Hint for staying together

Love is blind, they say. But if there's one thing that restores clear vision, it's living with someone day-in, day-out. Nothing like that to topple a lover off their pedestal and expose their flaws, right? Well, sometimes not it seems. The idealised view of a partner doesn't always disappear when the early throes of passion have passed.

In the first flush of love, we almost all gloss over our partner's faults. But researchers studying married couples have found that in the happiest marriages, this overrating habit continues – in fact it's the glue that keeps these couples together over time.

These are spouses who tend not to notice their partners' shortcomings and recall only the good…