How To Get Over Infidelity And Become Stronger (S)

It is possible to recover from infidelity and even become stronger as a couple.

It is possible to recover from infidelity and even become stronger as a couple.


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The Key To Instantly Improving Relationships

The best type of support to give your partner.

The best type of support to give your partner.

Giving more emotional support can improve relationships considerably, new research finds.

Partners who receive more empathy, concern and acceptance  experienced more positive emotions and had higher relationship satisfaction.

Men, in particular, can improve their relationship by giving women more support of any type.

However, men have a tendency to give advice, when what women often prefer is emotional support, such as empathy.

Women can also improve their relationship by giving men more emotional support.

The conclusions come from a study of 114 newlywed couples.

All were asked about how much of two types of support they received from their partner:

  • Emotional support: being empathetic, encouraging, trusting and caring.
  • Informational support: providing solutions in the form of advice.

Overall, the results revealed that the best type of support to provide was emotional.

The study’s authors explain:

“…receiving more emotional support was associated with more favorable affect and higher relationship satisfaction regardless of support preferences.

Also, wives who received more informational support from their husbands had higher relationship satisfaction regardless of support preferences.”

However, not everyone likes the same type of support.

Some people get more out of empathy and concern, while others prefer straightforward advice.

Both too much or too little advice can be a source of irritation.

The study’s authors explain:

“Husbands who experienced underprovision of informational support from their wives, experienced less favorable affect.

In contrast, wives who experienced overprovision of informational support from their husbands experienced higher depressive symptoms.”

While there were differences in the types of support partners preferred, everyone was happy to get emotional support.

So, if you are not sure if your partner wants empathy or advice, the default should be empathy first.

The study was published in the Journal of Family Psychology (Lorenzo et al., 2018).

The Best Way To Improve Your Relationship

This activity causes untold relationship distress.

This activity causes untold relationship distress.

Sharing out the dishwashing duties more fairly could be one of the best ways to improve a relationship, new research suggests.

Out of all household chores, (not) doing the dishes is the most likely to damage a relationship.

Women in heterosexual relationships who did more dishes than their partners reported:

  • Lower relationship satisfaction,
  • more relationship conflict,
  • and worse and less sex.

The study looked at different household tasks including shopping, cleaning and laundry.

It revealed that there is something particularly irritating about doing the dishes.

Dr Dan Carlson, who led the study, thinks it is because dishwashing is a thankless task, unlike cooking which attracts praise.

Also, it is yucky.

Men improving, but…

Men are picking up some of the slack in the household chores department, research has found.

Between 1999 and 2006 the couples who shared dishwashing duty rose from 16% to 29%.

Per week, men now do 4 hours of housework compared with two in 1965.

Still way off a perfect score for men, but an improving trend.

The study’s authors write:

“Contrary to arguments of a stalled gender revolution, the authors find that contemporary couples more often share all routine tasks (other than shopping) than couples in the past, with the greatest change in dishwashing and laundry.

The equal sharing of housework is more positively related to sexual intimacy and relationship satisfaction among more recent cohorts and more negatively related to marital discord.”

Of course, men will argue that their share is done in other areas, like lawn mowing, car cleaning and DIY.

However, men still avoid the least desirable jobs, like cleaning the toilet and the laundry.

Naturally, this can create resentment — especially when other couples are seen to share out the work more equally.

The study was published in the journal Socius (Carlson et al., 2018).

The One Behaviour That Kills A Relationship

Researchers looked at the effect of negative events such as losing a job, the death of a loved one or financial problems.

Researchers looked at the effect of negative events such as losing a job, the death of a loved one or financial problems.

Negativity is one of the most powerful relationship killers.

Reducing negativity is the key to getting through tough points in a relationships, new research finds.

Small negative gestures in a relationship are much more powerful than positive actions, psychologists have found.

Professor Keith Sanford, who led the study, said:

“When people face stressful life events, they are especially sensitive to negative behavior in their relationships, such as when a partner seems to be argumentative, overly emotional, withdrawn or fails to do something that was expected.

In contrast, they’re less sensitive to positive behavior — such as giving each other comfort.”

Even relatively small amounts of negative behaviour can add up, Professor Sanford said:

“Because people are especially sensitive to negative relationship behavior, a moderate dose may be sufficient to produce a nearly maximum effect on increasing life stress.

After negative behavior reaches a certain saturation point, it appears that stress is only minimally affected by further increases in the dose of relationship problems.”

The researchers studied 325 couples who were married or living with a partner.

They looked at the effect of negative events such as losing a job, the death of a loved one or financial problems.

A second study of 154 people looked at couples where serious illness was causing stress.

All wrote about the positive and negative behaviours their partners had performed.

Both studies found negative behaviours affected the relationship more strongly than positive, however medical issues were linked to lower levels of negative behaviour.

The study’s authors write:

“It is possible that couples facing stressful medical situations are less likely to blame each other.

When people face stressful life events, it’s common to experience both positive and negative behavior in their relationships.

When the goal is to increase feelings of well-being and lessen stress, it may be more important to decrease negative behavior than to increase positive actions.”

The study was published in the Journal of Family Psychology (Rivers & Sandford, 2018).

The Weirdest Sign A Couple Will Divorce

A study followed 168 couples for over 13 years, right from their wedding day.

A study followed 168 couples for over 13 years, right from their wedding day.

Being overly affectionate in the first few years of marriage is a sign a couple will divorce later on, research finds.

While hugging and kissing is normal, being all over each other is a bad sign.

The reason is that this level of romantic bliss is hard to maintain.

Couples who start out too hot and heavy tend to get disillusioned.

It is like beginning a marathon by sprinting — you’re going to run out of puff.

Couples who stay together often have a less intense romance in the first few years of marriage.

The conclusions come from a study of 168 couples who were followed over 13 years, right from their wedding day.

The researchers looked at what predicted marriages would end quickly and what signals suggested it would break down in the long-run.

The study’s authors write:

“As newlyweds, the couples who divorced after seven or more years were almost giddily affectionate, displaying about one third more affection than did spouses who were later happily married.”

In marriages that broke down quicker, the seeds of discontent were there very early — certainly within the first two months.

Couples who divorced within two years were at each other’s throats from the beginning.

The authors conclude:

“The results provide little support for the idea that emergence of distress (e.g., increasing negativity) early in marriage leads to marital failure but instead show that disillusionment — as reflected in an abatement of love, a decline in overt affection, a lessening of the conviction that one’s spouse is responsive, and an increase in ambivalence — distinguishes couples headed for divorce from those who establish a stable marital bond.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Huston et al., 2001).