Married And Meh

The seven-year itch is real and there are studies to prove it. Anupama Bijur finds experts to talk about the signs you should watch out for.

- Anupama Bijur

It may not happen exactly at the seven-year mark, but the itch is real, say therapists. The term is loosely used to refer to a stage in a committed relationship when either one or both partners lose interest or fi nd it hard to relate to each other. The 1955 Marilyn Monroestarrer of the same name told the story of a devoted husband whose life is thrown into turmoil by the young woman who moves in upstairs while his wife and kid are on vacation. No one, it seems, is immune to the siren call of something new.

CAUTION: BUMPY ROAD AHEAD

A study that examined the sex lives of women who have been in a long-term relationship found that they reported a loss of sexual desire by around the seventh year. “Women who were in a relationship with the same person throughout the observation period had the greatest decrease in sexual desire,” observed Annika Gunst, the study’s lead author from the University of Turku in Finland.

The study, which was published in Psychological Medicine, stated that women reported 53 per cent lower sexual desire at the end of the first seven years. But those who were in a different relationship after seven years—or were single—had a higher libido, found researchers, who surveyed women in 2006 and returned to the same sample in 2013.

Couples therapist Ajanta De says, “There is data to support that most divorces happen after the fourth year of marriage. So the ‘Seven-year itch’ could happen any time after the first few years. In the beginning, the couple has similar goals–career, house, children–and when these have been achieved, there comes the question of what next.”