Why relationships work

Are there equivalent ways to achieve connections there? There are many similar things you can do in a work environment. This goes for the boss, too. I notice you independent of your position.

Within organizations, people have to see each other as human beings or there will be no social glue. That can be really problematic. Marriage researcher Shirley Glass did some terrific work on friendship in the workplace. He and his wife had a new baby and were fighting a lot. Then after work one day, he and his coworkers went out to celebrate a really successful quarter at the company.

Everybody had a good time. People eventually started to go home, but this man and a female coworker lingered.

This can be on a physical or an emotional level—it all boils down to the same thing. Look for the positive in each other.

Robert Levenson, of the University of California at Berkeley, and I are in the 18th year of a year longitudinal study in the San Francisco Bay area. We have two groups of couples who were first assessed when they were in their forties and sixties and are now, respectively, in their sixties and eighties. The surprising thing is that the longer people are together, the more the sense of kindness returns. Our research is starting to reveal that in later life your relationship becomes very much like it was during courtship.

In courtship you find your new partner very charming and positive. It was all so new then. You de-emphasized the negative qualities and magnified the positive ones. In the long term, the same thing happens. She can get us through anything.

She was amazing. My genius was to sit back and say nothing. In good relationships, people savor the moments like this that they have together. Somebody I admired a long time ago was Harold Rausch, now retired, from the University of Massachusetts, who studied relationships and decided there was an optimal level of intimacy and friendship—and of conflict. We studied those three groups of couples as well, and our research showed that they could all be successful.

Still, they could have very happy marriages. Our research showed that bickering a lot can be fine, too, provided that both people in the relationship agree to it. People have different capacities for how much intimacy and passion they want and how much togetherness they want. Are the short-term factors for success in relationships different from the factors that make for long-term success?

We face this question about short- and long-term success when we study adolescents and their relationships. Whether we look at teenagers or at older couples, it turns out again and again that respect and affection are the two most important things. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise.

Masters tend to think about kindness as a muscle. They know that they have to exercise it to keep it in shape. They know, in other words, that a good relationship requires sustained hard work. Neglect creates distance between partners and breeds resentment in the one who is being ignored. The hardest time to practice kindness is, of course, during a fight—but this is also the most important time to be kind.

Letting contempt and aggression spiral out of control during a conflict can inflict irrevocable damage on a relationship. You can throw spears at your partner. For the hundreds of thousands of couples getting married this month—and for the millions of couples currently together, married or not—the lesson from the research is clear: If you want to have a stable, healthy relationship, exercise kindness early and often.

When people think about practicing kindness, they often think about small acts of generosity, such as buying each other little gifts or giving one another back rubs every now and then.

While those are great examples of generosity, kindness can also be built into the very backbone of a relationship through the way partners interact with each other on a day-to-day basis, whether or not there are back rubs and chocolates involved.

From the research of the Gottmans, we know that disasters see negativity in their relationship even when it is not there. An angry wife may assume, for example, that when her husband left the toilet seat up, he was deliberately trying to annoy her. But he may have just absent-mindedly forgotten to put the seat down.

But it turns out that the wife was running late because she stopped by a store to pick him up a gift for their special night out. So appreciate the intent. Another powerful kindness strategy revolves around shared joy. But research shows that being there for each other when things go right is actually more important for relationship quality.

In one study from , the psychological researcher Shelly Gable and her colleagues brought young-adult couples into the lab to discuss recent positive events from their lives. If her partner responded in a passive destructive manner, he would ignore the event.

I won a free T-shirt! If her partner responded in a passive constructive way, he would acknowledge the good news, but in a half-hearted, understated way. Hug each other, cuddle, and hold hands. These small things are what make relationships so wonderful in the first place, and keeping these loving practices alive is key to making a relationship work in the long run. Our FREE doctor-approved gut health guide. You are now subscribed Be on the lookout for a welcome email in your inbox!

Main Navigation. Log in Profile. Saved Articles. Contact Support. Log Out. Your cart is empty. Our online classes and training programs allow you to learn from experts from anywhere in the world. Explore Classes. Monica Parikh is a former attorney turned dating coach.

She is the founder of School of Love NYC, where she teaches classes on breakup recovery, social-emotional skills, and relationship psychology. Expert review by Kristina Hallett, Ph. Board-certified Clinical Psychologist. Kristina Hallett, Ph. She has a private practice in Suffield, Connecticut.

Last updated on January 30, Accept conflict as normal. Grow yourself up emotionally. Give each other space. Develop an "I'm awesome" attitude. Take care of your own needs. Communicate boundaries. Never reward bad behavior. Heed the wisdom of your internal voice. Flood it with affection. Love The Ancient Greeks had 3 words for love. This is erotic love. It means being attracted to each other. This means friendship.