showed that men were 9 percent more likely to have initial doubts about the marriage than women, the latters' incertitude proved to be more decisive in predicting trouble after the wedding, regardless of how satisfied the spouses were with their relationships when interviewed, whether their parents were divorced, whether the couple lived together before the wedding or how difficult their engagement was.

"What this tells us," Lavner said, "is that when women have doubts before their wedding, these should not be lightly dismissed. Do not assume your doubts will just go away or that love is enough to overpower your concerns. There's no evidence that problems in a marriage just go away and get better. If anything, problems are more likely to escalate."

To be clear, this does not mean that women should pull the plug on their relationships just because they have some doubts. Instead, women (as well as men) should reflect on these issues and analyze where these feeling are coming from. Doubts indicate an intuitive response to ongoing problems related to the relationship. Talk to your partner or future spouse about how you feel before taking the plunge.