My attention was caught by this article How Marriage Helps Your Brain from a recent MSN Health newsletter. Not that I was interested in marriage itself; who really wants to divide income and expenses into half, and listen to the your other half nag daily about important things in life when all you wanna do is dodge responsibilities and enjoy a game and a bottle of beer. Just kidding. What sparkled me was the word "brain".
In summary, the author Thomas Cook proposes that spouses learn topics and skills together. The idea is that having an additional person constantly remind and motivate what you have learnt is key to keeping your knowledge and memory fresh on the matter.
Hmmmm, while I absolutely agree with what he is stating, I wonder if he realises that this kind of collaborative and collective learning actually has nothing to do with marriage? This can happen with relationships with any other individual or group. Why do you think Pair Programming is so powerful? Why do you think a software development team where everybody has a constant thirst for knowledge and regularly communicate and share their findings are so much more effective and efficient than teams who merely do their work in isolation and don't discuss?
It is all about collaborating, discussing with the ones around you. Knowledge sharing and exchange. This is why so many teams fail to attain a level of growth that is necessary to survive in this technological world - they have no desire to seek new knowledge and share. This has nothing to do with whether the person is your spouse or not. It is what you inter-exchange with your loved ones, friends, and colleagues.