Let's Talk Relationships (Page 31)

Reader Question: I have been with my boyfriend for close to two years. I’m 21 and he's 27. He makes me laugh and he is good to me, but our views on money are completely different. I am finishing up my last year in school and work 20-30 hours per week. I'm responsible with my money and have quite a bit saved up. He works as a server and he either doesn't make any money or he’s doing something I don't know about....

How can you maintain the strength of your relationship over time? Research coming out of the University of Illinois suggests there are five primary ways committed couples can continuously secure their bond. Researchers Brian Ogolsky, a University of Illinois professor of human and community development, and Jill R. Bowers conducted a meta-analysis of 35 studies and 12,273 individual reports to determine openness,...

Can bad sleep habits ruin relationships? Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, evaluated the sleep patterns of more than 60 couples and came to the conclusion a poor night’s sleep can cause both short-term and long-term relationship strain. Researchers asked participants to keep a journal detailing both their sleep patterns and how they felt about their relationship partner. Researchers...

Is your ex really out of the picture? If you’re like many emerging adults, chances are you’ve maintained some sort of intimate relationship with your past partners. A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Research examined the role exes play in the lives of individuals ages 17 to 24. The study, which looked at dating data pulled from 792 emerging adults, found 44%of emerging adults who had been in a romantic...

Anyone who’s stewed as their date spent more time checking their phone than making eye contact will find solace from a pair of studies. The two studies, coming out of the University of Essex, found the mere presence of a cell phone was enough to cause lowered feelings of satisfaction, trust and intimacy between two partners, even if neither partner never actually checked the phone. In the first study, 74...

A study coming out of the University of Kansas found individuals who are highly active on social media sites like Facebook encounter greater problems in their romantic relationships. The study found individuals report lower levels of intimacy and relationship satisfaction when their partner shares a lot of their life on their Facebook wall than if their partner used the social media service sparingly. "We found...

Reader Question: Not too long ago I met a guy in a culinary festival. The guy is from the U.S. and was part of a study for a semester program in PR. The thing is we met the last five days of his exchange program and in the little time we spent together, I felt like we connected really well. I ended up liking him very much to the point where I can't stop thinking of him. We have maintained a good communication...

Marriage may hold the key to living a long life, says one study. The study evaluated information coming out of the University of North Carolina Alumni Heart Study. Looking at responses from 4,802 individuals, researchers found being married correlated directly with surviving until old age. Specifically, the study noted being married during midlife correlated with a lowered risk of premature death. "Individuals...

Relationship violence among teenage students is more common than most admit, according to a study. The study found intimate partner violence not only occurs early in teenage relationships, but the proportion of students who experience violence in their relationships remains the same throughout teen student years. Researchers at the University of Georgia tracked and interviewed a group of participants as they moved...

If your mother-in-law drives you up the wall, you aren’t alone. Psychologist Dr. Terri Apter found in a study that nearly two-thirds of all women experience stress due to their mother-in-law. Apter’s research is backed up by a wealth of past studies suggesting the relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law is the most strained familial relationship in America. While previous studies have found men often...

Women in households where both partners work are twice as likely to experience domestic violence compared to households with a single breadwinner, according to a study. The study, which came out of Sam Houston State University, questioned 300 women in serious relationships (currently or recently) about whether or not they had experienced domestic violence over the previous two years. Sixty-seven percent of...

As we shake off the holidays and prepare for a new year, we can jump-start our New Year’s resolutions by building lasting relationships. Often people find themselves moving too quickly or too slowly when dating, and they don't know how to develop a healthy pace for their relationship. This article will help you identify your boundary state with others and give you methods to build healthy relationships. U-Haul...

Reader Question: My girlfriend and I have been together for two years. It was great at first. She cooked, she was there all the time, and she showed affection. Then we had a son, who is now five months old. We have been growing apart and stopped having sex. I do a lot for her and my son, but she is now giving me attitude all the time. She said I bother her but wants to be with me. I love her and want to be a...

Men are more likely to say “I love you” first in their relationships, and they also believe these three words should be spoken earlier in a relationship than women, according to a new study. When researchers looked at the data, they found men dropped the “L” word first in 70% of the relationships they examined, which clashed with respondent expectations. And 62% of respondents originally believed women were more...

What’s a marriage-minded lesbian to do when she wants to get married but lives in a place that still discriminates against LGBTQ+ people by keeping their marriages illegal? Do you live somewhere it’s unsafe to be out as a lesbian or be obvious that you are a woman who loves women? Have you encountered heartless licensing officials, pastors, venues, or wedding vendors who refuse to help you marry the woman you...

Could a woman earning more money than her husband affect their relationship? A study coming out of the University of Chicago suggests just that. According to the study, marriages where the woman earns more than the man are 50% more likely to end in divorce, and those marriages that remain intact report significantly lower feelings of satisfaction than unions where the man earns more than the woman. Unfortunately,...

Experiencing cold feet before getting married may be incredibly common, but does that mean you should discount any pre-wedding jitters you may feel? That depends entirely on your gender, according to a new study. The study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, asked 232 newlywed couples whether they experienced cold feet prior to getting married. Then the study’s researchers polled those couples every six...

How can anyone build a healthy relationship if they’ve never experienced or seen one in their own life? Relationship and marriage classes may just offer the solution to this problem. New research coming out of BYU and the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center suggests relationship education classes help individuals set expectations for their couplings, develop healthy ideas of what relationships are (and aren’t)...

While the desire for marriage remains strong among young people in Singapore, an increasing number of the country’s citizens are choosing to remain single. That’s the news coming from the country’s National Population and Talent Division, which looked at 2,120 singles and found that even though the number of single people has been on the rise in Singapore over the last decade, 83% of respondents say they want to get...

How can you tell if someone will be a good parent? First look at whether or not they’re a good partner. According to this study, an individual’s partnership style directly reflects their parenting preferences, giving support to the theory an individual tends to relate to all the different intimate relationships in their life in essentially the same ways. Abigail Millings, with the University of Bristol, produced...

Reader Question: This guy and I have been dating for three months, and we already had sexual intercourse. My feelings for him are really deep. We've had some trust issues along the way because I checked his phone. When I questioned him about the other girl, he claims, "Elle, we aren't in a relationship." We practically live together and sleep together all the time. I met his family, but I don't know if he should...

Reader Question: My girlfriend is asexual. We don't have sex and we don't kiss, which is completely fine. She has crushes on lots of people constantly. By crushes, she means her favorite people, which again is fine because they aren't romantic. I was the second person she met who defied that definition. The first person is the problem here. Since me and her got into this relationship, he's apparently stopped talking...

The quality of our relationships impacts the way we make non-relationship choices in our lives, according to this study. Researchers took three sets of study participants and determined how many options they felt they needed in order to make a wise decision. The first group of participants, the control group, was asked to sit down and write about something entirely unrelated to the relationships in their life. The...

Women who have sex early in a relationship may set themselves up for greater relationship dissatisfaction down the line, says one study. Cornell professor Sharon Sassley reviewed data coming out of the 2006 Marital and Relationship Survey, a report that looked at approximately 600 couples who were either living together or married. The couples had low-to-moderate income and all had children who were still...

This mystical question is commonly asked by my clients: “How do I create a good relationship?” Well, this is easier said than done. Film, TV and novels bombard us with idealistic images of romance and the “perfect” relationship, and these things set us up to fail. If we think back to the classic sitcom “Friends,” the on-again, off-again relationship of Rachel and Ross had us tuning in for years, as did Monica and...

Is lunch really just lunch? Or do we attribute all sorts of subtexts to sharing food with a member of the opposite sex, especially when that person is an ex? According to a study, we all tend to react with greater jealousy at the thought of our partner sharing lunch with one of their exes than simply grabbing a cup of coffee. The study, published by Kevin Kniffin and coming out of Cornell University, asked 79...

Can long-term relationships maintain the sort of passion usually associated with short-term flings? Yes and no, says a new study. Bianca P. Acevado, a researcher at Stony Brook University, looked at 25 different studies encompassing the romantic life of 6,070 individuals who were in committed relationships of varying lengths. The studies included data from college students ages 18 to 23 who were single,...

Being a gamer doesn’t need to be the kiss of death for your romantic life. According to a new study, the way video games impact your social success depends on the role those games play in your day-to-day life. Penn State researcher Benjamin Hickerson constructed a survey he handed out to 175 individuals waiting in line at midnight to purchase the new Call of Duty: Black Ops game. The survey asked questions...

Reader Question: I have been dating this woman for 11 months and we consider each other VERY good friends. She does not want to put a title on our relationship. We do have sex and we do tell each other "I love you." We are physically in a relationship, but mentally we are two single beings. I couldn’t ask to be dating a better person — my soul mate. Should I wait and see what happens, or should I begin to explore...

It’s not something you plan for or hope will happen, but the reality is until you meet that right one, all of your relationships will end either by your hand or his. If it’s his choice, you won’t have much of a say in how the breakup goes down. If it’s your decision to end the relationship, and he hasn’t done anything to deserve being tied up to your nearest railroad track at rush hour, you can break up the right...