Rekindle the Romance in Your Relationship with Self-Expansion

If your relationship has become a bit stagnant, it likely lacks sufficient self-expansion.  As we’ve discussed previously, self-expansion refers to people’s inherent desires to improve themselves and relationships serve as a key route to accomplishing this goal. However, many relationships are in a rut or otherwise feel a bit stagnant, stale, or boring. Want to learn about some strategies for improving your relationship that counteract boredom by fostering self-expansion? Read on... 

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True Equality? The Division of Housework between the Sexes

Housework is a necessary evil. Really, who likes to do things like doing the dishes, cooking, laundry, and cleaning up after the kids? Nobody does, but apparently men find it more evil than do women. According to a 2005 study from a study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) out of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, getting married increases the amount of time women spend on housework.

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A Proposal, Brick by Brick

An amazing proposal in Lego, by Mr. Walter Thompson. Learn more about this video here.

It's Back! New Season of The Bachelor Starts Tonight

The season premiere of The Bachelor, featuring the rejected Ben Flajnik from last season's The Bachelorette, airs tonight on ABC. Ben's getting a second chance, so we're doing the same for a post from our archives. Click the link below to read SofR's featured columnist Dr. Amy Muise's empirical analysis of how shows like The Bachelor could impact your own romanic pursuits. 

Is Watching The Bachelor/Bachelorette Bad For Your Relationship?

Mo Materialism, Mo Problems in Marriage

Researchers examined over 1,700 married couples to determine whether  materialistic individuals (i.e., those who agree with statements such as "I like to own things to impress people" and "money can buy happiness") experience increased relationship problems. More materialistic individuals reported less partner responsiveness, worse communication, poorer conflict resolution, and lower marital quality compared to people who devalue material possessions. The negative effects of materialism were more pronounced when both partners were materialistic.

Carroll, J. S., Call, L. L., Busby, D. M., & Dean, L. R. (2011). Materialism and marriage: Couple profiles of congruent and incongruent spouses. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 10(4), 287-308. doi:10.1080/15332691.2011.613306

"It's Time" for Marriage Equality

SofR celebrates the transitions that make relationships: A really cool video from our friends Down Under.

When the Troops Come Home

Troops’ reunions with loved ones evoke iconic images and powerful emotions. A study examined how service members’ returns from deployment influence their relationships. Data from over 200 military personnel revealed that those with more depression reported lower relationship satisfaction. This link resulted from increased uncertainty about the relationship’s future and greater perceived partner interference of everyday plans or career goals. Interestingly, service members’ dissatisfaction was heightened when they had been home from deployment longer.  

Knobloch, L. K., & Theiss, J. A. (2011). Depressive symptoms and mechanisms of relational turbulence as predictors of relationship satisfaction among returning service members. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(4), 470-478. doi:10.1037/a0024063

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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Happiness vs. Time in Relationships

From easiersaid.net.

“I Do…for Now”: Introducing Temporary Marriage Licenses

Legislators in Mexico proposed a new way to lower divorce rates: temporary marriage licenses. The controversial new law, currently under consideration, allows couples to decide how long they want their marriage contracts to last (two years is the minimum). After that period of time, if the couple is still happy, they can renew their marriage contract. But if they aren’t happy, the contract simply expires and couples are free to end the marriage without having to get divorced (read the full story here).

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Have Husbands Really Stopped Cheating?

Have husbands really stopped cheating? Well…sort of. While an ever-ready supply of misbehaving celebrities and politicians work to keep the media focused on infidelity, recent research actually suggests that monogamy is on the rise in the average American bedroom, especially among husbands.

Just last month, a new study reported that between 1975 and 2000, American couples of all types (heterosexual, gay, and lesbian) became significantly more monogamous.

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Marriage and Divorce: A New Window to Weight Gain?

Marriage and divorce alter our lives in a number of ways, and recent research suggests that our waistlines are among the first things to change in response to these events.¹  However, men and women appear to respond differently to these relationship transitions, especially when it comes to experiencing a significant weight increase. Specifically, women are more likely to pack it on after marriage, while men are more likely to do so after divorce.

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Why are Kim and Kris Sitting in a Tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G?

What do Kim Kardashian and Prince William have in common? No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke; the answer is as straightforward as the letters in their names. Both Kim and William married individuals who share at least one of their initials (Kim Kardashian recently wed Kris Humphries and Prince William Mountbatten-Windsor married Kate Middleton - bet you didn't know his last name until now)! 

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In Sickness and in Health: What Happens to Breast Cancer Patients’ Husbands?

Spouses of cancer patients experience significant declines in their own physical health. To better understand why, researchers studied husbands of “in remission” breast cancer patients as well as the husbands of breast cancer patients facing cancer recurrence. Surprisingly, wives’ breast cancer recurrence status (remission vs. recurrence) was unrelated to husbands’ physical health. Rather, husbands’ physical health and immune function deteriorated when they worried about their wives’ cancer, regardless of whether the cancer was in remission.

Gregorio, S. W.-D., Carpenter, K. M., Dorfman, C. S., Yang, H.-C., Simonelli, L. E., & Carson, W. E. (in press). Impact of breast cancer recurrence and cancer-specific stress on spouse health and immune function. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.  doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2011.07.237

image source: fotoloia

What are We Fighting About?: The Top 15 Sources of Conflict in Relationships

Relationship conflict is inevitable. To identify the most common sources of conflict, over 100 participants listed the ways that men and women could upset, irritate, hurt, or anger each other. Researchers then analyzed subjects’ responses to identify the most central themes, or common topics, in the list. Based on this analysis, here are the top 15 behaviors that can upset a romantic partner, ranked in order by the frequency each behavior was listed (from the most to least mentioned):  

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Divorce Can Be a Real Killer

Divorce isn’t fun, but can it be deadly? To test this possibility, researchers analyzed dozens of studies that included over 750,000 divorcees (i.e., people who have divorced) and millions of married participants. When divorcees were compared to married individuals, those who divorced had an increased risk of early death, especially younger folks and men. Someone should be sure to share these results with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony.  

Sbarra, D. A., Law, R. W., & Portley, R. M. (2011).  Divorce and death: A meta-analysis and research agenda for clinical, social, and health psychology.  Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(5), 454–474.

Who Has the Busier Bedroom: Single People or Married Couples?

I pose this question to the students in my Human Sexuality course every semester and invariably get the same response: “Isn’t that kind of obvious? Single people, of course!” My students are not alone in thinking this either—it is a pretty widely held belief that singles are always getting it on, and that sex after marriage is, well, improbable (to say the least). It does not surprise me that so many people believe this, given how popular media portrayals back up these stereotypes.

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Happily Ever After? The Wife Better Be Thinner than Her Husband

Ever notice how TV-couple wives are thinner than their husbands? It’s no accident. Researchers followed 169 newlywed couples’ body mass indexes (BMI) for four years. Happier marriages were those in which wives were thinner than husbands, regardless of income, education, and partners’ absolute BMI. Thus, it’s not about being skinny, per se. It is the relative difference in BMI that predicts satisfaction. Maybe the way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach.

Meltzer, A. L., McNulty, J. K., Novak, S. A., Butler E. A., & Karney, B. R. (2011). Social Psychological and Personality Science. doi: 10.1177/1948550610395781

Hit the Road, Improve Your Relationship

Summer is a terrific time to take a well-deserved vacation (click here to learn about what makes vacations great). Often those vacation plans include the opportunity to travel. Regardless of the specifics of your travel plans, you will often share the experience with a romantic partner.

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Stress: It Does a Marriage Good

Couples who report larger amounts of stress outside their marriages also tend to report less satisfaction within their marriages. You have probably heard the classic “joke” about a person being mad at the boss, but she can’t yell at her boss, so she goes home and yells at her husband, who, in turn, yells at their son, who then kicks the dog, who wonders what it did wrong.  Perhaps not a very funny joke (or not funny at all), but it does illustrate a phenomenon that researchers call stress spillover: when stress from outside the marriage causes problems inside the marriage.

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