Relationship Health InsightsLong Marriages

5 reasons some couples still like each other after thirty years

Nineteen years of this work, and it’s never the thing people think it is.

Donna Hale · Last updated September 23, 2026 · 5 min read · Sponsored

Two people at a kitchen table at night — **STAND-IN** · HERO - WHITE couple, early 60s. Kitchen table at night, one warm lamp. Both fine, both looking at different things. NO BOOK.

The couples in trouble are almost never the ones you’d pick out of a room.

The ones in trouble are loud, and a lot of them are fine in the end. Two people still arguing still think the outcome matters.

The ones I worry about are polite.

They sit down together. They agree with each other. Nobody’s voice goes up, because there’s nothing to raise it about. Thirty-odd years in, a nice house, grown kids. Ask either one what’s wrong and they’ll both say nothing is.

And they’re telling the truth. Nothing is wrong. That’s the part nobody warns you about.

So I pulled nineteen years of notes on the couples who came in fine and stayed fine.

They had five things in common. Not one of them is a conversation.

All five are things those couples do for fun. Nobody ever comes in and says we’ve stopped playing. They say we feel like roommates.

The thing I hand out now has a line at the bottom of every page for who won.

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Reason OneIt isn’t time together. They have plenty of that.

A living room at night, television on, phone face-up on the chair arm — **STAND-IN** · REASON 1 - BLACK couple, 60s. Living room, TV lighting the room blue, phone face-up on the chair arm, two feet apart on one couch. NO BOOK.

There’s a very large survey where tens of thousands of people log every hour of their day. Researchers count two numbers.

Time you spent with your husband. And time you spent with your husband and nothing else.

In a long marriage those are nowhere near each other.

You eat dinner together every night. That’s the first number. The TV’s on, the phone’s face-up on the chair arm, one of you is half-thinking about the car. Almost none of it is the second.

So think about last week. Not hours in the same house. Hours that were only the two of you.

For most people I ask, it’s close to none. And they’ve been married thirty years.

That’s not the reason, though. That’s just the room it happens in.

Reason TwoIt isn’t a nicer version of the same evening.

A woman being a good sport about something she is not enjoying — **STAND-IN** · REASON 2 - WHITE woman, early 60s. Tight two-shot in daylight: her polite half-smile, him absorbed and unaware. The gap between two faces. NO BOOK.

This is the one that changed how I work.

Researchers followed married couples for over ten years with diaries, expecting to prove that couples who spend their free time together are happier.

That isn’t what came back.

Doing things together only counts if both of you want to be doing it.

And here’s the part that stopped me. When a couple keeps doing the thing he enjoys and she doesn’t, that’s both a cause and a consequence of her being unhappy. Going along with it doesn’t buy her anything. Over ten years it charges her.

So the fishing. The car show. Whatever he’s got on at night. If you’ve been a good sport about it, that isn’t togetherness. On paper it’s closer to the opposite.

Which raises an obvious question. The good couples answer it differently.

Reason ThreeWhatever they do has a bit of difficulty in it.

Two people on a bench at an overlook, comfortable and silent — **STAND-IN** · REASON 3 - BLACK couple, 60s. Wide, outdoors, overcast. A bench at an inland overlook. Comfortable, close, silent, both facing the view. NO BOOK.

Here’s the hopeful one.

A random sample of married people were asked how intensely in love they were. Of the ones married more than ten years, four in ten said very intensely.

Not fond. Not comfortable. Very intensely, all those years in.

Then they looked at what those people had in common. Thinking about each other when apart. Affection. And shared activities that were new and a bit challenging.

Challenging. Not relaxing. Not pleasant.

Only one of those gives you something to say afterward. I’ve watched couples take a whole trip that was pleasant start to finish and come home with nothing to talk about.

A hundred and nine pages, two players, and a winner on every one of them.

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Reason FourThey’re still playing — and it matters more to her than to him.

A woman caught mid-laugh at something silly — **STAND-IN** · REASON 4 - WHITE woman, late 50s, ALONE in frame, bright kitchen, caught mid-laugh at something silly. The only single-subject frame. NO BOOK.

This isn’t “keep the romance alive.” This is measured.

Researchers who study playfulness properly, with scales and scoring, ran it on a hundred and sixteen couples in their mid-fifties.

Playfulness showed up right alongside how satisfied they were with the relationship.

And the effect was strongest in the women.

Every wife who’s told me she can’t remember the last time she felt silly has apologized for bringing it up.

It isn’t nothing. It’s hers before it’s his.

There’s one more, and you can check this one tonight without asking anybody a question.

Reason FiveThey laugh at the same second, not at the same joke.

Two people laughing at the same moment — **STAND-IN** · REASON 5 - BLACK couple, 60s, both laughing at the SAME SECOND, same direction, bright. The shot is the synchronisation. NO BOOK.

Seventy-one couples told the story of how they met, on camera, and researchers coded every laugh.

Then they threw out the total.

Because what tracked with a good relationship wasn’t how much laughing happened. It was how much happened at the same moment.

You can be married to somebody funny, laugh at him all evening, and none of it be shared. He does a bit at dinner, she smiles at it, and that’s two people in two separate moods being pleasant to each other.

So listen tonight. Not for whether there’s laughing. For whether it lands at the same second.

Go hunting for the last time it did, and you’ll find all five of these sitting on top of one thing.

The sixth thing, and it’s underneath all five

There’s a question I ask at the start of every first session. I’ve asked it for nineteen years.

What’s something one of you is better at than the other one?

The couples who are fine answer before I finish asking. They don’t give me one, they give me six, then argue about whether it counts. Somebody’s laughing by the end of it.

The other ones go quiet. Not angry quiet. Polite quiet. Both waiting for the other one to come up with something, because neither one can.

Two people don’t go quiet because they stopped caring. They go quiet because nothing that happens between them ends with anybody ahead.

It all turns into who’s getting the car looked at and who’s calling my mother back. There’s no winning that, and no losing it either. It’s a tie every night, and a tie gives you nothing to talk about in the morning.

Now read the five again holding that. Every one of them needs somebody to come out ahead. And almost nothing in a settled house does.

What I handed out for nineteen years

You get taught to fix what people complain about. What they complain about is never it.

Pick a night and protect it. A night is a container. She’s already blocked one. It was still a tie, just a tie with a start time.
Put the phones in the kitchen. Now there are two people and an evening with nothing in it. The phone was never the problem. The phone is what rushed in.
Book a weekend away. Pleasant start to finish. See number three.
Ask each other better questions. The one I feel worst about. A question you were told to ask is a chore being performed, and both of you can feel it. Once you have to ask for it, it stops counting.

Every one of those puts two people in the same room. Not one has a winner in it.

He can’t nod at a point on the table. It’s either his or it’s yours.

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What I tried instead

So I typed up a list of small contests and left it on my own kitchen table. It didn’t take. A printed list is homework, and nobody keeps score on a page they’re going to throw out.

What I needed was already a book. Somebody had already made it.

It’s called Games & Us

A filled-in page showing the winner line and the points box — Every page ends with a line for who won. The last page crowns a champion.

A hundred and nine pages. Two players. A line at the bottom of every page for who won.

Two truths and a lie, and you take the point every time you catch him
A drawing round, where you both draw the same thing and decide out loud whose is worse
Riddles, with a clock running
Quick-fire rounds, where the first one to answer takes it
Word games you’ll both cheat at

And a champion at the back.

Watch what that does that a conversation can’t. He can’t nod at it. There’s a point on the table, it’s either his or it’s mine, and the only way to find out is to sit there and do it.

I keep a stack in the cabinet behind my desk now. They tell me the score before they’ve even sat down, and whoever’s behind always has a reason.

She’s usually laughing when she says it. That’s the part I care about.

Thirty days.

If it changes nothing in a month, tell them and they’ll refund you. You keep the book anyway.

You’re buying this for an evening that hasn’t happened yet. The risk on that stays with them, not with you.

Three things people ask me

We’re not competitive people.+

Neither were most of the couples in this article. Competitive is a personality. A winner is a structure. You don’t have to care who won — only find out, and that’s the part that takes two of you.

What if he won’t do it?+

A page takes four minutes and never asks him how he feels. Every piece of advice further up asks a man to talk about the relationship. This one asks him to beat you at something.

What if nothing happens?+

Judge it on whether either of you brings up the score the next morning.

Play a page tonight and the worst thing that happens is four minutes and a bad drawing.

Don’t, and nothing bad happens either. That’s the problem. Nothing bad is going to happen to you for a very long time.

One more thing, and it’s the only reason I stopped ordering these one at a time. There’s a single champion line at the back. One. When a name goes on it, the book is finished.

So — what’s something one of you is better at than the other one?

If you had to stop and think about it, that isn’t a relationship in trouble.

That’s a house where nothing has had a result in a long time.

A hundred and nine pages. Two players. One champion line at the back.

See The Book →

Free U.S. shipping · 30 days, and you keep the book

Games & Us

109 pages · two players · 30 days, keep the book

See The Book →