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Marital Love in the second half of marriage

How is middle ages and the later years different from young adulthood or the first half of marriage? How is the second half of marriage different from the first half of marriage? What can couples passing through middle life and later years do to make their marriages happier than ever before? This paper has attempted to address these questions. Young adulthood or the first half of life is usually characterized by a search for success and busyness but the second half is characterized by search for meaning and fulfillment. Based upon David and Claudia Arp s research on marital satisfaction of 500 couples in 1996, regarding the best elements in their marriage, the greatest sources of stress in marriage, the greatest fears, and expectations for the future, I have made eight specific suggestions to make the second half of their marriage better and happier. 1. Make commitment to forget about past disappointments, forgive each other, and to make the remaining years of your marriage better than ever before. 2. Change your focus of life from children to marital relationship between the two of you. 3. Maintain an effective communication system in which you can share deepest emotions, joys, and concerns of your life with each other. 4. Make a creative use of anger and conflict to enrich your marriage. 5. Develop deep friendship with your spouse and enjoy your spouse. 6. Reactive your romance and try to develop a mutually satisfactory sexual life. 7. Adjust your life to new roles in your relationship to older parents and adult children. 8. Evaluate your progress in your spiritual pilgrimage, enjoy intimate relationship with God and your spouse, and serve your neighbors.