Wonder why half of all marriages end in divorce? New report says it's failed expectations

The blog Fifty-Something Women notes that "when it comes to being happy, it’s all about expectation, and if what we experience doesn’t meet our expectations, we are more likely to be unhappy than we are to be happy if what we experience exceeds expectations." They further note that this is equally true in a product or a marriage.

This observation is supported by a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, which notes that "we are more likely to pay attention to disappointment than to the ways in which our experiences exceed our expectations."

"This research shows that when we feel better than we anticipated we would, we take it for granted, and it does not influence how we evaluate the product or service,” write the researchers. “However, when we feel worse than we thought we would, we sit up and pay attention.”

Fifty-Something's advice:

I don’t believe we should become pessimists, expecting always that things will turn out badly or feel we don’t deserve happiness, but the pressures we put on ourselves and others because of unrealistic expectations can only lead to dissatisfaction and disappointment. When we expect that this or that product or even that a relationship is going to be the key factor in our happiness, we are setting ourselves and others up for a big fall.

Studies also show that people think that they will be slightly happier in the future than they are in the present. Does this mean that we are setting ourselves up for a fall or is this just an aspect of positive psychology (or "Law of Attraction") that will in fact help us become happier in the future?

For relationships the advice is clear: The more realistic (i.e., less "fairy tale") the expectations of the partners the higher likelihood of success. This is why the "they'll change after the wedding" strategy is usually doomed. ("Yes my finance likes to hang out with his male friends more than me but he'll change when we're married"; not likely).

Failed unrealistic expectations are also why people who marry so shortly after meeting each other are also taking a chance. When a couple is still in the starry-eyed, infatuation stage when the belief that the other can do no wrong can also lead to impossible-to-meet expectations. The right balance is to expect a lifelong, mutually rewarding relationship, but one that will realistically take work, patience and suffer the occasional set back.