Warning! Valentine’s Day May Be Hazardous for Your Relationship’s Health

Valentine’s Day typically serves as a time to show appreciation for that special someone in our lives or as an opportunity to take a relationship to the next level. It’s a time to celebrate love in all of its forms. But can it be a dangerous time for the health of your relationship? 

Holidays can be stressful, but your relationship probably made it through Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Festivus, and New Year’s in one piece. Congratulations! Valentine’s Day should be a piece of cake, right? Not so fast…

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Valentine's Day: Don't Overthink It

From xkcd.com.

Get Your Facebook Profile Ready for Valentine’s Day

What should you do to get ready for Valentine’s Day? According to YourTango, you should delete your ex-partner from your Facebook friends list. They have even designated a day for doing it; February 13^th is Break Up With Your Ex Day, and this means deleting, blocking, untagging, and unfollowing your ex from Facebook and other social media.

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Here's to New Beginnings

From thedoghousediaries.com.

Should I Move On or Go Back?

A reader wrote in with the following dilemma: "I'm currently with a boy that I've been with for 2 months, he is so sweet, and treats me like a princess, something I've always wanted. Although, I can't seem to stop talking to my ex bf. I feel like it has to do with the fact that I moved on too quick, it was like a month that I moved on and I was with my ex for 3 yrs. I just don't know what to do with my situation, I'm the type of person that doesn't like to hurt anyone but that's too late. Every time I'm with my ex I get weak, and it gets so hard for me to tell him I can't talk to him anymore, because I know that's the best option for me. Every time I'm with my current bf, everything seems right, but I here and there think about my ex. I need help on what to do, because I will always love my ex, but I have strong feelings for my current bf."

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Give Yourself a Break: How to Cope with a Recent Divorce

Breaking up is stressful, but greater self-compassion helps individuals cope with their own marital separations. Over 100 middle-aged adults spoke about a recent marital separation during a 4 minute stream-of-consciousness recording. Based on judges’ ratings, participants who expressed greater self-kindness (e.g., “you have to…just forgive yourself”), mindfulness (e.g., “you just have to deal with reality”), and common humanity (e.g., “tell yourself you’re not the only person to experience this”) reported less stress 9 months later. 

Sbarra, D. A, Smith, H. L., & Mehl, M. R. (in press). When leaving your ex, love yourself: Observational ratings of self-compassion predict the course of emotional recovery following marital separation. Psychological Science.

“Breaking Up is Like Knocking Over a Coke Machine”

Breaking up is like knocking over a Coke machine. You can't do it in one push. You gotta rock it back and forth a few times, and then it goes over.

-Jerry Seinfeld (to Elaine, regarding her relationship with Puddy)

Most research on relationship stability considers breakup to be a finite state or endpoint: a relationship is either over or it’s not; there is no middle ground. As you might have experienced, however, breakup can often be a process in which some couples get back together and then breakup again (press Alt+Ctl+Del to reboot and do it all again...and again).

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The Politics of Love

When looking for partners, we are attracted to others who are similar to us. Whether the similarity lies in personality, values, or political views, individuals tend to seek those with ideals comparable to their own. However, in a recent survey of college students, the majority indicated they’d be willing to date someone with a political affiliation different than their own.

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Love is Blind. Your Friends Aren’t.

I previously wrote about the things that do and do not predict breakups. Now that we have a good handle on what predicts breakup, let's tackle the question “who predicts breakup?” 

The answer seems fairly obvious, right? If I want to know if your relationship will stand the test of time, I should ask you and/or your partner. Who knows more about a relationship than the people actually in that relationship? You’re there (and hopefully awake) for all of the interactions you have with your partner.

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The “Turkey Dump”: Fact or Fiction?

It is the day after Thanksgiving weekend and thousands of undergrads are emerging from a turkey-induced slumber, packing up their leftover turkey sandwiches, and heading back to their dorm rooms newly single. Yep, you got it, they’ve been Turkey Dumped – or at least this is what contemporary dorm room legend implies.

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Attachment and Breakups: The Whole Matters More Than the Parts

Thinking about the recent meta-analysis on breakups in dating couples, one of the interesting findings of that study was that someone’s attachment “style” (whether someone is secure or insecure) doesn’t predict whether that person’s relationship will last or end. It would seem that people who are secure would have longer lasting relationships, and insecure people would be more vulnerable to breakups. But the picture is a little bit more complicated (and interesting) than that.

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Adele's "Someone Like You" - The Best Break-Up Song Ever?

If you could have written a song about how you felt after your most recent breakup, whether you broke up a week or several years ago, what would you say? Adele’s "Someone Like You" (currently #1 on iTunes; it's the song she performed at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards) should be considered for any list of the best break-up songs (click here for the full lyrics). Adele's song describes a devastating breakup that only gets worse when she later sees her partner living the perfect life. Ouch. Check out the video for the acoustic version:

Whereas "Someone Like You" addresses the negative experiences associated with a break-up, her other hit, "Rolling in the Deep," is about moving on and finding someone else. In fact, if you're a fan of break-up songs, Adele’s most recent album, 21, was inspired entirely by the dissolution of her most recent romance.  

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Five Predictors (and Five Not So Good Predictors) of Relationship Success

Last week we posted a quiz to see how much our readers knew regarding the predictors of relationship stability (or success). Overall, it looks like we've got some work to do; the average score on the quiz was 48% (remember, random guessing should average 50%). The questions in the quiz were inspired by some of my work on understanding what factors influence relationship outcomes. One of my main research areas is the role of commitment in predicting the “success” of dating relationships (using the term loosely; i.e., staying together vs. breaking-up).

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The Museum of Broken Relationships

When we launch the SofR Study Abroad Program the first stop will be at London's Museum of Broken Relationships. In the meantime, we hope our friends in the UK will check it out for us and report back.

We're especially interested in seeing the Slovenian "Divorce Day Mad Dwarf" and "An Ex Axe" from Germany.

See more about the museum in this video.

Test Your Relationship IQ - Quiz #2!

Okay kids...School is about to start up again and it's time for another quiz (see the last Relationship IQ Quiz here). The theme of this quiz is "relationship success" versus breakup in dating relationships. What predicts whether relationships stand the test of time or go down in flames?

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Relationships 101: Having Healthy Relationships in Your First Year of College

For a .PDF version of this article, please click here. This article is free to any college/university for dissemination to students (e.g., as part of college orientation, first-year seminar, or college course).

College is all about new experiences: the start of a new life, new friends, new freedom, and new relationship experiences. Not surprisingly, romantic relationships are responsible for life’s happiest moments.¹ For that reason, it is important to avoid problematic relationships that could jeopardize your college education. To help, we’ll identify qualities of healthy relationships in the context of common relationship experiences that students encounter during their first year in college.

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Is the Unemployment Rate Tied to the Divorce Rate?

If you’re like most people, you probably read the question posed in the title of this article and thought, “Of course!” And you would be right—there is indeed a statistical association between the unemployment rate and the divorce rate. But what is the nature of that association? Is unemployment related to an increase or a decrease in the number of divorces? Unfortunately, that question is somewhat more difficult to answer. So far this year, scientists have released two studies on this topic and have come to two seeming different conclusions. 

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What Constitutes Cheating Anyway?

A reader submitted the following question: How have researchers operationalized infidelity in the past? What outcomes/predictors are associated with different "types" of infidelity?

Dear Reader,

Researchers have defined infidelity (known scientifically as “extradyadic behavior”) in many different ways. Some have defined it in very narrow terms (e.g., having sexual intercourse with someone other than your partner), while others have defined it much more broadly (e.g., having any type of physical or emotional intimacy outside of your relationship). To date, the vast majority of studies have focused on sexual (i.e., physical) cheating, with relatively fewer giving consideration to things like flirting, “sexting,” keeping secrets, and/or developing feelings for someone else (things that many people might feel are just as bad, if not worse, in some cases).

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Attachment Theory: Explaining Relationship “Styles”

Sometimes it’s easy to spot insecure people. They could be highly jealous, petty, paranoid, or emotionally distant. They could resist being touched or comforted when they’re upset, or they could go from being happy to furious at the drop of a hat, leaving their partners scratching their heads.

Fortunately, there’s an explanation for these behaviors, and it lies in “attachment theory.”

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Summer Lovin' or Summer Leavin'? Two Ways to Predict Break-up

Summer is here…the beach, the pool, the mountains, picnics, fireworks, sitting around reading trashy novels, or perhaps just a little rest and relaxation. You might also consider adding a little summer romance to that list. Now, if you're already in a relationship, this might pose some problems, but hear me out. Whether you and your partner are graduating and heading off to different colleges, or just have different summer vacation plans, the summer may be a good time to take a break. Blasphemy! Well, maybe you would never consider it…but would your partner?

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