By: adam weseloh
Establishing and maintaining long-term relationships engage people far more complexly than mere attraction (Fiske, 2014). Fiske (2014) notes relationships can vary in intensity and physiological arousal as well as wide variability as the individual’s needs change. Relationship research are not solely limited to marital relationships. While several studies have focused on martial satisfaction, non-marital relationships are important in their own right as many can serve as a stepping stone to marriage (Le, Dove, Agnew, Korn, & Mutso, 2010). Researchers have investigated both why relationships succeed and why they end up failing. The focus of this blog will be on factors that can lead to relationship success and factors leading to relationship demise.
Whey they Succeed
Sometimes it is easier for couples to coordinate their behavior that achieves positive outcomes for both partners in the relationship (Lange, Rusbult, Arriaga, & Witcher, 1997). According to the researchers, when partners interests are at odds with each other what is good for one partner is not always good for the other. This is where conflict in the relationship can happen. One or both of the individuals in the relationship may find the need to make a sacrifice in the relationship. A willingness to sacrifice was associated with superior couple functioning and was also found to be correlated with marital satisfaction (Lange, Rusbult, Arriaga, & Witcher, 1997) (Zhang & Li, 2015). Researchers overseas also found that wives’ willingness to sacrifice was positively associated with marital happiness and negatively associated with marital instability (Li 2015).
According to Karney (2010), the couples who maintain the highest levels of overall satisfaction are the ones who change their beliefs about what is important in their relationships. The author goes onto say there are positives and negative in any relationship, but it appears the most successful couples realize those negatives in the relationship become less important. In addition to this, Karney (2010) notes this process is known as selective attention. The thought behind this concept is individuals in a relationship look at broader evaluation of their spouse and the good will outweigh the bad.
Gratitude has also been shown to be a key theory as to why couples are successful. Individuals who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their partners (Gordon, Impett, Kogan, Oveis, & Keltner, 2012). This study also found people who are more appreciative of their partners report being more responsive to their partners’ needs. This helps establish the importance gratitude in relationships.
Whey they Fail
Le et al. (2010) found that relationships factors such as perceptions of alternatives, satisfaction, love, dependence and investment were correlated with relationship satisfaction. While individual factors such as personality factors were found to have limited predictive validity when looking at relationship satisfaction. Le et al. (2010) noted the relationships between satisfaction, adjustment, and ambivalence, respectively, with relationships that were unsuccessful were higher in studies with a larger proportion of male participants. Ambivalence is the feeling of have mixed feeling about someone or something. Based on the results of this study, there were gender differences when looking ambivalence.
Another reason Karney (2010) reports relationships will often fail is lack of energy. He notes maintaining a relationship takes energy, and in some contexts that energy is in short supply. Karney (2010) proposes is some people are better at maintaining relationships than others. He notes some people are exposed as young children to situations in which problem solving skills are necessary. The author noted differences in adults’ ability to problem solve were related to their exposure to problem solving situations as children.
References
- Fiske, S. T. (2014). Social Beings. Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons.
- Gordon, A. M., Impett, E. A., Kogan, A., Oveis, C., & Keltner, D. (2012). To have and to hold: Gratitude promotes relationship maintenance in intamate bonds. Interpersonal Relationships and Group Processes, 103(2), 257-274.
- Karney, B. R. (2010). Keeping a marriage healthy, and why it's so difficult. Retrieved from American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2010/02/sci-brief.aspx
- Lange, P. A., Rusbult, C. E., Arriaga, X. B., & Witcher, B. S. (1997). Willingness to Sacrific in Close Relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1373-1395.
- Le, B., Dove, N. L., Agnew, C. R., Korn, M. S., & Mutso, A. A. (2010). Predicting nonmarital romantic relationship success. Personal Relationships, 17, 377-390.
- Zhang, H., & Li, T. (2015). The Role or Willingness of Sacrifice on the Relationship Between Urban Chinese Wives' Relative Income and Marital Quality. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 41(3), 314-324.