A majority of married couples in Taiwan are not happy and most of them do not think that their marriages are right, results of a recent poll show.
Conducted by the Taipei Christian Academy just days before the first Chinese Valentine's Day of the 21st century, the survey questioned married adults nationwide. The academy found that 93 percent felt unhappy in marriage and 90 percent did not think they made the right decision to get married. The survey also showed that 90 percent do not feel right about their marriage.
A total of 88 percent of respondents felt that their spouses do not dote on them or do not love them dearly enough and only 16.3 percent consider themselves happier now than before they got married, the survey found.
The survey also showed that 67 percent of the respondents think their spouses are garrulous or complaining, and 53 percent of them worry that their spouses may have had or are having an extramarital affair.
Less than one-third of the respondents said their spouses understand their feelings and thoughts and only 26.2 percent said they could share secrets with their spouses, according to the poll.
Chang Kun-chih, director of the academy, a charitable organization committed to social welfare, said Taiwan's marital relationships need repair as the number of marriages is falling while the rate of divorce is climbing.
Chang quoted tallies compiled by the Ministry of the Interior as indicating that marriages in Taiwan fell year-on-year to a low in 1998, where only an average of 6.69 people in every 1,000 got married.
Last year, according to the tallies, 180,000 couples married while 50,000 couples ended their relationship with divorce -- an annual rise of 6.4 percent in the number of people seeking divorce in Taiwan.
The Taipei Christian Academy conducted the recent poll via family education and consultation centers nationwide, which obtained 368 valid questionnaires for the survey.
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