Category: Relationships

The positive pattern was seen whether or not couples were satisfied with their relationship.

Humour and acceptance replace bickering in happy long-term relationships, research finds.

While heated disagreements can plague the early years of marriage, these often turn to tenderness with age.

The positive pattern was seen whether or not couples were satisfied with their relationship.

The findings make a nonsense of the idea that positive emotions die away with age, as some psychologists claim.

In fact, people focus more on positive emotions and experiences as they age.

Professor Robert Levenson, who leads the ongoing research, said:

“Our findings shed light on one of the great paradoxes of late life.

Despite experiencing the loss of friends and family, older people in stable marriages are relatively happy and experience low rates of depression and anxiety.

Marriage has been good for their mental health.”

The study involved 87 couples who had been married for between 15 and 35 years.

Their emotional interactions were tracked for 13 years.

The results revealed that humour and affection increased over the years.

At the same time, criticism and defensiveness decreased.

Dr Alice Verstaen, study co-author, said:

“Given the links between positive emotion and health, these findings underscore the importance of intimate relationships as people age, and the potential health benefits associated with marriage.”

Women tended to become less emotionally expressive with age and also to dominate their husbands more.

Professor Levenson concluded:

“These results provide behavioral evidence that is consistent with research suggesting that, as we age, we become more focused on the positives in our lives.”

The results are the latest to emerge from the 25-year UC Berkeley study that has followed 150 long-term marriages from 1989.

The study was published in the journal Emotion (Verstaen et al., 2018).

“Relationships are like cars in that you have to do certain things to keep them running…”

The five best ways to improve your relationship are revealed by a review of 35 different psychology studies on 12,273 people.

These are:

1. Being open about your feelings with your partner,
2. being fun and upbeat,
3. assuring your partner you are committed,
4. sharing household tasks,
5. and sharing your social network.

Crucially, though, your partner must notice these behaviours, or the effort is wasted.

Professor Brian Ogolsky, the study’s first author, said:

“Relationships are like cars in that you have to do certain things to keep them running, especially when your goal is to strengthen and preserve your bond with your partner.”

Being open involves both sharing your feelings as well as eliciting your partner’s feelings.

Professor Ogolsky said:

“It’s also important to assure your partner that you’re in the relationship for the long haul, to divide household chores and responsibilities equally, and to make an effort to include your partner’s friends and family in some of your activities.”

Professor Ogolsky explained the benefits of using these strategies:

“Persons who use any of these maintenance strategies will not only be more satisfied with and committed to their relationship, they are also likely to continue to love and, yes, even like each other throughout its duration.”

Letting your partner see the effort you are making is crucial, said Professor Ogolsky:

“Say you’ve arrived home from work and your intention all day has been to buy some flowers for your partner and surprise her with dinner.

Then you get wrapped up in a business phone call and your good intentions fall by the wayside.

You may feel as if you’ve put considerable effort into your relationship, but your partner didn’t see it so it does you no good.”

Even relatively modest efforts can be beneficial, said Professor Ogolsky:

“Even a small attempt at maintenance, such as asking how your partner’s day was, sending a humorous text to make him laugh, or picking up the phone and calling your mother- or father-in-law, can have a positive impact on your relationship and make you happier.”

The study was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (Ogolsky & Bowers, 2012).

Research has identified three ways to predict adultery.

Adultery is predicted by having a neurotic partner with low self-esteem and being suspicious that they are having an affair, research finds.

People who are neurotic tend to have less control over their impulses, so are more likely to act on an opportunity.

Those with low self-esteem may seek validation by having an affair.

Being suspicious of a partner is also predictive of adultery because people are surprisingly good at intuitively reading the signs of infidelity.

In one study, a stranger was able to spot a relationship cheat just by watching a couple interacting for a few minutes.

The conclusions come from a nationally representative survey of 2,291 people who had been married for at least 12 months.

The results showed that there was a 2.3% chance of adultery in each year.

Other studies have suggested that infidelity may affect up to 75% of relationships.

Neuroticism was an important predictor of adultery, the study’s authors write:

“…neuroticism was significantly and positively associated with infidelity, which is similar to what has been reported regarding an association between neuroticism and perceived likelihood of engaging in an affair.”

Neurotic people may be more likely to act on opportunities, the authors write:

“…it may be that impulsivity is the aspect of neuroticism that gives rise to increased likelihood of infidelity, as it has been hypothesized that people with high impulsivity and low dependability may be more likely to act on sexual opportunities.”

On top of neuroticism, low self-esteem and being suspicious, adultery was also predicted by marital dissatisfaction and being less religious.

Men were also more likely to cheat when their partner was pregnant.

Being religious was linked to lower levels of infidelity, the researchers also found.

The study was published in the Journal of Family Psychology (Whisman et al., 2007).

These relationships can help us stave off loneliness.

People who value their friendships are healthier and happier, research finds.

As we get older, relationships with friends can become more important for health and happiness than relationships with family members.

With age, friends can play a stronger role in predicting how long we will live than our families.

It may be partly because we choose our friends and not our families (well, not most of them, anyway).

Friends who have stood the test of time are particularly valuable.

Dr William Chopik, the study’s author, said:

“Friendships become even more important as we age.

Keeping a few really good friends around can make a world of difference for our health and well-being.

So it’s smart to invest in the friendships that make you happiest.”

A first study surveyed 271,053 from almost 100 countries.

This found both friends and family were linked to people’s happiness and health.

However, the benefits of friendship became stronger with age.

Dr Chopik said:

“There are now a few studies starting to show just how important friendships can be for older adults.

Summaries of these studies show that friendships predict day-to-day happiness more and ultimately how long we’ll live, more so than spousal and family relationships.”

A second study of 7,481 older adults found friendships could be both a significant source of strain as well as happiness.

However, friends may help to fight against loneliness, Dr Chopik said:

“Friendships help us stave off loneliness but are often harder to maintain across the lifespan.

If a friendship has survived the test of time, you know it must be a good one – a person you turn to for help and advice often and a person you wanted in your life.”

The study was published in the journal Personal Relationships (Chopik, 2017).

The personality trait is linked to healthier and more stable relationships.

Having a conscientious partner is best for one’s health, research finds.

A conscientious partner also tends to have more stable relationships.

That is quite apart from the benefit of living with someone who can hold down a job and who puts the bins out.

Professor Brent Roberts, the study’s first author, said:

“Highly conscientious people are more organized and responsible and tend to follow through with their obligations, to be more impulse controlled and to follow rules.”

Conscientious people are also more likely to exercise, less likely to smoke or take drugs or dangerous risks.

However, not much research has looked at how personality affects people’s relationships.

Professor Roberts said:

“There’s been kind of an individualistic bias in personality research.

But human beings are not islands.

We are an incredibly interdependent species.”

The study asked 2,000 couples over 50-years-old in the US about their health and personality.

The results showed that conscientious people had better health.

But this study is the first to show that partners of people who are conscientious also have better health.

The benefit was even there for people who were highly conscientious themselves.

Professor Roberts said:

“It appears that even if you are really highly conscientious, you can still benefit from a spouse’s conscientiousness.

It makes sense that regardless of what your attributes are, if you have people in your social network that have resources, such as conscientiousness, that can always help.”

Women also saw an added health benefit if their man was both conscientious and neurotic.

But the effect was only small, Professor Roberts said:

“The effect here is not much larger than the effect of aspirin on cardiovascular health, which is a well-known small effect.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Roberts et al., 2009).