Falling in love is always blissful, perhaps due in part to sweet unpredictability of what lies ahead. Falling out of love on the other hand can vary from a slowly progressing dull ache to an excrutiating, life-sapping mess.
According to a recent study, the slow simmering approach of a relationship breakdown can be predicted up to six years out.
Researchers claim two key questions can predict whether or not a marriage will still be standing six years on.
You would think that predicting happiness, love and relationship staying power would be dizzying in its complexity, but no – the method is gloriously simple and involves two questions:
- How happy are you in your marriage relative to how happy you would be if you weren’t in the marriage?
- How do you think your spouse answered that question?
The Research.
Researchers Leora Friedberg and Steven Stern from the University of Virginia analysed data provided by 4,242 couples. Six years later, the couples were asked the same questions. They found that
- Those who indicated in the first round of questions that they would be just as happy out of the relationship were more likely to have broken up by the follow-up six years later ).
- Interestingly, those who overestimated their spouse’s happiness were more likely to have divorced within six years than those who simply said they would be happier out of the relationship.
Less than half the participants (41%) were able to accurately gauge how their partner felt about the relationship.
According to Friedberg and Stern, it’s the lack of insight into a partner’s happiness or unhappiness that is at the heart of many relationship problems.
Without a proper handle on how your partner feels in the relationship, you can wrongly assume that your partner has more to give.
The more a spouse overestimates the happiness of their partner, the more he or she will ask of that partner and potentially push too hard, to the point where the partner feels resentful, distances themselves or makes the decision that the single life would be a better option.
Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that couples should ‘pick their battles’ because pushing too hard all the time will only push a partner away.
We all have plenty to gain by negotiating a little harder, but it seems we also have plenty to lose if we wrongly assume our partner has more to give.
Relationships flourish through conversation. Ask your partner how happy he or she is in the relationship and before asking for more, find out if there’s more to give. There might not be, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate unhappiness with the relationship. Other things – work, family, kids – might be taking more of their share for a while.
Problems come with the assumption that a relationship still sets off butterflies. Maybe it does. And maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s more like a bug, and tummy bugs can turn nasty if left.
Dissatisfaction has a way of sneaking into places it’s not welcome, and there’s nowhere it’s more unwelcome than in relationships.
Turning dissatisfaction around starts by being aware that it’s there. And a gorgeous bunch of flowers won’t hurt. Neither will a special note. Or his favourite homemade meal. Her favourite magazine waiting on the bed would be crazy good.
People change, expectations change and needs change. Relationships can’t help but change in response – but they can change as in flourish or change as in flounder. Relationships go off track when assumptions take the place of conversation. Talk hard, love hard, play hard, and you’ll be there to catch the relationship on the first sign that it might be falling away.
[irp posts=”981″ name=”Desire in Long Term Relationships: Keeping it and Finding it When It’s Gone.”]
![We have to change the way we talk about anxiety. If we talk about it as a disorder, this is how it feels.
Yes anxiety can be so crushing, and yes it can intrude into every part of their everyday. But the more we talk about anxiety as a disorder, the more we drive ‘anxiety about the anxiety’. Even for big anxiety, there is nothing to be served in talking about it as a disorder.
There is another option. We change the face of it - from an intruder or deficiency, to an ally. We change the story - from ‘There’s something wrong with me’ to, ‘I’m doing something hard.’ I’ve seen the difference this makes, over and over.
This doesn’t mean we ignore anxiety. Actually we do the opposite. We acknowledge it. We explain it for what it is: the healthy, powerful response of a magnificent brain that is doing exactly what brains are meant to do - protect us. This is why I wrote Hey Warrior.
What we focus on is what becomes powerful. If we focus on the anxiety, it will big itself up to unbearable.
What we need to do is focus on both sides - the anxiety and the brave. Anxiety, courage, strength - they all exist together.
Anxiety isn’t the absence of brave, it’s the calling of brave. It’s there because you’re about to do something hard, brave, meaningful - not because there’s something wrong with you.
First, acknowledge the anxiety. Without this validation, anxiety will continue to do its job and prepare the body for fight or flight, and drive big feelings to recruit the safety of another human.
Then, we speak to the brave. We know it’s there, so we usher it into the light:
‘Yes I know this is big. It’s hard [being away from the people you love] isn’t it. And I know you can do this. We can do hard things can’t we.
You are one of the bravest, strongest people I know. Being brave feels scary and hard sometimes doesn’t it. It feels like brave isn’t there, but it’s always there. Always. And you know what else I know? It gets easier every time. I’ve know this because I’ve seen you do hard things, and because I’ve felt like this too, so many times. I know that you and me, even when we feel anxious, we can do brave. It’s always in you. I know that for certain.’♥️](https://www.heysigmund.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png)
