True Happiness: Married, Middle Class, No Kids

couple-260899_640 There is a great posting of a speech given by Christopher Munsey of the Monitor on the American Psychological Association blog that’s worth a read.  Here are three tidbits from the posting I found interesting:

It’s not marriage that makes you happy, it’s happy marriage that makes you happy. Marriage seems to buy you a decade or more of happiness.  However, one study finds people in unhappy marriages experience a spike in happiness once the marriage is dissolved. Duh!

If you hear someone say “money can’t buy happiness,” say “give me yours.” Money’s ability to buy happiness levels out for people in the United States, with huge increases in happiness for people who vault into a middle-class income of $40,000 to $70,000. Once that level is reached, increases in wealth generate smaller rises in happiness.

Happiness falls for both men and women after the first child is born. Some 20 years of research shows that people without children are happier than people with children and that people with young children living with them are the least happy of all.

Honey, I sold the kids.

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