Do the Daily Sacrifices We Make in Relationships Make Us Happier? Relationship Matters Podcast #22

In the 22nd installment of Sage’s Relationship Matters podcast, hosted by Dr. Bjarne Holmes of Champlain College, Dr. Casey Totenhagen (University of Arizona) dicusses recent research on how the daily sacrifices we make in relationships (e.g., doing the dishes, picking up a partner from work) influence how happy and committed we are in our relationships. 

Totenhagen explained, “In a relationship the partners are interdependent, and what I’m feeling and getting out of the relationship really depends on how my partner is treating me. These sacrifices are opportunities that we have to show our partners that we care about them, that we’re invested in the relationship, and that we want and expect the relationship to continue.”

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Assembling IKEA Furniture: The True Test of a Relationship

There are a lot of ways to put a relationship to the test...add allen wrenches and vague directions to the list. 

To learn more about relationship stress, click here. 

Fighting with an Ex-Husband Harms Mother-Child Relationships

High conflict with an ex-husband spills over negatively onto women’s relationships with their children. In a recent survey of a random sample of 1,239 divorced mothers, conflict with an ex-husband was associated with increased feelings of parental stress -- the greater the conflict, the more mothers felt their children were challenging to deal with (acting out, tantrums, etc.). This stress reduced the quality of mother-child interactions. The researchers proposed that mediated communication between ex-spouses, such as with a lawyer or psychologist, could help alleviate some of this conflict and improve family relations.

Hakvoort, E. M., Bos, H. M. W., Van Balen, F., & Hermanns, J. M. A. (2012). Spillover between mothers’ postdivorce relationships: The mediating role of parenting stress. Personal Relationships, 19, 247-254.

image source: parentdish.co.uk

Failure to Land: Factors That Influence a Husband’s Failure to Finish in the Bedroom

Q: What causes a man to not be able to “finish” in the bedroom? Is this because of an emotional disconnect from the wife? Does he want to be with someone else?

A: Thanks for your question. Erectile dysfunction (ED), defined as the inability of a man to attain and/or maintain an erection that is sufficient for sexual performance, is the most common sexual disorder among men in many parts of the world.

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My Partner Has Been Less Affectionate Lately - What Gives?

My boyfriend and are have been dating for about 2 years and we are in our early 20's. Most of our relationship is absolutely amazing - we are great friends, our communication is wonderful, and our sex life is incredible. But lately, my boyfriend has been avoiding kissing me and being affectionate/loving in general. We still have great sex, but he seems distant and whenever I ask him about it he makes up an excuse like "oh, my breath is bad right now" or something. Am I approaching it correctly by being open? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for your question! I can think of a few potential explanations for the situation you describe. One part of your question that stands out to me is the length of your relationship.

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Bringing Home More Than Just the Bacon: When Work Life Collides with Home Life

“Leave your troubles at the door.” 

It’s a standard rule of thumb to leave your emotional baggage behind when you clock in at your job. You can’t concentrate on your daily tasks if you’re worried about whether Little Danny will remember his lines in his school play audition. You can’t smile and talk up your proposal to a highly coveted client if last night’s argument with your significant other is still replaying itself, every hurtful word, over and over in your mind. Unless you’re a Method actor or perhaps some incarnation of a brooding songwriter-comedian-artist, your personal life has no place at your job.

The reverse is also true. Imagine you bring your work troubles home...

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Marvin Gaye was Right On: Sex and Stress Relief

Sexually active Israelis in monogamous cohabiting relationships reported on their stress levels and sexual activity each day for three weeks. Having sex on one day predicted lower stress the following day, and feeling stressed on one day was associated with an increased likelihood of having sex the next day. Convenient, eh? These associations were stronger for men than for women. This work suggests that people (especially men) may use sex to (effectively) alleviate daily stress.

Ein-Dor, T., & Hirschberger, G. (2012). Sexual healing: Daily diary evidence that sex relieves stress for men and women in satisfying relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 29, 126-139.

Support SofR by downloading "Sexual Healing" (or some other groovy Marvin Gaye tunes; we highly recommend the Let's Get It On album for facilitating your stress relief) on Amazon.com.

When Stress Hits, Call Your Mother. Don’t Text, Talk to Her. Really.

You’ve had a crappy day. Maybe your boss yelled at you, you forgot to pay the mortgage, or you lost your keys. When life stresses you out, sometimes you need your momma. After all, how many times have you heard your mom say how nice it is to hear your voice? But recent research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that it may be you that benefits from hearing your mother’s voice.

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Love Sick?

Several years ago, I read a journal article in which the researchers reported that individuals who had recently fallen in love had higher levels of cortisol than did individuals in long-term relationships or those in no relationship at all. Importantly, high levels of cortisol can eventually weaken the immune system and undermine physical health. Admittedly, this finding baffled me. If chronically high levels of cortisol can be bad for health, then how does that explain the overwhelmingly positive impression people have of being passionately in love? I’ve yet to find a Valentine’s Day card that reads, “I love you so much that you make me susceptible to pneumonia.”

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Co-Sleeping with Infants Reduces Their Stress Reactions

Researchers assessed infants’ cortisol following a routine (but often distressing) bath at 5 weeks of age to determine whether sleeping arrangements affect how infants manage stress. Infants who co-slept, spending at least half the night in the same room with their moms (most were not in the same bed), had lower cortisol after bathing than did infants who slept in their own rooms. Other variables (e.g., breastfeeding, maternal responsiveness) did not account for the results.

Tollenaar, M. S., Beijers, R., Jansen, J., Riksen-Walraven, J. M. A., & de Weerth, C. (2012). Solitary sleeping in young infants is associated with heightened cortisol reactivity to a bathing session but not to a vaccination. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37, 167-177.

image source: farm6.staticflickr.com

New Year’s Resolutions for Your Relationship

It seems as though there is a fairly standard list of New Year’s resolutions: lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, pay off credit card debt, and quit smoking/drinking. Perhaps you’ve gone beyond this list and added things like: spend less time on Facebook or watching TV, get organized, find a better job, fix up the house, stop procrastinating, etc.

Oddly (to us, anyways), although resolutions typically emphasize physical and mental health, they generally ignore relationship health. To address this oversight, here is list of 7 scientifically-validated ways you can improve your relationships culled from recent research.

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The Blame Game: Why Financial Stress Hurts Some Couples but Not Others

Money troubles constitute one of the most common relationship stressors. Interestingly, some relationships are especially prone to problems during tough economic times. Why? It depends on what people believe to be the cause of their financial difficulties. When couples attribute their financial troubles to their partners, satisfaction is worse. But blaming oneself or the economy minimizes the negative effect financial troubles have on satisfaction. Thus, finding a scapegoat for money-trouble may protect couples’ relationships.

Diamond, L. M., & Hicks, A. M. (2011). “It’s the economy, honey!” Couples’ blame attributions during the 2007-2009 economic crisis. Personal Relationships. Article first published online: 16 AUG 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2011.01380.x

image source: visualphotos.com

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.

Just Do It: Having Sex Can Make You Smarter

A rat searching for cheese in a maze is one of the more iconic images associated with psychology. Some recent research extends beyond rats’ GPS capabilities by examining their sexual activity. Yup, rodent sex; we’re going there.

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One Tough Mutha: Lactation Facilitates Moms’ Aggressive Behavior

If there’s one thing I learned from the old Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, it’s that mothers don’t look too kindly on people messing around with their babies. Across many non-human species, lactating moms’ maternal aggression has been well-documented. The general thinking is that because most young mammals are particularly vulnerable during the developmental period that coincides with lactation, nursing moms are capable of uncharacteristic levels of aggression if that’s what it takes to protect their youngins’. Interestingly, there’s been very little research to determine whether human moms are more likely to go all “Wild Kingdom” when lactating. Until now.

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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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I Learned It By Watching You

Have you ever felt like others’ negative moods are contagious? If you feel a connection to them, you may be right. Participants who were led to feel a connection to a confederate based on shared interests (e.g., favorite movies, music, travel destinations) felt more stress when the confederate exhibited greater stress and anxiety while preparing for a speech. Similarly, participants experienced increased heart rate and blood pressure when watching the confederate engage in strenuous exercise. 

Cwir, D., Carr, P. B., Walton, G. M., & Spencer, S. J. (2011). Your heart makes my heart move: Cues of social connectedness cause shared emotions and physiological states among strangers. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(3), 661-664.