Relationship/Marriage

More Men Than Women Are Now Single. It’s Not a Good Sign

Almost a third of adult single men live with a parent. Single men are much more likely to be unemployed, financially fragile and to lack a college degree than those with a partner. They’re also likely to have lower median earnings; single men earned less in 2019 than in 1990, even adjusting for inflation. Single women, meanwhile, earn the same as they did 30 years ago, but those with partners have increased their earnings by 50%.

These are the some of the findings of a new Pew Research analysis of 2019 data on the growing gap between American adults who live with a partner and those who do not. While the study is less about the effect of marriage and more about the effect that changing economic circumstances have had on marriage, it sheds light on some unexpected outcomes of shifts in the labor market.

Over the same time period that the fortunes of single people have fallen, the study shows, the proportion of American adults who live with a significant other, be it spouse or unmarried partner, also declined substantially. In 1990, about 71% of folks from the age of 25 to 54, which are considered the prime working years, had a partner they were married to or lived with. In 2019, only 62% did.

Partly, this is because people are taking longer to establish that relationship. The median age of marriage is creeping up, and while now more people live together than before, that has not matched the numbers of people who are staying single.

But it’s not just an age shift: the number of older single people is also much higher than it was in 1990; from a quarter of 40 to 54-year-olds to almost a third by 2019. And among those 40 to 54-year-olds, one in five men live with a parent.

The trend has not had an equal impact across all sectors of society. The Pew study, which uses information from the 2019 American Community Survey, notes that men are now more likely to be single than women, which was not the case 30 years ago.

Black people are much more likely to be single (59%) than any other race, and Black women (62%) are the most likely to be single of any sector. Asian people (29%) are the least likely to be single, followed by whites (33%) and Hispanics (38%).

Most researchers agree that the trendlines showing that fewer people are getting married and that those who do are increasingly better off financially have a lot more to do with the effect of wealth and education on marriage than vice versa. People who are financially stable are just much more likely to find and attract a partner.

“It’s not that marriage is making people be richer than it used to, it’s that marriage is becoming an increasingly elite institution, so that people are are increasingly only getting married if they already have economic advantages,” says Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

“Marriage does not make people change their social class, it doesn’t make people change their race, and those things are very big predictors of economic outcomes.”

This reframing of the issue may explain why fewer men than women find partners, even though men are more likely to be looking for one. The economic pressures on men are stronger. Research has shown that an ability to provide financially is still a more prized asset in men than in women, although the trend is shifting.

Some studies go so far as to suggest that the 30-year decrease in the rate of coupling can be attributed largely to global trade and the 30-year decrease in the number of stable and well-paying jobs for American men that it brought with it.

When manufacturing moved overseas, non-college educated men found it more difficult to make a living and thus more difficult to attract a partner and raise a family.

But there is also evidence that coupling up improves the economic fortunes of couples, both men and women. It’s not that they only have to pay one rent or buy one fridge, say some sociologists who study marriage, it’s that having a partner suggests having a future.

“There’s a way in which marriage makes men more responsible, and that makes them better workers,” says University of Virginia sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox, pointing to a Harvard study that suggests single men are more likely than married men to leave a job before finding another. The Pew report points to a Duke University study that suggests that after marriage men work longer hours and earn more.

There’s also evidence that the decline in marriage is not just all about being wealthy enough to afford it. Since 1990, women have graduated college in far higher numbers than men.

“The B.A. vs. non B.A. gap has grown tremendously on lots of things — in terms of income, in terms of marital status, in terms of cultural markers and tastes,” says Cohen. “It’s become a sharper demarcation over time and I think that’s part of what we see with regard to marriage. If you want to lock yourself in a room with somebody for 50 years, you might want to have the same level of education, and just have more in common with them.”

By Belinda Luscombe

Source: More Men Than Women Are Now Single. It’s Not a Good Sign | Time

Related Contents:

Counseling Individuals Through the Lifespan. Sage Publications. p. 326. ISBN 978-1483322032. Intimacy: As an intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Physical intimacy is characterized by romantic or passionate attachment or sexual activity.
Ribbens JM, Doolittle M, Sclater SD (2012). Understanding Family Meanings: A Reflective Text. Policy Press. pp. 267–268. ISBN 978-1447301127.
Miller, Rowland & Perlman, Daniel (2008). Intimate Relationships (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0073370187
Perlman, D. (2007). The best of times, the worst of times: The place of close relationships in psychology and our daily lives. Canadian Psychology, 48, 7–18.
Derlega VJ (2013). Communication, Intimacy, and Close Relationships. Elsevier. p. 13. ISBN 978-1483260426.
Mashek DJ, Aron A (2004). Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy. Psychology Press. pp. 1–6. ISBN 978-1135632403.
Dalton, M. (1959) Men Who Manage, New York: Wiley.
Moore, M. (1985) “Nonverbal Courtship Patterns in Women: Contact and Consequences“, Ethnology and Sociobiology, 6: 237–247.
Aronson, E. (2003) The Social Animal, Ninth Edition, New York: Worth Publishers.
Bershad C, Haber DS (1997). Prentice Hall human sexuality. Prentice Hall. p. 30. ISBN 978-0134248219.
Khaleque, A. (2004). Intimate Adult Relationships, Quality of Life and Psychological Adjustment. Social Indicators Research, 69, 351–360.
Emery, Lydia F.; Muise, Amy; Dix, Emily L.; Le, Benjamin (17 September 2014). “Can You Tell That I’m in a Relationship? Attachment and Relationship Visibility on Facebook”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 40 (11): 1466–1479. doi:10.1177/0146167214549944. PMID 25231798. S2CID 206445338.
Kakabadse, A., Kakabadse, N. (2004) Intimacy: International Survey of the Sex Lives of People at Work, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Hutchison ED (2018). Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course. Sage Publications. pp. 254–255. ISBN 978-1544339351.
Lowndes, L. (1996) How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You, London: Element.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Hatfield, E., & Rapson, R.L. (1993). Historical and cross-cultural perspectives on passionate love and sexual desire. Annual Review of Sex Research, 4, 67–97
Theiss JA (2003). Communication and the Emotional, Cognitive, and Relational Consequences of First Sexual Encounters in Heterosexual Dyads. University of Wisconsin. pp. 9, 56, 70.
Vangelisti, A.L., & Perlman, D. (2006). The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Lowe, S.R., Rhodes, J.E., & Scoglio, A.A. (2012). “Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36”, 286–300. doi: 10.1177/0361684311434307
Finkel, Eli J.; Slotter, Erica B. (26 June 2013). “A Brief Intervention to Promote Conflict Reappraisal Preserves Marital Quality Over Time” (PDF). Psychological Science OnlineFirst. 24 (8): 1595–1601. doi:10.1177/0956797612474938. PMID 23804960. S2CID 2254080.
Fuller, Dawn (17 August 2011). “Long-Term, Intimate Partnerships Can Promote Unhealthy Habits”. UC News online Aug, 18, 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.Reczek, Corinne, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati (2012). “The Promotion of Unhealthy Habits in Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Intimate Partnerships

How To Have a Better Longlasting Relationship

Can you spot a good relationship? Of course nobody knows what really goes on between any couple, but decades of scientific research into love, sex and relationships have taught us that a number of behaviors can predict when a couple is on solid ground or headed for troubled waters. Good relationships don’t happen overnight. They take commitment, compromise, forgiveness and most of all — effort. Keep reading for the latest in relationship science, fun quizzes and helpful tips to help you build a stronger bond with your partner.

Love and Romance

Falling in love is the easy part. The challenge for couples is how to rekindle the fires of romance from time to time and cultivate the mature, trusting love that is the hallmark of a lasting relationship.

What’s Your Love Style?

When you say “I love you,” what do you mean?

Terry Hatkoff, a California State University sociologist, has created a love scale that identifies six distinct types of love found in our closest relationships.

Romantic: Based on passion and sexual attraction
Best Friends: Fondness and deep affection
Logical: Practical feelings based on shared values, financial goals, religion etc.
Playful: Feelings evoked by flirtation or feeling challenged
Possessive: Jealousy and obsession
Unselfish: Nurturing, kindness, and sacrifice

Researchers have found that the love we feel in our most committed relationships is typically a combination of two or three different forms of love. But often, two people in the same relationship can have very different versions of how they define love. Dr. Hatkoff gives the example of a man and woman having dinner. The waiter flirts with the woman, but the husband doesn’t seem to notice, and talks about changing the oil in her car. The wife is upset her husband isn’t jealous. The husband feels his extra work isn’t appreciated.

What does this have to do with love? The man and woman each define love differently. For him, love is practical, and is best shown by supportive gestures like car maintenance. For her, love is possessive, and a jealous response by her husband makes her feel valued.

Understanding what makes your partner feel loved can help you navigate conflict and put romance back into your relationship. You and your partner can take the Love Style quiz from Dr. Hatkoff and find out how each of you defines love. If you learn your partner tends toward jealousy, make sure you notice when someone is flirting with him or her. If your partner is practical in love, notice the many small ways he or she shows love by taking care of everyday needs.

Reignite Romance

Romantic love has been called a “natural addiction” because it activates the brain’s reward center — notably the dopamine pathways associated with drug addiction, alcohol and gambling. But those same pathways are also associated with novelty, energy, focus, learning, motivation, ecstasy and craving. No wonder we feel so energized and motivated when we fall in love!

But we all know that romantic, passionate love fades a bit over time, and (we hope) matures into a more contented form of committed love. Even so, many couples long to rekindle the sparks of early courtship. But is it possible?

The relationship researcher Arthur Aron, a psychology professor who directs the Interpersonal Relationships Laboratory at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has found a way. The secret? Do something new and different — and make sure you do it together. New experiences activate the brain’s reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love. Whether you take a pottery class or go on a white-water rafting trip, activating your dopamine systems while you are together can help bring back the excitement you felt on your first date. In studies of couples, Dr. Aron has found that partners who regularly share new experiences report greater boosts in marital happiness than those who simply share pleasant but familiar experiences.

Diagnose Your Passion Level

The psychology professor Elaine Hatfield has suggested that the love we feel early in a relationship is different than what we feel later. Early on, love is “passionate,” meaning we have feelings of intense longing for our mate. Longer-term relationships develop “companionate love,” which can be described as a deep affection, and strong feelings of commitment and intimacy.

Where does your relationship land on the spectrum of love? The Passionate Love Scale, developed by Dr. Hatfield, of the University of Hawaii, and Susan Sprecher, a psychology and sociology professor at Illinois State University, can help you gauge the passion level of your relationship. Once you see where you stand, you can start working on injecting more passion into your partnership. Note that while the scale is widely used by relationship researchers who study love, the quiz is by no means the final word on the health of your relationship. Take it for fun and let the questions inspire you to talk to your partner about passion. After all, you never know where the conversation might lead.

How Much Sex Are You Having?

Let’s start with the good news. Committed couples really do have more sex than everyone else. Don’t believe it? While it’s true that single people can regale you with stories of crazy sexual episodes, remember that single people also go through long dry spells. A March 2017 report found that 15 percent of men and 27 percent of women reported they hadn’t had sex in the past year. And 9 percent of men and 18 percent of women say they haven’t had sex in five years. The main factors associated with a sexless life are older age and not being married. So whether you’re having committed or married sex once a week, once a month or just six times a year, the fact is that there’s still someone out there having less sex than you. And if you’re one of those people NOT having sex, this will cheer you up: Americans who are not having sex are just as happy as their sexually-active counterparts.

But Who’s Counting?

Even though most people keep their sex lives private, we do know quite a bit about people’s sex habits. The data come from a variety of sources, including the General Social Survey, which collects information on behavior in the United States, and the International Social Survey Programme, a similar study that collects international data, and additional studies from people who study sex like the famous Kinsey Institute. A recent trend is that sexual frequency is declining among millennials, likely because they are less likely than earlier generations to have steady partners.

Based on that research, here’s some of what we know about sex:

The average adult has sex 54 times a year.
The average sexual encounter lasts about 30 minutes.
About 5 percent of people have sex at least three times a week.
People in their 20s have sex more than 80 times per year.
People in their 40s have sex about 60 times a year.
Sex drops to 20 times per year by age 65.
After the age of 25, sexual frequency declines 3.2 percent annually.
After controlling for age and time period, those born in the 1930s had sex the most often; people born in the 1990s (millennials) had sex the least often.
About 20 percent of people, most of them widows, have been celibate for at least a year.
The typical married person has sex an average of 51 times a year.
“Very Happy” couples have sex, on average, 74 times a year.
Married people under 30 have sex about 112 times a year; single people under 30 have sex about 69 times a year.
Married people in their 40s have sex 69 times a year; single people in their 40s have sex 50 times a year.
Active people have more sex.
People who drink alcohol have 20 percent more sex than teetotalers.
On average, extra education is associated with about a week’s worth of less sex each year.

Early and Often

One of the best ways to make sure your sex life stays robust in a long relationship is to have a lot of sex early in the relationship. A University of Georgia study of more than 90,000 women in 19 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas found that the longer a couple is married, the less often they have sex, but that the decline appears to be relative to how much sex they were having when they first coupled. Here’s a look at frequency of married sex comparing the first year of marriage with the 10th year of marriage.

Why does sex decline in marriage? It’s a combination of factors — sometimes it’s a health issue, the presence of children, boredom or unhappiness in the relationship. But a major factor is age. One study found sexual frequency declines 3.2 percent a year after the age of 25. The good news is that what married couples lack in quantity they make up for in quality. Data from the National Health and Social Life Survey found that married couples have more fulfilling sex than single people.

The No-Sex Marriage

Why do some couples sizzle while others fizzle? Social scientists are studying no-sex marriages for clues about what can go wrong in relationships.

It’s estimated that about 15 percent of married couples have not had sex with their spouse in the last six months to one year. Some sexless marriages started out with very little sex. Others in sexless marriages say childbirth or an affair led to a slowing and eventually stopping of sex. People in sexless marriages are generally less happy and more likely to have considered divorce than those who have regular sex with their spouse or committed partner.

If you have a low-sex or no-sex marriage, the most important step is to see a doctor. A low sex drive can be the result of a medical issues (low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, menopause or depression) or it can be a side effect of a medication or treatment. Some scientists speculate that growing use of antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil, which can depress the sex drive, may be contributing to an increase in sexless marriages.

While some couples in sexless marriages are happy, the reality is that the more sex a couple has, the happier they are together. It’s not easy to rekindle a marriage that has gone without sex for years, but it can be done. If you can’t live in a sexless marriage but you want to stay married, see a doctor, see a therapist and start talking to your partner.

Here are some of the steps therapists recommend to get a sexless marriage back in the bedroom:

Talk to each other about your desires.
Have fun together and share new experiences to remind yourself how you fell in love.
Hold hands. Touch. Hug.
Have sex even if you don’t want to. Many couples discover that if they force themselves to have sex, soon it doesn’t become work and they remember that they like sex. The body responds with a flood of brain chemicals and other changes that can help.

Remember that there is no set point for the right amount of sex in a marriage. The right amount of sex is the amount that makes both partners happy.

A Prescription for a Better Sex Life

If your sex life has waned, it can take time and effort to get it back on track. The best solution is relatively simple, but oh-so-difficult for many couples: Start talking about sex.

Just do it: Have sex, even if you’re not in the mood. Sex triggers hormonal and chemical responses in the body, and even if you’re not in the mood, chances are you will get there quickly once you start.
Make time for sex: Busy partners often say they are too busy for sex, but interestingly, really busy people seem to find time to have affairs. The fact is, sex is good for your relationship. Make it a priority.
Talk: Ask your partner what he or she wants. Surprisingly, this seems to be the biggest challenge couples face when it comes to rebooting their sex lives.

The first two suggestions are self-explanatory, but let’s take some time to explore the third step: talking to your partner about sex. Dr. Hatfield of the University of Hawaii is one of the pioneers of relationship science. She developed the Passionate Love scale we explored earlier in this guide. When Dr. Hatfield conducted a series of interviews with men and women about their sexual desires, she discovered that men and women have much more in common than they realize, they just tend not to talk about sex with each other. Here’s a simple exercise based on Dr. Hatfield’s research that could have a huge impact on your sex life:

Find two pieces of paper and two pens.
Now, sit down with your partner so that each of you can write down five things you want more of during sex with your partner. The answers shouldn’t be detailed sex acts (although that’s fine if it’s important to you). Ideally, your answers should focus on behaviors you desire — being talkative, romantic, tender, experimental or adventurous.

If you are like the couples in Dr. Hatfield’s research, you may discover that you have far more in common in terms of sexual desires than you realize. Here are the answers Dr. Hatfield’s couples gave.

Let’s look at what couples had in common. Both partners wanted seduction, instructions and experimentation.

The main difference for men and women is where sexual desire begins. Men wanted their wives to initiate sex more often and be less inhibited in the bedroom. But for women, behavior outside the bedroom also mattered. They wanted their partner to be warmer, helpful in their lives, and they wanted love and compliments both in and out of the bedroom.

Staying Faithful

Men and women can train themselves to protect their relationships and raise their feelings of commitment.

Can You Predict Infidelity?

In any given year about 10 percent of married people —12 percent of men and 7 percent of women — say they have had sex outside their marriage. The relatively low rates of annual cheating mask the far higher rate of lifetime cheating. Among people over 60, about one in four men and one in seven women admit they have ever cheated.

A number of studies in both animals and humans suggest that there may be a genetic component to infidelity. While science makes a compelling case that there is some genetic component to cheating, we also know that genetics are not destiny. And until there is a rapid-gene test to determine the infidelity risk of your partner, the debate about the genetics of infidelity isn’t particularly useful to anyone.

There are some personality traits known to be associated with cheating. A report in The Archives of Sexual Behavior found that two traits predicted risk for infidelity in men. Men who are easily aroused (called “propensity for sexual excitation”) and men who are overly concerned about sexual performance failure are more likely to cheat. The finding comes from a study of nearly 1,000 men and women. In the sample, 23 percent of men and 19 percent of women reported ever cheating on a partner.

For women, the main predictors of infidelity were relationship happiness (women who aren’t happy in their partnership are twice as likely to cheat) and being sexually out-of-sync with their partner (a situation that makes women three times as likely to cheat as women who feel sexually compatible with their partners).

Protect Your Relationship

1. Avoid Opportunity. In one survey, psychologists at the University of Vermont asked 349 men and women in committed relationships about sexual fantasies. Fully 98 percent of the men and 80 percent of the women reported having imagined a sexual encounter with someone other than their partner at least once in the previous two months. The longer couples were together, the more likely both partners were to report such fantasies.

But there is a big difference between fantasizing about infidelity and actually following through. The strongest risk factor for infidelity, researchers have found, exists not inside the marriage but outside: opportunity.

For years, men have typically had the most opportunities to cheat thanks to long hours at the office, business travel and control over family finances. But today, both men and women spend late hours at the office and travel on business. And even for women who stay home, cellphones, e-mail and instant messaging appear to be allowing them to form more intimate relationships outside of their marriages. As a result, your best chance at fidelity is to limit opportunities that might allow you to stray. Committed men and women avoid situations that could lead to bad decisions — like hotel bars and late nights with colleagues.

2. Plan Ahead for Temptation. Men and women can develop coping strategies to stay faithful to a partner.

A series of unusual studies led by John Lydon, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal, looked at how people in a committed relationship react in the face of temptation. In one study, highly committed married men and women were asked to rate the attractiveness of people of the opposite sex in a series of photos. Not surprisingly, they gave the highest ratings to people who would typically be viewed as attractive.

Later, they were shown similar pictures and told that the person was interested in meeting them. In that situation, participants consistently gave those pictures lower scores than they had the first time around.

When they were attracted to someone who might threaten the relationship, they seemed to instinctively tell themselves, “He’s not so great.” “The more committed you are,” Dr. Lydon said, “the less attractive you find other people who threaten your relationship.”

Other McGill studies confirmed differences in how men and women react to such threats. In one, attractive actors or actresses were brought in to flirt with study participants in a waiting room. Later, the participants were asked questions about their relationships, particularly how they

would respond to a partner’s bad behavior, like being late and forgetting to call.

Men who had just been flirting were less forgiving of the hypothetical bad behavior, suggesting that the attractive actress had momentarily chipped away at their commitment. But women who had been flirting were more likely to be forgiving and to make excuses for the man, suggesting that their earlier flirting had triggered a protective response when discussing their relationship.

“We think the men in these studies may have had commitment, but the women had the contingency plan — the attractive alternative sets off the alarm bell,” Dr. Lydon said. “Women implicitly code that as a threat. Men don’t.”

The study also looked at whether a person can be trained to resist temptation. The team prompted male students who were in committed dating relationships to imagine running into an attractive woman on a weekend when their girlfriends were away. Some of the men were then asked to develop a contingency plan by filling in the sentence “When she approaches me, I will __________ to protect my relationship.”

Because the researchers ethically could not bring in a real woman to act as a temptation, they created a virtual-reality game in which two out of four rooms included subliminal images of an attractive woman. Most of the men who had practiced resisting temptation stayed away from the rooms with attractive women; but among men who had not practiced resistance, two out of three gravitated toward the temptation room.

Of course, it’s a lab study, and doesn’t really tell us what might happen in the real world with a real woman or man tempting you to stray from your relationship. But if you worry you might be vulnerable to temptation on a business trip, practice resistance by reminding yourself the steps you will take to avoid temptation and protect your relationship.

3. Picture Your Beloved. We all know that sometimes the more you try to resist something — like ice cream or a cigarette — the more you crave it. Relationship researchers say the same principle can influence a person who sees a man or woman who is interested in them. The more you think about resisting the person, the more tempting he or she becomes. Rather than telling yourself “Be good. Resist,” the better strategy is to start thinking about the person you love, how much they mean to you and what they add to your life. Focus on loving thoughts and the joy of your family, not sexual desire for your spouse — the goal here is to damp down the sex drive, not wake it up.

4. Keep Your Relationship Interesting. Scientists speculate that your level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons — a concept that Dr. Aron, the Stony Brook psychology professor, calls “self-expansion.”

To measure this quality, couples are asked a series of questions: How much does your partner provide a source of exciting experiences? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? How much do you see your partner as a way to expand your own capabilities?

The Stony Brook researchers conducted experiments using activities that stimulated self-expansion. Some couples were given mundane tasks, while others took part in a silly exercise in which they were tied together and asked to crawl on mats, pushing a foam cylinder with their heads. The study was rigged so the couples failed the time limit on the first two tries, but just barely made it on the third, resulting in much celebration.

Couples were given relationship tests before and after the experiment. Those who had taken part in the challenging activity posted greater increases in love and relationship satisfaction than those who had not experienced victory together.The researchers theorize that couples who explore new places and try new things will tap into feelings of self-expansion, lifting their level of commitment.

Conflict

Every couple has disagreements, but science shows that how two people argue has a big effect on both their relationships and their health.

How to Fight

Many people try their best to avoid conflict, but relationship researchers say every conflict presents an opportunity to improve a relationship. The key is to learn to fight constructively in a way that leaves you feeling better about your partner.

Marriage researcher John Gottman has built an entire career out of studying how couples interact. He learned that even in a laboratory setting, couples are willing to air their disagreements even when scientists are watching and the cameras are rolling. From that research, he developed a system of coding words and gestures that has been shown to be highly predictive of a couple’s chance of success or risk for divorce or breakup.

In one important study, Dr. Gottman and his colleagues observed newly married couples in the midst of an argument. He learned that the topic didn’t matter, nor did the duration of the fight. What was most predictive of the couple’s marital health? The researchers found that analyzing just the first three minutes of the couple’s argument could predict their risk for divorce over the next six years.

In many ways, this is great news for couples because it gives you a place to focus. The most important moments between you and your partner during a conflict are those first few minutes when the fight is just getting started. Focus on your behavior during that time, and it likely will change the dynamics of your relationship for the better.

Here’s some general advice from the research about how to start a fight with the person you love:

Identify the complaint, not the criticism. If you’re upset about housework, don’t start the fight by criticizing your partner with, “You never help me.” Focus on the complaint and what will make it better. “It’s so tough when I work late on Thursdays to come home to dishes and unbathed kids. Do you think you could find a way to help more on those nights?”

Avoid “you” phrases. Phrases like “You always” and “You never” are almost always followed by criticism and blame.

Think about pronouns. Sentence that start with “I” or “We” help you identify problems and solutions, rather than putting blame on someone else.

Be aware of body language. No eye-rolling, which is a sign of contempt. Look at your partner when you speak. No folded arms or crossed legs to show you are open to their feelings and input. Sit or stand at the same level as your partner — one person should not be looking down or looking up during an argument.

Learn to De-escalate: When the argument starts getting heated, take it upon yourself to calm things down. Here are some phrases that are always useful in de-escalation:

“What if we…”
“I know this is hard…”
“I hear what you’re saying…”
“What do you think?”

Dr. Gottman reminds us that fighting with your partner is not a bad thing.After all his years of studying conflict, Dr. Gottman has said he’s a strong believe in the power of argument to help couples improve their relationship. In fact, airing our differences gives our relationship “real staying power,” he says. You just need to make sure you get the beginning right so the discussion can be constructive instead of damaging.

Why Couples Fight

A famous study of cardiovascular health conducted in Framingham, Mass., happened to ask its 4,000 participants what topics were most likely to cause conflict in their relationship. Women said issues involving children, housework and money created the most problems in their relationships. Men said their arguments with their spouse usually focused on sex, money and leisure time. Even though the lists were slightly different, the reality is that men and women really care about the same issues: money, how they spend their time away from work (housework or leisure) and balancing the demands of family life (children and sex).

Money

Sometimes money problems become marriage problems.

Studies show that money is consistently the most common reason for conflict in a relationship. Couples with financial problems and debt create have higher levels of stress and are less happy in their relationship.

Why does money cause conflict? Fights about money ultimately are not really about finances. They are about a couple’s values and shared goals. A person who overspends on restaurants, travel and fun stuff often wants to live in the moment and seek new adventures and change; a saver hoping to buy a house some day may most value stability, family and community. Money conflict can be a barometer for the health of your relationship and an indicator that the two of you are out of sync on some of your most fundamental values.

David Olson, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, studied 21,000 couples and identified five questions you can ask to find out if you are financially compatible with your partner.

We agree on how to spend money.
I don’t have any concerns about how my partner handles money.
I am satisfied with our decisions about savings.
Major debts are not a problem
Making financial decisions is not difficult.

Dr. Olson found that the happiest couples were those who both agreed with at least four of the statements. He also found that couples who did not see eye to eye on three or more of the statements were more likely to score low on overall marital happiness. Debt tends to be the biggest culprit in marital conflict. It can be an overwhelming source of worry and stress. As a result, couples who can focus on money problems and reduce their debt may discover that they have also solved most of their marital problems.

Here’s some parting advice for managing your money and your relationship:

Be honest about your spending: It’s surprisingly common for two people in a relationship to lie about how they spend their money, usually because they know it’s a sore point for their partner. Researchers call it “financial infidelity,” and when it’s discovered, it represents a serious breach of trust in the relationship. Surveys suggest secret spending occurs in one out of three committed relationships. Shopping for clothes, spending money on a hobby and gambling are the three most-cited types of secret spending that causes conflict in a relationship.

Maintain some financial independence: While two people in a relationship need to be honest with each other about how they spend their money, it’s a good idea for both sides to agree that each person has his or her own discretionary pot of money to spend on whatever they want. Whether it’s a regular manicure, clothes shopping, a great bottle of wine or a fancy new bike — the point is that just because you have different priorities as a family doesn’t mean you can’t occasionally feed your personal indulgences. The key is to agree on the amount of discretionary money you each have and then stay quiet when your partner buys the newest iPhone just because.

Invest in the relationship. When you do have money to spend, spend it on the relationship. Take a trip, go to dinner, see a show. Spending money on new and shared experiences is a good investment in your partnership.

Children

One of the more uncomfortable findings of relationship science is the negative effect children can have on previously happy couples. Despite the popular notion that children bring couples closer, several studies have shown that relationship satisfaction and happiness typically plummet with the arrival of the first baby.

One study from the University of Nebraska College of Nursing looked at marital happiness in 185 men and women. Scores declined starting in pregnancy, and remained lower as the children reached 5 months and 24 months. Other studies show that couples with two children score even lower than couples with one child.

While having a child clearly makes parents happy, the financial and time constraints can add stress to a relationship. After the birth of a child, couples have only about one-third the time alone together as they had when they were childless, according to researchers from Ohio State.

Here’s the good news: A minority of couples with children — about 20 percent — manage to stay happy in their relationships despite the kids.

What’s their secret? Top three predictors of a happy marriage among parents

Sexual Intimacy
Commitment
Generosity

So there you have it. The secret to surviving parenthood is to have lots of sex, be faithful and be generous toward your partner. In this case, generosity isn’t financial — it’s about the sharing, caring and kind gestures you make toward your partner every day. When you are trying to survive the chaos of raising kids, it’s the little things — like bringing your partner coffee, offering to pick up the dry cleaning or do the dishes, that can make all the difference in the health of your relationship.

Make It Last

Here are some suggestions for how to strengthen your relationship based on the findings of various studies.

Stay Generous

Are you generous toward your partner? How often do you express affection? Or do small things for your partner like bring them coffee? Men and women who score the highest on the generosity scale are far more likely to report “very happy” marriages, according to research from the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project.

Use Your Relationship for Personal Growth

Finding a partner who makes your life more interesting is an important factor in sustaining a long relationship.

Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., a professor at Monmouth University in New Jersey, developed a series of questions for couples: How much has being with your partner resulted in your learning new things? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person?

“People have a fundamental motivation to improve the self and add to who they are as a person,” Dr. Lewandowski says. “If your partner is helping you become a better person, you become happier and more satisfied in the relationship.”

Be Decisive

How thoughtfully couples make decisions can have a lasting effect on the quality of their romantic relationships. Couples who are decisive before marriage — intentionally defining their relationships, living together and planning a wedding — appear to have better marriages than couples who simply let inertia carry them through major transitions.

“Making decisions and talking things through with partners is important,” said Galena K. Rhoades, a relationship researcher at the University of Denver and co-author of the report. “When you make an intentional decision, you are more likely to follow through on that.”

While the finding may seem obvious, the reality is that many couples avoid real decision-making. Many couples living together, for instance, did not sit down and talk about cohabitation. Often one partner had begun spending more time at the other’s home, or a lease expired, forcing the couple to formalize a living arrangement.

Showing intent in some form — from planning the first date, to living together, to the wedding and beyond — can help improve the quality of a marriage over all. To learn more, read about the science behind “The Decisive Marriage.”

“At the individual level, know who you are and what you are about, and make decisions when it counts rather than letting things slide,” Dr. Stanley said. “Once you are a couple, do the same thing in terms of how you approach major transitions in your relationship.”

Nurture Friends and Family

Sometimes couples become so focused on the relationship that they forget to invest in their relationships with friends and family. Researchers Naomi Gerstel of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Natalia Sarkisian of Boston College have found that married couples have fewer ties to relatives than the unmarried. They are less likely to visit, call or help out family members, and less likely to socialize with neighbors and friends.

The problem with this trend is that it places an unreasonable burden and strain on the marriage, says Stephanie Coontz, who teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. “We often overload marriage by asking our partner to satisfy more needs than any one individual can possibly meet,” writes Dr. Coontz. “And if our marriage falters, we have few emotional support systems to fall back on.

To strengthen a marriage, consider asking less of it, suggests Dr. Coontz. That means leaning on other family members and friends for emotional support from time to time. Support your partner’s outside friendships and enjoy the respite from the demands of marriage when you’re not together.

See a Rom-Com

It sounds silly, but research suggests that seeing a sappy relationship movie made in Hollywood can help couples work out problems in the real world. A University of Rochester study found that couples who watched and talked about issues raised in movies like “Steel Magnolias” and “Love Story” were less likely to divorce or separate than couples in a control group. Surprisingly, the “Love Story” intervention was as effective at keeping couples together as two intensive forms of marriage therapy.

Obviously, talking about a movie is not going to solve significant problems in a marriage, but the findings do signal the importance of communication in a marriage and finding opportunities to talk about your differences. “A movie is a nonthreatening way to get the conversation started,” said Ronald D. Rogge, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and the lead author of the study.

The best movies to start constructive communication are those that show various highs and lows in a relationship. Additional movies used in the study include “Couples Retreat,” “Date Night,” “Love and Other Drugs” and “She’s Having a Baby.” Avoid movies that idealize relationships like “Sleepless in Seattle” or “When Harry Met Sally.”

Even though some of the recommended movies are funny and not necessarily realistic, the goal is to simply “get a dialogue going,” said Dr. Rogge.

“I believe it’s the depth of the discussions that follow each movie and how much effort and time and introspection couples put into those discussions that will predict how well they do going forward,” said Dr. Rogge.

By Tara Parker-Pope

Tara Parker-Pope is the founding editor of Well, an award-winning consumer health site with news and features to help readers live well every day. She is also the author of “For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage.”

Source: How to Have a Better Relationship – Well Guides – The New York Times

Critics:

There is empirical evidence of the causal impact of social relationships on health. The social support theory suggests that relationships might promote health especially by promoting adaptive behavior or regulating the stress response. Troubled relationships as well as loneliness and social exclusion may have negative consequences on health. Neurosciences of health investigate the neuronal circuits implicated in the context of both social connection and disconnection.

Poor relationships have a negative impact on health outcomes. In 1985, Cohen and Wills presented two models that have been employed to describe this connection: the main effect model and the stress-buffering model.

The main effect model postulates that our social networks influence our psychology (our affect) and our physiology (biological responses). These three variables are thought to influence health, as described in Figure 1. This model predicts that increasing social networks enhance general health. A possible mechanism by which social networks improve our health is through our behaviors: if our social network influences us to behave in a certain way that enhances our health, then it can be argued that our social network influences our health.

For example, it has been demonstrated that higher social support improves our level of physical activity, which in turn has a positive effect on our health. It is unclear if this effect of social support is a threshold or a gradient. The difference between the two of them is that a threshold effect is a necessary amount of social support required to have a positive effect on health. On the opposite, a gradient effect can be described as a linear effect of the amount of social support on health, meaning that an increase of x amount of social support will result in an increase of y level of health.

There is evidence that social integration is negatively linked to suicide and marital status is negatively linked to mortality rates from all-causes.Hibbard (1985) explored the link between social ties and health status by conducting a series of household surveys. Indeed, she found that people who have more social ties, more perception of control, and are most trustful with others tend to have better physical health. Thoits investigated how social ties can improve both mental and physical health.

The results showed that social ties might influence emotional sustenance and promote active coping assistance. The other significant point of this research is that we can define two types of “supporters” able to provide different types of social support. Significant others (i.e., family, friends, spouse, etc.) tend to provide more instrumental support and emotional sustaining whereas experientially similar others (i.e., people who experienced the same life events than us) tend to provide more empathy, “role model” (a similar person looked like a model, a person to imitate) and active coping assistance.

Furthermore, social support can help us to regulate emotions above all when we are facing a stressful event. Probably one of the most famous studies on this field of investigation was conducted by Coan, Schaefer, and Davidson. In their study, they told married couples to go together in the laboratory. All couples reported a high level of marital satisfaction. The study aimed to evaluate the effect of handholding on the neural response to a threat. To create a stressful event, they informed the woman participant of each couple that she will receive moderate electric shocks.

There were three experimental conditions: no handholding, stranger handholding, or spouse handholding. The findings suggested that both spouse and stranger hand holding attenuated neural response to the threat, but spousal handholding was particularly efficient. Moreover, even within this sample of married couples with high satisfaction levels, the beneﬁts of spousal handholding under threat were even more important in those couples who have reported the highest quality of marital relationship.

References

Cohen, Sheldon; Wills, Thomas A. (1985). “Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis”. Psychological Bulletin. 98 (2): 310–357. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.310. ISSN 1939-1455. PMID 3901065.
Eisenberger, Naomi I; Cole, Steve W (May 2012). “Social neuroscience and health: neurophysiological mechanisms linking social ties with physical health”. Nature Neuroscience. 15 (5): 669–674. doi:10.1038/nn.3086. ISSN 1097-6256. PMID 22504347. S2CID 2039147.
Kouvonen, A.; De Vogli, R.; Stafford, M.; Shipley, M. J.; Marmot, M. G.; Cox, T.; Vahtera, J.; Vaananen, A.; Heponiemi, T.; Singh-Manoux, A.; Kivimaki, M. (2012-08-01). “Social support and the likelihood of maintaining and improving levels of physical activity: the Whitehall II Study”. The European Journal of Public Health. 22 (4): 514–518. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckr091. ISSN 1101-1262. PMC 3402714. PMID 21750013.
Selye, Hans (1976), “Stress without Distress”, in Serban, George (ed.), Psychopathology of Human Adaptation, Springer US, pp. 137–146, doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-2238-2_9, ISBN 978-1-4684-2240-5
Cohen, Sheldon; Janicki-Deverts, Denise; Turner, Ronald B.; Doyle, William J. (February 2015). “Does Hugging Provide Stress-Buffering Social Support? A Study of Susceptibility to Upper Respiratory Infection and Illness”. Psychological Science. 26 (2): 135–147. doi:10.1177/0956797614559284. ISSN 0956-7976. PMC 4323947. PMID 25526910.
Hwang, Stephen W.; Kirst, Maritt J.; Chiu, Shirley; Tolomiczenko, George; Kiss, Alex; Cowan, Laura; Levinson, Wendy (September 2009). “Multidimensional Social Support and the Health of Homeless Individuals”. Journal of Urban Health. 86 (5): 791–803. doi:10.1007/s11524-009-9388-x. ISSN 1099-3460. PMC 2729873. PMID 19629703.
Kawachi, I. (2001-09-01). “Social Ties and Mental Health”. Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine. 78 (3): 458–467. doi:10.1093/jurban/78.3.458. PMC 3455910. PMID 11564849.
Barnett, R.C. (1987). Gender and stress. Free Press. pp. 257–277.
Shumaker, Sally A.; Hill, D. Robin (1991). “Gender differences in social support and physical health”. Health Psychology. 10 (2): 102–111. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.10.2.102. ISSN 1930-7810. PMID 2055208.
Martínez-Hernáez, Angel; Carceller-Maicas, Natàlia; DiGiacomo, Susan M.; Ariste, Santiago (December 2016). “Social support and gender differences in coping with depression among emerging adults: a mixed-methods study”. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. 10 (1): 2. doi:10.1186/s13034-015-0088-x. ISSN 1753-2000. PMC 4704269. PMID 26744601.
Croezen, Simone; Picavet, H Susan J; Haveman-Nies, Annemien; Verschuren, WM Monique; de Groot, Lisette CPGM; van’t Veer, Pieter (December 2012). “Do positive or negative experiences of social support relate to current and future health? Results from the Doetinchem Cohort Study”. BMC Public Health. 12 (1): 65. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-65. ISSN 1471-2458. PMC 3275524. PMID 22264236.
Garcia, E. Lopez.; Banegas, J. R.; Perez-Regadera, A. Graciani.; Cabrera, R. Herruzo.; Rodriguez-Artalejo, F. (March 2005). “Social network and health-related quality of life in older adults: A population-based study in Spain”. Quality of Life Research. 14 (2): 511–520. doi:10.1007/s11136-004-5329-z. ISSN 0962-9343. PMID 15892440. S2CID 2428977.
House, J.; Landis, K.; Umberson, Debra (1988-07-29). “Social relationships and health”. Science. 241 (4865): 540–545. Bibcode:1988Sci…241..540H. doi:10.1126/science.3399889. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 3399889.
Hibbard, Judith H. (March 1985). “Social Ties and Health Status: An Examination of Moderating Factors”. Health Education Quarterly. 12 (1): 23–34. doi:10.1177/109019818501200103. ISSN 0195-8402. PMID 3980238. S2CID 12514075.
Thoits, Peggy A. (June 2011). “Mechanisms Linking Social Ties and Support to Physical and Mental Health”. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 52 (2): 145–161. doi:10.1177/0022146510395592. ISSN 0022-1465. PMID 21673143. S2CID 18169869.Coan, James A.; Schaefer, Hillary S.; Davidson, Richard J. (December 2006). “Lending a Hand: Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat”. Psychological Science. 17 (12): 1032–1039. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01832.x. ISSN 0956-7976. PMID 17201784. S2CID 3446344.

How Happy Marriages Stay Happy: 7 Signs of a Rock-Solid Relationship

In an interview years ago, Jane Pauley asked family and relationship researcher John DeFrain, Ph.D., what he thought was the major cause of divorce in America. “Marriage” was his response. He wasn’t trying to be flippant (well, maybe a little), but rather, he was acknowledging the many obstacles to happy, long-term unions.

Marriage is “putting two people together under the same roof and dumping all the problems of the world on top of their heads,” says DeFrain, professor emeritus of family studies at the University of Nebraska and the author of more than 20 books, including a study of strength and resilience of more than 30 families around the world that he co-authored with Sylvia Asay, Ph.D.

“Society is set up to satisfy business interests, not family interests,” DeFrain, now in his 70s, continues. “There are all these forces against couples and families and they don’t have any organization to protect them. They don’t have allies like a union or party; they have to figure it all out themselves.”

So how do happy marriages stay happy? What qualities help a marriage endure? Researchers like DeFrain have spent decades publishing studies dissecting marriages to figure out what works to keep couples happy for the long haul. Here’s what DeFrain and couples therapists say is truly essential for happy, long-term marriages.

1. They are friends — and have friends

Marriage researcher John Gottman developed an infographic of a “sound relationship house” containing the elements of successful relationships, says certified Gottman therapist and licensed marriage and family therapist Dana McNeil. Three things on the lower level — caring, fondness and admiration — are essential for building the friendship important for the house’s foundation, McNeil says.

“Like a real house, if something is going on with the slab or in the crawl space and you try to put the enormous weight of a house on it, you’re asking too much of the foundation and will have problems,” McNeil says. “Those three things go into the basis of friendship, which gives us the foundation to build upon.”

The increased life satisfaction researchers have associated with married people was twice as great when participants felt their spouses were their best friends, according to a study published in 2014. DeFrain has made similar observations in his work.

“Having studied great marriages for eight years, it boils down to simply that best friends don’t do bad things to each other.,” he says. “They wouldn’t think of it.”

It’s important to remember, however, that best friend shouldn’t mean only friend. Couples need to have space from each other, DeFrain says, and notes, “Oak trees won’t grow in each other’s shadow.”

In addition to alone time, having reliable friends and family help buffer people through storms, adds Justin Lavner, Ph.D., family researcher and associate professor at the University of Georgia.

2. They think like a team

Teamwork really does make the marital dream work. People in successful relationships feel supported and assured that their partner will always be on their side, McNeil says. In a true partnership, you hurt when your partner hurts, and a problem for one of you is a problem for both of you.

“It’s not codependent but interdependent,” she says. “It’s thinking, ‘My life wouldn’t be the same without you’ and ‘I know what to expect with you even though the entire world is chaotic right now.’”

Consistency and empathy are essential in true partnerships, McNeil says. If your partner asks for a hug after a rough day and half the time you’re happy to do it but sometimes you snap at her that you’re busy, for example, she’ll learn she can’t count on you 100 percent of the time. Attachment injuries, she notes, occur in children when caregivers are inconsistent or sporadic.

“‘Partnership’ is a great word for what two people of any gender would want to have,” says Pellham, New York, social worker and therapist Richard Heller. “Resilience in relationships to a large extent are based on agreement, understanding your network of support, and a basic sense of well-being.”

Couples who don’t feel quite there in their own relationships can learn to model healthy partnerships, Heller says. But what can stand in the way is an antiquated idea that the husband is “the boss” in the relationship, DeFrain says. The boss-employee relationship has little in common with the kind of partnership necessary for happy marriages.

“You don’t communicate positively with your boss, and you’re not really committed to your boss,” he says. “You just do what you have to do to make them happy.”

3. They accentuate the positive

Natural optimism is an extremely valuable asset in marriages. Married optimists engaged in more positive problem-solving strategies when there was conflict and showed less decline in marital well-being one year into the marriage, the authors of a 2013 study found. Another study concluded that reacting positively to positive news their partners shared was more predictive of relationship satisfaction than men’s responses to bad news, according to research published in 2006.

If you’re not a born optimist, some research suggests you might grow a little sunnier later in life: In a study of long-term marriages, researchers at Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that positive emotions increase and negative emotions decrease with age.

Practicing gratitude is a good way to learn the ways of the optimist. Gratitude appears to function as a “booster shot” for romantic relationships, according to a study published in Personal Relationships in 2010. When partners felt more gratitude toward their partners, they felt better about their relationships and more connected to their partners, not only on that day but the following day as well, the authors noted.

Another simple way to think about it is to practice what many people are taught in grade school: Put yourself in the other person’s shoes, McNeil says.

Part of having a positive perspective, per McNeil, is asking, ‘Do I give you the benefit of doubt? Can I be ‘curious instead of furious’ when conflicts arise?’

4. They know how to manage stress

Unsurprisingly, stress management is one of the six areas identified as crucial to family harmony, DeFrain noted in his book Strong Families Around the World.

Your personality traits and attachment style have a lot to do with how you deal with stress, which in turn affects how you behave in relationships, Lavner adds.

“What’s interesting is people often aren’t aware of how stress is affecting them,” Lavner says. “For a lot of couples, stress can be very impairing for the relationship.”

Therefore, a first step in couples therapy is getting them to understand how stress affects them physiologically, McNeil says.

“When your heart rate is over 100 beats per second, your cognitive functioning is impaired,” she says. “Before we start learning any tools, you have to have an understanding of the physiological impact conflict is having on your body.”

That stress-affected state is when couples say horrible things to each other, McNeil says. Once couples start recognizing how stress feels in their bodies, they can learn strategies to calm themselves down.

5. They know how to manage conflict

An important piece of conflict management is accepting the unfixable, which according to the Gottman Institute is 69 percent of conflict in marriages. Every couple has “one special argument” they tend to return to time and again, Heller says. Breaking that pattern requires “stepping back and monitoring that critical voice we carry inside of us and not allowing it to dominate,” he says.

To do that, couples also need to understand their individual characteristics, which include personality traits and attachment styles. Individual characteristics are one of the broad domains that affect the quality of relationships, Lavner says.

In addition to understanding your own way of reacting to things, try to understand who your partner is and why they act the way they do. For example, someone might resent a partner for never wanting to hold hands in public and say that makes them feel unloved. But it could be that the person just doesn’t like a lot of touching and prefers more space, he says.

“Part of it is helping couples better understand where the other is coming from,” Lavner says. “Then the hand holding doesn’t bother you anymore because you’ve figured out how to show each other affection in other ways.”

Hand holding in this example is a manifestation of a “core theme” for a couple, such as “How much closeness do I want, and how much distance do you want?” he says. Much like how arguments about dirty dishes might mask deeper issues about how a couple shares household duties.

“Therapists will have couples talk about specifics, but more as a way of getting at some of those deeper issues,” Lavner says. “Unless you deal with the underlying themes of conflict, you’re just playing Whack-a-Mole.”

6. They enjoy spending time together

This one might sound like a no-brainer, but think about it: You probably know at least one couple who doesn’t seem to enjoy doing anything together. Maybe all she wants to do with her free time is play video games and her husband gets frustrated trying to get her to engage with others at social functions. Or eating out is miserable because he always complains how much everything costs. Maybe they take the kids to the park, but the focus is the children’s safety and enjoyment, and their presence together as a couple is incidental.

Couples who enjoy spending time together are ahead of the game, as it’s another of the six important elements of resilient families DeFrain identified. In addition, a recent study found that playfulness helps keep romantic relationships healthy. It encourages positive interactions between partners by helping them deal with stress and defuse conflicts.

Most parents figure out how to attend to their kids and their jobs pretty well, DeFrain says, but might wind up scrimping on the marriage.

“Someone might say, ‘He or she is an adult, they don’t need me like the children do,’” he says. “But it helps to literally put the health of your personal relationship on the schedule somehow,” such as regular date nights or even putting sex on the calendar.

7. They share a world view

No, this doesn’t mean you have to be aligned on everything. That’s silly and doesn’t allow room for growth. But you have to have some shared values, DeFrain says, which he describes as “a deep narrative in your heart about how the world works and how you want to live.”

Creating shared meaning is the top layer of the sound relationship house, McNeil says. It doesn’t necessarily have to be religion.

“What I’ve seen work for couples is when they have the same vision at the heart of relationship,” Heller says. “Couples can have completely different interests but have a shared primary mission, whatever that means to them. It could be the environment, religion, racial equality.”

Like a strong house built on a sound foundation, these elements of happy marriages support each other, DeFrain says.

If couples are committed to each other, for example, they’re more likely to have positive communication. “And with commitment,” says DeFrain, “they treat the family like the center of their world.”

By Virginia Pelley

Source: How Happy Marriages Stay Happy: 7 Signs of a Rock-Solid Relationship | Fatherly

References

“VIZ MEDIA prepares North American Fans for hot new manga releases from Shojo Beat and Shonen Sunday imprints”. Viz Media. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
“Happy Marriage!? Manga Gets Live-Action Drama Series”. Anime News Network. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, June 8–14 (Updated)”. Anime News Network. June 17, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, February 8–14 (Updated)”. Anime News Network. February 17, 2010. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, August 9–15”. Anime News Network. August 18, 2010. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, January 10–16”. Anime News Network. January 19, 2011. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, April 11–17”. Anime News Network. April 20, 2011. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, August 15–21”. Anime News Network. August 24, 2011. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, December 12–18 (Updated)”. Anime News Network. December 21, 2011. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
“Japanese Comic Ranking, April 9–15”. Anime News Network. May 14, 2012. Retrieved March 4, 2013. “Japanese Comic Ranking, September 17–23”. Anime News Network. September 26, 2012. Retrieved March 4, 2013.

4 Ways to Say (and Get) What You Want in Your Relationship

In my 30 years of working with couples, I’ve noticed that most people have an easy time describing what they don’t want in their relationship: If someone prompts them, they’re able to rapidly fire off the many issues that they feel are creating distance between their partner and themselves. Yet if I ask the same people what they do want in a relationship, or from their partner, it seems to catch them off guard. The answer comes far less easily, as they pause to reflect on a question they haven’t necessarily asked themselves, at least not in a long time.

As a relationship progresses, it’s easy to focus on its problems. We can catalog all the negative patterns that have arisen or all the frustrating qualities a partner has. As a result, when we communicate with a partner, we often say what we don’t want instead of what we do. Somehow, it’s easier to complain or vocalize dissatisfaction than to directly state or ask for what we actually desire.

Many couples are comfortable telling each other, “You never do this,” “Why are you always forgetting what I say to you?” “How can you be so insensitive?” or, “Do you ever stop thinking about yourself?” They’re not as comfortable slowing down and saying, “It makes me feel so much more relaxed when I have help with this or that,” or, “I really want to feel you listen and understand.”

Unfortunately, most people automatically take a defensive, self-protective stance in relation to the inevitable hurts they experience with their partner. They fail to recognize that when they experience strong emotional reactions to a perceived slight by a partner that they are often reacting based on unresolved issues from their childhood. They have little awareness that this style of relating is moving them further from the outcome they want.

When in this defended, self-righteous posture, they lose track of their ultimate goal. The conversation becomes about being “wronged” or winning an argument instead of resolving an issue that’s making them not feel as close to their partner. They may have destructive thoughts or be listening to “critical inner voices,” that tell them, “How dare he treat you that way? You better stand up for yourself,” or “She is so self-centered; she only cares about herself.” As my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, often says about engaging in this way, “You may win the battle, but you will lose the war.”

While many partners tend to be combative, others take the opposite approach: Rather than say what they want, they shut down or turn inward. They may feel quietly resentful toward their partner or indulge in destructive thoughts toward themselves. They may have critical inner voices telling them they are unworthy or trying to convince them that they will experience humiliation, hurt, or rejection if they go after what they want. In either of these reactions, the person is avoiding expressing, or sometimes even acknowledging, his or her basic wants and desires.

Saying what you want is actually a powerful tool to end a fight. It helps you avoid hurtful ways of relating to your partner that might put him or her on the defensive. It’s also a way of being vulnerable that allows your partner to really know and feel for you. When you speak about your wants honestly, directly, and from an adult point of view, your partner is more likely to be open, responsive, and personal in return.

Here are a few approaches that can help you move toward this style of relating:

1. Practice unilateral disarmament. This is a technique I often introduce to couples that is valuable to implement in heated moments when an argument is going nowhere. If the goal is to be close to your partner, there are times when it is best to simply drop your side of the dynamic. You can do this by first calming down within yourself, refusing to lash back, and instead saying something warm and honest like, “I care more about feeling good with you than winning this argument.” Taking these steps often softens the other person, and he or she, too, is more likely to drop his or her side of the dynamic. You can then communicate from a more direct, vulnerable stance that isn’t about blame or being right. You can start to cleanly express what you want and encourage your partner to do the same. (I wrote more about this process in the post “5 Steps to End Any Fight.”)

2. Stay vulnerable. It’s hard for many people to say what they want out loud, or even admit it to themselves. When you do express your wants, it’s important to do it directly but from a vulnerable place. Try not to speak in an entitled manner, as if you’re demanding something, or using words like “I deserve.” When someone in a relationship acts like their partner owes them something, they tend to fall into traps in which they find themselves nagging or complaining, both of which only serve to alienate or irritate a partner.

But you also shouldn’t feel the need to overly explain or apologize for what you’re saying. You shouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed to simply state what you want. You should try to remain open and honest without getting sidetracked or back-stepping because you start to feel afraid or uncomfortable. The wants you express do not have to be rational—one common feeling is, “I want to be loved and accepted all the time no matter what I do or what mistakes I make.” Expressing this directly may seem unreasonable, but actually stating it in this vulnerable way will often stir up sadness and openness in both you and your partner. Most partners can relate to this feeling and will feel moved by your openness.

3. Don’t use victimized language. Refusing to act victimized is an important principle in general. When you talk about what you want, steer clear of speaking in ways that sound victimized or childish. In “Don’t Play the Victim Game,” Robert Firestone wrote, “Maintaining a child victim role leads to chronic passivity.” It’s important not to be passive-aggressive toward loved ones. You shouldn’t punish them for not knowing instinctively what you want or for failing to read your mind.

No one can or should expect any one other person to meet all their needs. Rather, you should strive to feel like a whole person in yourself. Of course, it’s natural to want to feel love and connection, but there’s an important difference between saying what you want as an adult and feeling like a dependent child whose survival depends on your partner giving you what

you need. Your words should be an authentic expression of what you want, not a demand for what you “need” or an expectation of what you’re “entitled” to.

4. Avoid “you” statements. One way people diverge from saying what they want directly is by switching from “I” statements to “you” statements. Many people tend to be more comfortable saying, “You don’t act excited to see me anymore,” or, “You’re always distracted.” It is valid to give your partner feedback, but if all he or she hears is a stream of complaints, it is more likely to drive them away than to get them to move closer to you. On the other hand, the exercise of saying what you want is really about expressing something about who you are and what matters to you. That’s why it is better to start with “I”: “I want to feel wanted by you.” “I want your attention.” “I want to have fun with you.” “I want to feel that you listen.” This helps you to have more feeling and understanding toward yourself, while hopefully inspiring the same reaction in your partner.

So many people avoid acknowledging what they want because there are strong emotions attached to wanting. For many couples I’ve done this exercise with, saying what they want seemed to awaken primal hurts, bringing up memories of what they longed for as children. One woman said that she wanted more affection from her husband—and much to her surprise, she was quickly filled with sadness, as she repeated statements like, “I want to be hugged. I want to be held.” She described afterward how the picture in her head had changed from her husband to her parents, who rarely offered affection and frequently ignored her cries for them to pick her up.

As Pat Love pointed out in an interview with me, “When you long for something, like love, it becomes associated with pain—the pain you felt at not having it in the past. Feeling connected to what you want in the present makes you feel vulnerable, like you can be hurt all over again. Because of this, many people don’t always want to recognize what they want much less express it to someone else, who can then potentially let them down.”

Every one of us has defenses surrounding our wants and desires, but it’s beneficial to let your guard down and take a chance on being direct in your adult relationships. There’s incredible value in learning to communicate what you want: You feel empowered when you live in a state of wanting. You are in sync with yourself and have more direction in your life. And if you do get hurt, you learn that you are strong and can handle much more disappointment than you imagined. Most important, when you express yourself in this way, you learn that you are worthy of what you want—and much more likely to get it.

By: Lisa Firestone Ph.D.

Source: 4 Ways to Say (and Get) What You Want in Your Relationship | Psychology Today

More Contents:

How To Talk To Someone You Find Intimidating

Whether it’s at work, at a party or on a date, we often find ourselves in conversations that test our confidence. When talking to people we perceive as more intelligent, more powerful, more personable, more talented or more attractive, it’s normal to feel inadequate or intimidated. We worry this more-impressive person will judge us, think less of us or reject us.

There’s no shame in struggling in these social situations, said therapist Melissa Weinberg of Open Lines Counseling in Baltimore.

“We’re social creatures, and naturally we care a lot about what others think of us, especially those we respect, people who have some social standing over us or anyone we’re attracted to,” Weinberg, who specializes in treating anxiety, told HuffPost. “Rather than feel weird about it, beat yourself up or avoid situations, remind yourself of the universality of the experience.”

Below, experts offer tips on how to hold your own with people you find intimidating.

First, change the tone of your inner dialogue.

Self-talk is the way we speak to ourselves. For many of us, it’s that negative inner voice that’s always telling us we’re boring, unlikable, socially awkward and destined to screw up. Positive self-talk may not come naturally to everyone, but it’s something that can be cultivated with practice.

“People may rarely talk to themselves in a positive tone that is reassuring and supportive, yet it is pivotal in setting the mood and tone for your possibly intimidating social interaction,” said Kendra Witherspoon Kelly, a licensed professional counselor at the Resilience Project in Atlanta. “Say things that highlight your positive attributes or even the parts of you that are in progress of becoming better. Shine on yourself some!”

BRAINY DOSE

If you have these signs, then you have a strong personality that others may find intimidating! Some people assume that such a label is just a polite way of saying that a person is loud and obnoxious. But there’s a big difference between these and a more general strength of character. Someone with strong personality traits radiates self confidence.

Some examples of positive self-talk might be: “I’m anxious about attending this work event, but I’m proud of myself for getting outside my comfort zone,” “I’ve never had a problem making friends in the past — so why would this be any different?” or “My small-talk skills are still a work in progress, but I ask great questions and I’m a good listener.”

Figure out the gist of what you want to say beforehand.

You won’t always be able to prepare for these conversations, as they sometimes happen on the fly. But when you can, it may help ease your nerves if you think about what you want to say ahead of time. You don’t need to write and memorize a whole script; coming up with a few bullet points should do the trick.

“We’re social creatures, and naturally we care a lot about what others think of us, especially those we respect, people who have some social standing over us or anyone we’re attracted to.”

– Melissa Weinberg, therapist at Open Lines Counseling

“The more ready you are before the interaction, the more confident you’ll be,” counselor Caris Thetford wrote in a post for The Muse. “This may not completely nix your nerves, but that’s OK — a touch of anxiety can help you perform under pressure. The idea is to reduce or prevent crippling fear.”

Remember that this person is human, too.

No matter how much status this other person has, they have physical and emotional needs just like you (and everyone else). To remind yourself of this commonality, try using the phrase “just like me,” said communication coach Jennifer Kammeyer, who teaches leadership communication at San Francisco State University.

“Say to yourself, this person eats breakfast, just like me. This person feels sad, just like me. It helps to shift your perspective of the person from ‘intimidating’ to ‘human,’” she said.

Know what value you add to the conversation.

Pinpoint your strengths: Maybe you’re a great storyteller, a creative problem-solver or have a wealth of knowledge on a particular subject.

“Before you engage, remind yourself why you are there,” Kammeyer said. “Somebody else invited you to the meeting or the social engagement for a reason. Tell yourself why you were invited and how you are adding value.”

“Somebody else invited you to the meeting or the social engagement for a reason. Tell yourself why you were invited and how you are adding value.”

– Jennifer Kammeyer, communication coach

Let that thought empower you to be yourself in the conversation. Sure, you might turn the volume up or down on certain parts of your personality, depending on who you’re talking to and the setting. But whether you’re chatting with the head of your company or an attractive acquaintance at a barbecue, it’s still “you.”

“Communicating as our authentic selves allows us to be free in our conversations,” said Amelia Reigstad, a communication consultant and coach in Minneapolis. “Know yourself, how you react in situations and how you best communicate. To be an authentic communicator, give thought to actively listening, respecting yourself and others, taking responsibility for your own feelings, and know that showing emotions in conversations is OK.”

Be aware of your body language.

During the conversation, try to stay physically grounded in your body, as that can help you feel more mentally steady, too.

“Stand with your feet hip width apart or sit with your knees hip with apart and both feet on the ground,” Kammeyer said. “Don’t cross your legs or your arms. Focus on the feeling of your feet literally grounding you. Focus on your posture being upright with a strong belly and back. Grounding yourself physically helps with confidence.”

Dive into the interaction before you psych yourself out.

“The longer you linger and avoid getting engaged in the conversation, the more stuck in your fears you will remain,” Weinberg said.

Then take a deep breath and tune into the here and now — focus on the sound of the other person’s voice, the color of their eyes or the texture of your clothes. That way, you’ll be more present in the conversation and less preoccupied with how you’re coming across.

“Obviously, this is hard to control, but try to bring yourself to the present moment, notice that your attention is creeping inward to your own fears and discomfort, and remind yourself to listen,” Weinberg said. “Get yourself out of your head and physical sensations by turning your attention to the present, grounding yourself through your senses.”

Embrace the discomfort.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they’re in an anxiety-inducing social situation is trying to force their way out of those uncomfortable feelings, Weinberg said. But it’s a paradox: The more mental energy you exert trying not to feel anxious or intimidated, the more anxious or intimidated you end up feeling.

“The more you try to get rid of it, the more intense and distracting your anxiety will become,” Weinberg said. “Practicing acceptance and allowing the presence of anxiety is a much more adaptive strategy. Even though it can understandably be uncomfortable to practice, it can teach you that anxiety is tolerable.”

We’ve all been there: Somehow, you’ve found yourself in a conversation with a person you have nothing in common with, someone who intimidates you or someone who won’t stop complaining. These kinds of interactions can be uncomfortable, to say the least. Our HuffPost series How to Talk to Just About Anyone will help you navigate these conversations and others. Go here for all the latest.

Kelsey Borresen

Source: How To Talk To Someone You Find Intimidating | HuffPost UK Relationships

Share this:

Like this:

Love and Romance

What’s Your Love Style?

Reignite Romance

Diagnose Your Passion Level

How Much Sex Are You Having?

But Who’s Counting?

Early and Often

The No-Sex Marriage

A Prescription for a Better Sex Life

Staying Faithful

Can You Predict Infidelity?

Protect Your Relationship

Conflict

How to Fight

Why Couples Fight

Money

Children

Make It Last

Stay Generous

Use Your Relationship for Personal Growth

Be Decisive

Nurture Friends and Family

See a Rom-Com

References

Share this:

Like this:

1. They are friends — and have friends

2. They think like a team

3. They accentuate the positive

4. They know how to manage stress

5. They know how to manage conflict

6. They enjoy spending time together

7. They share a world view

References

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

First, change the tone of your inner dialogue.

Figure out the gist of what you want to say beforehand.

Remember that this person is human, too.

Know what value you add to the conversation.

Be aware of your body language.

Dive into the interaction before you psych yourself out.

Embrace the discomfort.

Related…

Share this:

Like this: