“I love you” spoken less by married couples

A small survey suggests that married couples verbally express love less than those in new relationships.

Saying “I love you” seems to decrease, particularly amongst men, when in a marriage relationship, despite men usually being the first to declare their love in a new romantic relationship.

The research also found that people for whom English was not their first language did not often use an equivalent phrase in their own tongue, but found it relatively easy to say “I love you’ in English.

The survey only interviewed 77 students and the majority of those were women, so the results are probably a little skewed and not necessarily true of the population as a whole. Even so, it’s an interesting little study.

It’s not necessarily a problem that married couples don’t say “I love you” a huge amount so long as they show their love in other ways. If it is said, it has to be meant.