TOTALLY GEEKED!

A new study has concluded that high standards for a romantic relationship lead to morehappiness over the years--if you can meet them. 

That may sound obvious, but it does confirm advice you'll often hear from marriagecounsellors: Address problems directly rather than going sarcastic or drifting off.  

The participants were 135 newlyweds in Tennessee, mostly white and in their mid-20s, with an average combined annual income of less than $40,000. At the start and every six months for the next four years, the couples answered questions about their relationship satisfaction and hopes.

As part of the study, they held two ten-minute discussions about their top problem as a couple and recorded the pow wow on tape.

James McNulty at Florida State University listened to all the talk and concluded that couples who directly addressed problems tended to have happier relationships, even if they sometimes sounded angry.

People who were indirect, insulting, avoiding the issue or sarcastic tended to be less satisfied over time. “If I say ‘Look, I’m very upset and here’s why’ — that’s different from ‘You’re being ridiculous’ or ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’”” McNulty said when presenting his research at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology earlier this year.

McNulty's research has also led to the conclusion that insecure people feel better in relationships with more sex (link is external)and that women don't mind being valued for their sexual attractiveness if their partner is committed.(link is external) Also marriages are happier when the wife is thinner than the husband.

We often hear that you have to love yourself--or at least think kindly of yourself--to have a good relationship. Using the same set of couples, McNulty has found that feeling good about yourself does seem to be tied to positive evaluations of you by your partner(link is external), but you may have a better self-assessment unconsciously than consciously.  He tested his subjects by showing them photos of themselves (mixed in with other photos for distraction) and then flashing words at them. Their job was to declare a word "positive" or "negative." The faster you judged a word positive after seeing a photo of yourself determined how positive you were about yourself unconsciously.  In research-speak, this is called an "associative priming task."  

Most surprising: he found (link is external)that couples' newlyweds' unconscious assessments of whether they'd be happy over time played out--but their conscious evaluations weren't accurate. Again, the participants indicated as quickly as possible whether a word was positive or negative after looking a photographs of their partners, mixed in with the distracting photos.

This makes me think that couples should take some of his tests before they get a marriage license! 

The big question is whether you can figure out what your unconscious assessments are--and your partner's. If a test could do it, why not? 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/open-gently/201603/one-test-can-show-whether-your-marriage-will-last