People living in a happy marriage tend to believe that their partner is an example of an ideal man or an ideal woman, Marcel Zentner, a researcher at the University of Geneva, found out.
He asked 50 couples to describe the personality traits of their ideal lover, and some time later, to talk about their real partners. It turned out that when describing their ideal, men and women name the character traits of their partner. The researchers also noticed a strong discrepancy between ideas about the ideal in different people: it turned out that we do not have a single image (“a wonderful husband”, “a wonderful wife”) imposed by mass culture, and there is no such character trait (cheerful, reasonable, responsible, etc.). that would make the person who possesses it desirable for everyone.