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Where even the best marriages are hard: in the middle
最美滿的婚姻也難抵擋：中間那段歲月
By Belinda Luscombe
作者：Belinda Luscombe
EVERYONE WHO JUST GOT MARRIED is psyched about it.
剛剛步入婚姻殿堂時，大家都會興奮不已。
It’s a new adventure with their best friend.
因為他們即將和最要好的朋友開啟一段新的旅程。
Everyone who has been married for 50 years or more is psyched about it.
結婚五十年甚至更久的人也會興奮不已。
They’re living with their closest companion— it’s been a trip, totally worth it.
因為他們的一生是和自己最親密的伴侶度過的 - 他們的婚姻是一次絕對超值的旅行。
But the people in the middle?
那夾在他們中間的那群人呢？
They’re, you know, they’re fine.
他們……勉勉強強吧，你懂的。
They perhaps didn’t expect marriage to be quite as much work as it is.
或許，他們實際的婚姻比他們想象的要麻煩得多。
Not just the child care and the housekeeping and the paying of the bills,
除了照顧孩子、做家務、支付賬單，
but the parts that are supposed to be fun— the talking, the planning, the throwing a leg over.
婚姻還要聊天，制定計劃，性愛這些本該很有趣的事情。
They had been led to believe it would feel easier, more natural.
在社會的引導下，他們會以為婚姻應該更輕松、更自然。
The thing about walking off into the sunset together is that then it gets dark and people stumble over each other.
手牽手看落日的結果不過是天黑了，兩人還可能被對方絆倒。。
Two new books seek to solve just this midlife marital ennui:
而下面這兩本新書就是來幫助大家解決這種人到中年婚姻陷入無趣的尷尬問題：
The Rough Patch, by San Francisco clinical psychologist Daphne de Marneffe,
舊金山臨床心理學家Daphne de Marneffe撰寫的《粗糙的補丁》
and Happy Together, by husband-and-wife marital educators Suzann Pileggi Pawelski and James Pawelski.
和夫妻婚姻教育家Suzann Pileggi Pawelski和James Pawelski合著的《幸福生活在一起》。
The midlife crisis is an old cliché, with little support in research,
中年危機這個問題早已不新鮮，這方面的研究寥寥無幾，
but when we dismiss the happiness dip that people experience in their middle years,
然而，忽視人到中年經歷的幸福感下降這一問題時，
"we are actually trying to disarm the intensity of the forces we are grappling with," de Marneffe writes.
“面對這一問題，我們實際上是在試圖瓦解對手的力量，”德馬內夫寫道。
"The midpoint of life represents the moment of maximal conflict
“在我們的人生中，中年其實代表的是沖突最大化的時刻，
between our drive to seek external solutions to our emotional dilemmas and our recognition that ultimately they don’t work. "
尋求外部方案來解決我們的情緒問題與我們那最終失效的認識之間的沖突。”
It’s also often the point where our tenacity falters
這通常也是我們堅韌不拔的品質開始動搖的時間，
and the neat selvages of our certainties about who we are and whom we chose start to fray.
是我們對自我認識的篤定，對我們選擇的伴侶的篤定開始動搖的時間。
