Can you recognize a good relationship? Of course, no one knows what goes on between any pair, but decades of scientific research into love, sex, and relationships has taught us that a number of behaviors can foretell whether a couple is on stable ground or heading for problems. Good relationships do not develop overnight. They necessitate dedication, compromise, forgiveness, and, most importantly, work. Continue reading for the latest in relationship research, entertaining quizzes, and useful hints to help you strengthen your connection with your spouse.
Romance and love
The easiest part is falling in love. The challenge for couples is to find ways to rekindle the flames of romance and build the mature, trusting love that is the hallmark of a long-lasting partnership.
What Is Your Personal Love Style?
What do you mean when you say "I love you"?
Terry Hatkoff, a sociologist at California State University, developed a love scale that identifies six unique types of love present in our closest relationships.
Romantic: characterized by passion and sexual attraction
Best friends: great affection and fondness
Logical feelings are practical feelings based on shared ideals, financial goals, religion, and so on.
Playful: Feelings elicited by flirtation or feeling challenged
Possessed: Obsession and jealousy
Nurturing, kindness, and sacrifice are all examples of selflessness.
According to research, the love we feel in our most committed relationships is usually a mixture of two or three different types of love. However, two persons in the same relationship may have completely different definitions of love. Dr. Hatkoff uses the example of a man and a woman dining together. The server flirts with the woman, but her husband ignores her and talks about changing the oil in her automobile. The wife is irritated that her husband is not jealous. The husband believes that his extra efforts are unappreciated.
What does any of this have to do with love? Love is defined differently by a man and a woman. For him, love is practical, and it is best demonstrated through supporting gestures such as auto upkeep. For her, love is possessive, and her husband's jealousy makes her feel appreciated.
Understanding what makes your partner feel loved might assist you in navigating conflict and reintroducing romance into your relationship. Dr. Hatkoff's Love Style questionnaire will help you and your spouse determine how you define love. If you discover that your partner is prone to jealousy, keep an eye out for anyone who is flirting with him or her. If your partner is practical in love, pay attention to the many subtle ways he or she demonstrates love by taking care of daily requirements.
Rekindle the Flame of Love
Romantic love has been dubbed a "natural addiction" because it activates the brain's reward center, specifically the dopamine pathways linked to drug addiction, alcoholism, and gambling. However, these same pathways are linked to novelty, energy, focus, learning, motivation, euphoria, and yearning. It's no surprise that when we fall in love, we feel invigorated and motivated!
But, as we all know, romantic, passionate love fades with time and, hopefully, grows into a more contented type of dedicated love. Nonetheless, many couples yearn to rekindle the flames of their early courtship. Is it, however, feasible?
Arthur Aron, a psychology professor who runs the Interpersonal Relationships Laboratory at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, has discovered a solution. What is the secret? Do something fresh and interesting – and make it a group effort. New experiences excite the reward system in the brain, filling it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the same brain circuits that are activated during the early stages of passionate love. Whether you take a pottery class or go white-water rafting, engaging your dopamine systems while you're together can help you relive the exhilaration of your first date. Dr. Aron discovered in studies of couples that spouses who routinely share novel experiences report bigger increases in marital happiness than those who just exchange nice but known experiences.
Determine Your Level of Passion
Elaine Hatfield, a psychology professor, has proposed that the love we feel early in a relationship differs from the love we feel afterwards. Early on, love is “passionate,” which means we feel tremendous longing for our lover. Long-term partnerships foster “companionate love,” which is defined as a profound affection as well as strong sentiments of commitment and intimacy.
Where does your relationship fall on the love spectrum? Dr. Hatfield of the University of Hawaii and Susan Sprecher, a psychology and sociology professor at Illinois State University, developed the Passionate Love Scale to help you assess the level of passion in your relationship. If you know where you stand, you can focus on instilling greater enthusiasm in your partnership. While the scale is frequently used by relationship specialists who study love, the questionnaire is by no means the be-all and end-all of your relationship's health. Take it lightly and allow questions to encourage you to chat about your passions with your companion. After all, you never know where a discussion will take you.
How Much Sex Do You Get?
Let us begin with the good news. Committed couples have more sex than the rest of the population. Do you still not believe it? While it is true that single people can regale you with stories of extraordinary sexual encounters, keep in mind that single individuals suffer through extended dry spells as well. According to a March 2017 survey, 15% of men and 27% of women said they hadn't had sex in the previous year. In addition, 9% of men and 18% of women claim they haven't had sex in the last five years. The main causes of a sexless life are old age and not being married. So, whether you have committed or married sex once a week, once a month, or only six times a year, the truth remains that someone else has less sex than you. And if you're one of those people who doesn't have sex, here's something to cheer you up: Americans who do not engage in sexual activity are equally as content as their sexually engaged peers.
But who's keeping the score?
Despite the fact that most people keep their sex life private, we do know a lot about people's sex habits. The data comes from a variety of sources, including the General Social Survey, which collects information on behavior in the United States, and the International Social Survey Programme, a similar study that collects international data, as well as studies from people who study sex, such as the well-known Kinsey Institute. According to a recent trend, sexual frequency is dropping among millennials, most likely because they are less likely than previous generations to have stable partners.
Here is some of what about sex as a result of research:
The average adult has 54 sexual encounters per year.
A typical sexual experience lasts approximately 30 minutes.
Approximately 5% of adults have sex at least three times a week.
People in their twenties have more than 80 sexual encounters every year.
People in their 40s have sex approximately 60 times each year.
By the age of 65, sexual activity has decreased to 20 times a year.
Sexual frequency drops by 3.2 percent every year after the age of 25.
After controlling for age and time period, persons born in the 1930s had the most sex, while those born in the 1990s (millennials) had the least.
About 20% of persons, the majority of whom are widows, have been celibate for at least a year.
The average married individual has sex 51 times each year.
On average, “Very Happy” couples had sex 74 times per year.
Frequently and early
Having a lot of sex early in a relationship is one of the best strategies to ensure your sex life remains vigorous in a lengthy partnership. According to a University of Georgia research of over 90,000 women from 19 nations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, the longer a couple is married, the less frequently they have sex, although the reduction appears to be relative to how much sex they were having when they first got together. Here's a look at the frequency of marital sex between the first and tenth years of marriage.
Why is sex in marriage declining? It's a mixture of variables, such as a health problem, the presence of children, boredom, or discontent in the relationship. However, age is a significant role. According to one study, after the age of 25, sexual frequency decreases by 3.2 percent per year. The good news is that married couples make up for their lack of quantity with quality. According to data from the National Health and Social Life Survey, married couples had more satisfying sex than unmarried persons.
The No-Sex Relationship
Why do some relationships fizzle while others sizzle? No-sex weddings are being studied by social scientists for insight about what might go wrong in partnerships.
It is believed that 15% of married couples have not had sex with their partner in the previous six months to a year. Some sexless marriages began with little sex. Others in sexless relationships claim that childbirth or an affair caused a slowing and, eventually, a cessation of sex. People in sexless marriages are often less satisfied and more prone to consider divorce than those in sexful marriages with their spouse or committed partner.
The most critical step in a low-sex or no-sex marriage is to see a doctor. A lack of sex drive might be caused by a medical condition (low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, menopause, or depression), or it might be a side effect of medicine or treatment. Some scientists believe that the increased use of antidepressants such as Prozac and Paxil, which can suppress libido drive, is contributing to an increase in sexless marriages.
Therapists propose the following strategies to get a sexless marriage back in the bedroom:
Discuss your desires with each other.
Have fun together and share new experiences to remember why you fell in love in the first place.
Hold each other's hands. Make contact. Hugs
Even if you don't want to, have sex. Many couples learn that if they force themselves to have sex, it soon ceases to be labor and they realize how much they enjoy sex. The body reacts with a surge of brain neurotransmitters and other beneficial changes.
Remember that there is no magic number for the appropriate amount of sex in a marriage. The appropriate amount of sex is that which makes both lovers satisfied.
