While driving in New Jersey a while back, I listened to a radio talk show about relationships. The topic of the day was whether we have the right to read our spouse’s mail and email and check his or her cell phone text messages and call logs. No matter which answer callers gave, the question itself, and their eagerness to engage it, disturbed me. A better question would be whether we stand...
Long-term, stable marriages have at least five positive exchanges for each negative exchange. Drop below that, and you’re in trouble. This comes from one of the best known marriage researchers, John Gottman. He has a remarkable track record of predicting the state of your marriage four years later based on watching only a 15-minute conversation about some problem the two of you face. What...
Another upside to being married: It’s the rational thing to do. In MIT Professor Dan Ariely’s new book, Predictably Irrational, he shows how irrationally we’ll behave to keep our options open, whether it’s TV surfing, paying extra for features we don’t even know if we have any use for, or pursuing interesting opportunities that distract us from our goals. Professor...
The news from psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University yesterday, according to the Washington Post: Happily married people have lower blood pressure than unhappily married people or singles, even those with a supportive social network.
Better yet, blood pressure dips even lower at night in the happily married, reducing their risk of cardiovascular problems.
NY Governor David Paterson and his wife made some tough public admissions of infidelity as he starts his service as governor of the state where Eliot Spitzer just stepped down. “I betrayed a commitment to my wife several years ago…both of us committed acts of infidelity.” It’s an awful thing to confess to, and many cannot understand how a decent man or woman could be unfaithful or how...
