Book summary: The science of happily ever after by T Y Tashiro
The book is an interesting take on what it takes to attain a happy marriage and why only ~30% of us end up in happy marriages. The book is divided into three sections - what is love, why we fail in the game of love and what can we do differently to succeed at it. The nature of love Why happily ever after is so hard to find In the western world, 50% of marriages end up in divorce, ~10-15% are separated without divorce and ~7% go along with an unhappy marriage which implies only 30% live happily ever after. Being “in love” is equivalent to having a “liking” (fairness, kindness, loyalty) and a “lust” (sexual desire). Post-marriage, liking declines at about 3% annually while lust declines 8% annually (in first 7 years of marriage) => from a long term perspective, it’s better to invest in liking than lust. Children’s fairy-tale belief about love is a beautiful girl falling in for a brave hero and they fall for each other in minutes. This is far from what happens in reality