Here are 2 things you need to know about relationships this week, from turning towards your partner to the importance of social connection and relationships.
Couples who are better at doing this one thing stay married
John Gottman is a major influencer in the couples counseling and marriage therapy world. He’s been researching what makes marriages work, and not work, for over 30 years and has been known to predict divorce with over 90% accuracy just by observing a couple during the first three minutes of meeting.
Gottman revolutionized the study of marriage and has created a therapeutic model that helps couples repair troubled relationships and strengthen happy ones. Our couples therapists are trained in the Gottman Method, and we use the method with our couples who seek out marriage and relationship counseling.
This article explains the importance of the third level of Gottman’s Sound Relationship House Theory, Turn Towards Instead of Away. This concept can be simply explained as the way we respond to our partner’s bids for connection, whether it be through affection, attention, or another positive connection. In the study described in the article, researchers followed up with participants and found that newlywed couples who were still married after six years turned towards one another 86% of the time, while couples who had divorced averaged turning towards only 33%.
Check out the full read for more details on how you can turn towards your partner.
New study found loneliness is worse for your health than obesity
As counselors, we believe in the importance of healthy relationships and the value of remaining socially connected. As humans, we’re meant to relate to other people and live in community, but social isolation and loneliness are on the rise in our culture.
In a recent study, Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a researcher and professor of psychology, found that “a greater social connection” cuts a person’s risk of early death by 50%. She also looked at the role that loneliness, social isolation, and living alone played in a person’s lifespan and found each factor was as much, if not more, of a threat to a person’s health as obesity. All three conditions were found to be detrimental to health and significantly raised the risk of premature death.
“According to AARP’s Loneliness Study conducted in 2010, 35 percent of Americans age 45 and older are suffering from chronic loneliness — which equates to about 43 million people. Similarly, half the country’s adult population is unmarried and more than a quarter live alone, according to U.S. census data.”
Read the full articles for more info on the important effects of loneliness on our physical and mental health.