“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness—it has no taste.”
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
When it comes to boosting your happiness, few areas are as important as your love life. George Vaillant, a researcher behind the milestone Harvard Grant Study (which followed 268 Harvard undergraduates for more than seventy-five years), states that “[h]appiness is love. Full stop.” Everything from life expectancy to confidence to stress levels is impacted by your romantic relationships, and your decisions and personality in turn shape the success of your love life.
Almost nothing in life is as mysterious and deeply personal as love. So it can seem reductive to turn a complex relationship into cold data points, unnatural to put a number on something so personal as how many times a husband compliments his wife, or how many times a couple has sex in a month. But just as Shakespeare, Neruda, and Keats have sought to understand what makes for ideal love, in more recent times psychologists and researchers have made their own attempts at solving the puzzle. The results have been less poetic, but no less insightful.
From the importance of a great “how we met story” to the best time to break things off, researchers have explored virtually every aspect of what makes a relationship work—and what doesn’t. Here are some takeaways from their findings on how to create a more successful love life and, as a result, a happier life.
Five Is the Magic Number
Whether a couple stays together or not may come down to a simple equation. Famed relationship psychologist John Gottman found through reviewing two decades of observational research that marriages that last maintain a ratio of positive-to-negative interactions of about five to one. The researcher found a mean positivity ratio of 5.1 to 1 for “speech acts” and 4.7 to 1 for “observed emotions.”
Those who exhibit closer to a one-to-one ratio of positive to negative are likely to “cascade to divorce,” according to the researcher. In 1992, Gottman and a pair of mathematicians recruited 700 newly married couples, videotaping fifteen-minute conversations between the two and counted the number of positive and negative interactions. They were able to predict whether the couples would still be together a decade later with 94 percent accuracy.
• Track your interactions with your partner over the course of a day. How frequently are you complimenting or expressing affection? How often are you criticizing or expressing frustration? If the ratio of positive-to-negative expressions is less than five to one, work to move that needle.
Wait at Least a Month for Sex
Whatever your policy on one-night stands, if you’re looking to build a long-term relationship, odds are better if you don’t rush into things. Relationship researchers have noted for years that couples who cohabit before engagement and marriage are more likely to divorce—in part because they are more likely to shift into marriage more through inertia than an active choice. But it turns out that hopping into bed immediately does not bode well for a relationship, either.
Cornell University researcher Sharon Sassler conducted a study of almost 600 married and cohabiting couples, surveying them about their relationship quality, sexual satisfaction, and communication. Controlling for variables such as age, income, and number of children, the researchers found that those who had sex within a month of starting to date (more than one third of respondents) reported lower relationship satisfaction. For the women surveyed, the longer they waited for sex, the better their perception of their current relationship.
• If you see longer-term potential in the person you just started dating, hold off on sex—at least for a few weeks.
Do a Daily Debrief
Communication is key to successful relationships, but often communication takes the form of discussing what you’re going to eat for dinner or figuring out who has to walk the dog. Drawing on her longitudinal study of 373 couples over decades, psychologist Terri Orbuch found that 98 percent of happy couples agreed that they “intimately know and understand” their partner. Additionally, a majority of happy spouses said they “often” revealed intimate things to their spouses, while just 19 percent of unhappy couples did the same.
To that end, she recommends that couples practice the Ten-Minute Rule, in which every day the couple discusses for ten minutes any topic except household responsibilities, work, or kids. From Orbuch’s findings, the daily habit of chatting about nonwork subjects opens the door to personal topics that will help you better know your spouse in a more intimate way.
Repair Your Relationship House
Just as the home you live in is (hopefully) built carefully with sturdy materials, so too should your relationship be. John Gottman and his fellow psychologist (and wife) Julie Gottman developed a mathematical system—or what might be better described as an architectural system—for whether a couple would remain together or divorce, based on physiological data collected while the pair of subjects got into a disagreement. The Gottman’s used decades of their research to create the “sound relationship house theory,” which outlines seven levels of a successful love relationship.
1 Build love maps: Get to know the inner workings of your partner by asking open-ended questions.
2 Share fondness and admiration: Focus on the good things about your partner, creating a habit of appreciation.
3 Turn toward instead of away: Answer your partner’s bids for attention and support (see next page).
4 Positive perspective: View your partner through rose-colored glasses, giving them the benefit of the doubt and avoiding what’s called “negative sentiment override”—defaulting to a negative view of your partner.
5 Manage conflict: Identify negative patterns in the relationship and either resolve them when possible, or create an ongoing dialogue with your partner about the problem.
6 Achieve life dreams: Help your partner to accomplish their long-term goals and life dreams.
7 Create shared meaning, the “attic” of the house: Share experiences, stories, and visions of the relationship’s future.
The third level of the Gottmans’ relationship house (see previous page) is “turn toward instead of away,” based on studying newlyweds and following up with them six years later. The couples who remained married had something in common: When one member of the couple made a “bid”—for attention, affection, or some other kind of connection—the other member of the couple acknowledged it and responded positively. As an example: If your partner asks, “How do I look?,” she is both asking a question and bidding for your attention and you should give her a positive response (“You look amazing!”). Or it may be a nonverbal bid, like putting her head on your shoulder, in which case you should affirm your partner nonverbally in response, such as by wrapping your arm around her.
In the Gottmans’ research, members of the couples who stayed married over the six years responded to these bids an average of 86 percent of the time. Those who divorced responded only 33 percent of the time.
• Work to identify “bids” when your partner expresses them—both the explicit ones and the subtler ones. As often as possible, respond to your partner in a positive way when they seek your attention.
Celebrate Good News
Psychologists define capitalization as celebrating someone’s good news—putting an exclamation point on another’s accomplishment or success. Nobody wants to feel great about some piece of news only to get a half-interested response from their partner—you want them to be more excited than you are. While it is far from surprising that people like to be celebrated, it turns out that how couples handle the good times may be as important as how they weather the bad ones.
In one study, seventy-nine dating couples answered questions about the strength of their relationship and taped interviews in which they discussed both positive and negative life events. Two months later, the well-being of each relationship was assessed, including whether the couple was still together. How participants responded to positive events was found to be more closely related to the strength of their relationships than discussions about negative events.
In another study, researchers found by observing newlywed couples over a two-year period that positive perceptions of capitalization were related to higher ratings of marital satisfaction for both husbands and wives.
• Make a big deal about good news. Celebrate small daily wins in addition to major promotions or successes. If you are in a new relationship, celebrating positive events can increase intimacy and build a strong foundation for your relationship.
Celebrate Tough Times, Too
While celebrating good news is beneficial, the way that you interpret rocky times is also key to a happy relationship. The practice of framing difficulties in one’s relationship in terms of how it brought you and your partner closer together, rather than as a sign you might be incompatible, has been found to be a key predictor of relationship success. It’s a concept psychologists call “glorifying the struggle” and there is evidence to back up the assertion that it works.
In one survey, 200 college students who were either in a relationship or had recently ended one answered questions about their relationship satisfaction, trajectory, and feelings of loneliness. The study found that respondents who tended to agree that marriage is difficult, but worth the effort—that is, who glorified the struggle—described higher levels of relationship satisfaction. By glorifying their struggles, the subjects were able to discuss how the couple worked together to overcome obstacles and focus on the relationship’s “ability to survive.”
• Don’t ignore relationship challenges. Embrace them and even elevate them as a normal, healthy part of a successful long-term relationship. Celebrate getting through a difficult patch.
Argue Better
“Conflictual discussions are not themselves a problem, but a natural way people sometimes try to resolve problems. What matters is that people effectively calibrate their manner of speaking to one another in a manner that is appropriate for the topic and the partner. Some problems are ultimately minor in the grand scheme of things and thus there are no real benefits to behaving in oppositional ways that can be upsetting. Also, some people are more easily upset than others and thus more oppositional approaches can be riskier.”
—James McNulty, professor of psychology, Florida State University
Unhappy with your relationship? Your sleep habits might be to blame. A University of Arizona study of twenty-nine heterosexual couples found that men who reported better sleep gave more positive ratings to their relationship the next day. Interestingly, women who reported negative interactions with their partners during the day reported poorer sleep that night.
Embrace “ACR”
“Shelly Gable, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, uses the term active constructive responding, or ACR, to describe the way to cultivate more life satisfaction—higher positive emotions and greater relationship well-being. There are four ways to respond to others’ good news, and only one of these four builds stronger relationships. The other three actually break down the relationship.
1 A passive constructive response is brief and often distracted. It might involve a ‘that’s great,’ but you turn your attention away from your partner; it lacks connection.
2 A passive destructive response ignores the event completely, hijacks the content, and turns the conversation to yourself.
3 An active destructive response takes the wind right out of their sails and highlights what might be wrong or worrisome about the good news.
4 An active constructive response (ACR) shows genuine interest by asking simple questions to help your partner savor the good news. Not only are you letting your partner experience the joy of the event, but your shared experience is a happiness multiplier.”
—Lorrie Peniston, psychotherapist
Friends’ Relationships Are Important, Too
Divorce can be contagious. A team of researchers led by Rose McDermott of Brown University conducted a longitudinal study on how a person’s social network can impact his or her relationship. Looking at data for thousands of people over three decades, they found that individuals were 75 percent more likely to become divorced if a friend got divorced, and 33 percent more likely to do so if a friend of a friend did. All told, the findings suggested that if a close friend or family member divorces, your chances of divorcing your partner increase by 16 percent.
• Help your friends strengthen their own marriages. Plan couples’ activities together and speak positively about friends’ partners.
Raise Your Credit Score
Financial difficulties are one of the biggest challenges a relationship can face. And as it happens, your credit score can be a pretty good predictor of your marriage’s chance of survival. A study by researchers from UCLA, the Brookings Institution, and the Federal Reserve Board found that the lower a person’s credit score, the more likely his or her marriage will end in divorce. They went so far as to put it in numbers: For every 105-point increase in your credit score, there is a corresponding 32 percent drop in your likelihood of divorcing. So now you have one more reason to pay off that Visa.
Create a Division of Labor
Who did the dishes last? What about the vacuuming? Chores are a complex work arrangement that if managed well can encourage cohesiveness in a household, but can create the opposite if managed poorly. In a Pew Research poll, sharing household chores was rated in the top three issues associated with a successful marriage (after faithfulness and good sex). UCLA researchers looked into exactly how these issues affected marital satisfaction. They found that on average, men spent 18 percent of their time doing housework and handled just one third of household tasks, while women took on 67 percent of household tasks while spending 22 percent of their time on housework.
It turned out there was greater conflict between couples who failed to lay out explicit terms of who was responsible for what than between those who made these distinctions clear. Ambiguity led to one person having to ask the other to pull their weight, to feelings of resentment, and to criticism of one another’s performance of their tasks. The researchers concluded that the best way to avoid these conflicts is through “clear and equitable models” that reduce the need for partners to manage one another’s chores. In turn, couples can “fulfill their household duties with the knowledge that the partner will not in fact overstep established boundaries.”
• Lay out clear responsibilities—you do the dishes, your spouse does the cooking, and you swap the vacuuming every other weekend.
Rethink What You’re Getting from Sex
Sex feels great—but that’s not the only reason it’s great. While pleasure is an important component of a healthy sex life, studies have shown that over time, a relationship succeeds when your attention is on your partner’s needs and on creating intimacy between you both.
A team of researchers examining the relationship behavior of 128 couples found that men who approached sex as a means of gaining self-affirmation actually reported lower sexual satisfaction and fewer orgasms during sex. Couples who sought to increase intimacy and fulfill one another’s needs expressed greater satisfaction with their sex lives.
• Put your attention on your partner’s needs, and you’ll end up enjoying sex more.
“Our work suggests tightwads would probably be better off financially and psychologically by marrying other tightwads. Spendthrifts appear to be happier, though less financially stable, when married to other spendthrifts. Pairing with your financial opposite can be fun and interesting at first, especially for tightwads, who have a hard time spending on their own. But over time, the stakes get higher—you have to jointly make decisions about things like houses, cars, and kids. There are more and more opportunities for arguments, blame, second-guessing, and regret.
“But if you’re already married to your opposite, maintaining separate bank accounts might help. We’re investigating this now in a field experiment with newlyweds, where we’ve randomly assigned them to maintain joint or separate accounts.”
—Scott Rick, associate professor of marketing, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
That simple two-letter word can make a big impact on the health of your love life. A group of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley reviewed fifteen-minute videotaped conversations between 154 married couples, and found that the use of personal pronouns such as “we,” “us,” and “our” were linked with positive behaviors such as affection and lower frequency of negative behaviors such as anger.
Turn On a Sappy Romance
We’ve all seen our share of corny romance movies, where the two beautiful people at first can’t stand each other but are locked in a passionate embrace by the time the credits roll. It can all seem a bit unrealistic. But in fact, watching such elevated versions of intimate relationships can have a positive effect on your own romance.
Through an online survey, researchers asked 275 participants about their romantic expectations, beliefs, and experiences, as well as their level of commitment to their current partner. They found that the expression of romantic beliefs had a positive impact on relationship satisfaction. In other words, if we operate with a positive, even idealistic view of relationships, then we may approach our relationship in ways that strengthen the connection. And those who endorsed romantic beliefs were not found to be more likely to suffer unmet relationship expectations. The researchers suggested this might be because “romantic beliefs lead individuals to approach a relationship in a way that fosters positive outcomes.” For example, if you believe your partner to be your soul mate, you’re more likely to overlook a given disagreement or temporary annoyance.
• Read a romance or watch a movie about gorgeous people falling in love. Idealizing relationships is likely to strengthen your own.
Put On Those Rose-Colored Glasses
As we said, idealization is healthy. A longitudinal study of 200 couples recruited when they obtained marriage licenses found that those who maintain heightened views about their partners’ positive qualities tended to remain happier longer.
The couples who participated in the study were surveyed twice a year for three years to assess their relationship qualities and marriage satisfaction; they were also asked questions about their own positive traits. Researchers determined who idealized their partner by comparing partner responses about themselves and each other. They found that couples in which one person indicated that their partner possessed positive, idealistic qualities and the other person did not indicate seeing those qualities within themselves—what the researchers called “illusions”—maintained higher levels of marital satisfaction longer.
• Don’t be afraid to put your partner on a pedestal and idealize the things you most admire about him or her.
Punch Up Your “How We Met” Story
“How’d you guys meet?” might not seem like a complicated question, but it holds a great deal of insight into the strength of a couple’s relationship. That was among the findings in a classic study of fifty-two couples in which each pair discussed the history of their relationship including their first impressions of one another. The researchers rated each for positive and negative elements and were able to predict—with 94 percent accuracy—whether the couple would stay together or divorce. In telling their story, the couples who were more reserved or negative were more likely to break up within three years, while the couples who were more passionate and expansive were more likely to stay together. (They were also more likely to display marital satisfaction and better problem solving.)
This extended beyond just the “how we met” story, and also covered questions such as “What types of things did you do together [when you were first dating]?” and “Tell me about your wedding.” Couples with strong, positive, energizing memories of these early years are able to draw on these memories when the relationship hits a rough patch.
• Discuss early memories with your partner and the way that you met. Establish a passionate baseline for your relationship and shared story.
Maintain Friendships Outside the Marriage
Many married people describe their spouse as their best friend. That’s wonderful—as long as they’re not your only friend. A number of studies back up the fact that a relationship is healthier when the partners maintain friendships and hobbies outside of it. One study of 123 couples by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Social Work found that healthy couple friendships can add to a marriage in a number of ways: Couple friends increase partners’ attraction to each other, give individuals the opportunity to see how other couples interact, and provide a greater understanding of men and women more broadly.
Change Up Date Night
Keeping a relationship fresh goes a long way toward keeping it happy. A researcher at the State University of New York at Stony Brook found that participating in novel activities enhanced the quality of a relationship. One experiment instructed a group of middle-aged couples to spend ninety minutes per week doing “exciting” activities—such as hiking, dancing, or attending a show—unlike what they typically did. After ten weeks, these participants were compared to a group of couples who had been instructed to just do pleasant and familiar activities, like going to a movie or out to dinner. The “exciting” couples exhibited a much higher level of marital satisfaction.
These effects may be rooted in chemistry—specifically the release of dopamine and norepinephrine, which pop into a person’s brain as they enjoy these new “self-expanding activities.”
• Try something new for date night. Create relationship missions that push you to get out of your comfort zone as a couple. Take an art class, go skydiving, or just take a road trip somewhere you’ve never been before.
Keep a Journal Handy
Many people can’t remember what they did last week, let alone six months ago. But researchers have found that a great sense of joy can be gained from jotting down daily activities in a journal—and from revisiting these moments at a later date. Harvard researchers found that when people recorded daily events and were asked to review them months later, they felt the experience to be both interesting and pleasurable. In one of four experiments, participants created a “time capsule,” responding to nine prompts that captured recent conversations, songs they just listened to, an inside joke, or a recent photo. They predicted how curious they would be at a later date to see what they had written down; three months later they rated how surprising or meaningful they found each jotting. Participants were consistently more curious to see what they had written than they expected they would be.
In another study, participants noted their activities on Valentine’s Day as well as on another, unremarkable February day, writing down how curious they would expect to feel upon rereading their account of each day. Again, they underestimated how interested they would be about reading of their mundane day. While we document birthdays, weddings, and other big events, it turns out that regular boring days are plenty exciting in hindsight, too.
• Incorporate a shared journal into your relationship, where each partner can jot down memories as they happen, to be revisited whenever you like.
Make Time for Sex
You probably aren’t having enough sex. An Australian survey of more than 6,500 men and women found that 54 percent of men and 42 percent of women were unhappy with the frequency of sex in their relationship—and those who were unhappy with the frequency of sex were more likely to report lower levels of relationship satisfaction. The study’s lead author, Anthony Smith, professor of public health and deputy director of the Australian Research Center in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University in Melbourne, told The New York Times that couples may need to set aside time for sex just as they do for meals, work, and other activities. As he put it, “If people value sex as an important part of their relationship, and almost everybody does, then they need to put sex higher up the priority list.”
• If you aren’t having sex at least a couple times a week, talk to your partner about why and maybe set a schedule of certain nights you will make time for intimacy. It may seem the opposite of sexy to plan getting it on, but if the alternative is a sexless marriage, it’s worth it.