Feathering the Empty Nest

Early this Spring, I became a follower of the live streaming of the Decorah Eagles on the UStream app. The camera is in Iowa aimed at the nest 80 feet in the air 24/7 where 2 “toddlers” and one un-hatched egg, live with Mom and Dad in their huge nest. They are a “good looking” family, although their nest is a mess probably because the parents are so busy finding food, sitting on the egg, guarding their home and feeding hungry birds day and night.

I was fascinated since I’m experiencing the Empty Nest phase of life myself. I began to see the actions of the eagle parents as a metaphor and wondered what they would do after their babies learn to fly. Unlike some humans, adult eagles are mated for life (up to 30 years) until one of them dies, so they are “committed” to each other with or without children.

I noticed as I watched that the couple hardly spent any time together, only a few minutes a day. Dad sits on a branch watching out for predators in the same tree as the nest when he isn’t hunting and delivering dinner. Mom fusses over the egg, covering it with hay and sticks, poking at it now and then when she isn’t feeding the kids and fixing up the nest. She also hunts and feeds her little ones when she gets a chance.

To further stretch the metaphor - I imagine the eagle mom worrying when the kids start to jump up on higher branches as they learn to fly in preparation to leave the nest. Is she wondering as we might - Where are they? Are they hungry? Who are they hanging out with? In my imagination the mom eagle is probably obsessing while dad may be relieved to have less stress without the duty of protecting his eaglets from predators, but he also experiences occasional worry.

Does this sound familiar to you? If you have children but aren’t yet an empty nester, do you wonder what it would be like to have a marriage without the responsibility of children? Will your marriage/relationship be better after your kids are launched? Research says that committed relationships improve in middle age with more enjoyment between partners once their children leave.

I have worked with many couples who are in the middle of raising teenagers, paying bills, building careers, caring for a home, and spread very thin with children’s activities. In their relationship, they struggle to communicate, find time to be supportive of one another or have a satisfying sexual relationship. Through their fatigue they could not visualize a future of closeness and intimacy without the daily stress of family life. They need help to visualize and plan for the good experiences ahead and see their stress as the enemy rather than their partner.

According to a long term 18 year study of women in middle age, (Gorchoff, S; Helson, John U of CA, 2008) relationships improved because of the quality of connection rather than simply having more time together. This was true in both first and second marriages.

Why and how do Empty Nest relationships improve?

Couples who were able to maintain their connection through the child rearing years will have a smoother transition into empty nest years. Those who focused solely on their children and careers will have to take some time to get to know their partner again. Many seek counseling to do that.

These are some of the positive factors that bring empty nest couples closer:

Attunement – Having shared and survived the highs and lows in life, couples learn their partner’s soft spots, habits, gifts and weaknesses. They are able to offer comfort, nurturing, forgiveness and joy. They sense when the other is hurting, afraid, happy or sad. They are more able to overlook annoying habits knowing that they both have many imperfections and that doesn’t have to change for love to continue. This is the result of a secure attachment.

Gratitude - One study about gratitude in marriages (Cameron Gordon, U of NC, 2011, “Have You Thanked Your Spouse Today? Felt and Expressed Gratitude among Married Couples,” November 2011, Personality and Individual Differences) found that “individuals who reported feeling higher levels of gratitude had spouses who were happier with their marriage.”

The amazing thing about this is that one person can make another feel good about the relationship just by thinking grateful thoughts.

The same is true in reverse. When we think critical thoughts, our partner can also feel that. Focusing on what you like about your partner creates an atmosphere of acceptance and love.

Privacy and Intimacy – It may take a little while to adjust to being alone with each other more frequently but it is something most couples have longed for and with practice it is a welcomed change. With time and privacy, frequent intimate conversations, gestures like holding hands, slow dancing, eye contact, and lingering hugs and kisses are more likely to occur spontaneously.

The nature of a middle age sexual relationship may change but attraction and romance are still there. Intimate touch becomes more about loving contact without the pressure of performance. Staying active, playful and healthy can help couples to continue a passionate and satisfying sex life for years to come.

Laughter – Having shared history and a sense of humor makes life more enjoyable. Private jokes, time with peers, sharing adventures, new activities and for some the joy of grandchildren, are all bonding experiences.

Reduced Stress – Downsizing or moving from the “big house”, retirement or the freedom of beginning a new career gradually make life simpler and expand choices. Without the expense of children there are fewer financial responsibilities. Those who planned for retirement years will have fewer financial problems.

Things that may negatively impact the Empty Nest relationship

Addiction – Dependence on alcohol or other substances can begin or worsen in middle age and beyond often due to significant life changes, creating serious problems for the individual and family. Signs of addiction among seniors can be mistaken for signs of aging, making substance use problems among this population often difficult to detect. They also may be more likely to receive multiple prescriptions from doctors that may increase the risk of misuse.

Depression and anxiety often accompany addiction. There are many programs and facilities that specialize in treating addiction and co-occurring disorders in seniors, that are specifically designed to fit their needs. Seniors and their partners, as many people, are ashamed to admit they have an alcohol or drug problem and are often reluctant to seek treatment. Their adult children may also want to avoid such a sensitive subject with their parents. The good news is that treatment may give the couple many happy years they did not expect to have. It is never too late to seek help.

Adult children who are not thriving – When addiction, mental illness, relationship problems, or financial issues occur in their grown children, it is a heavy burden for some empty nesters. In some cases it may require helping grandchildren as well. It is important to seek help for yourself early on to be effective in your approach and to preserve your health, relationship and finances. Some parents do not know how to set boundaries with their adult children and spend their later years supporting and enabling their adult children, contributing to their own decline. They will most likely need counseling to learn more effective ways to interact. [I strongly recommend the book “I Don’t Have to Make Everything All Better” by Gary and Joy Lundberg.]

Health issues – Caring for each other can be a positive or a negative factor depending on the length of time, seriousness of the illness and its’ impact on your ability to enjoy life. Caretakers need a support system of friends or professionals to prevent long term consequences of neglecting their own well being.

Aging or ailing parents – With today’s longevity it is possible to have parents in their 90’s and beyond. Making decisions and caring for parents may strain a relationship. Couples who have a strong attachment will be better at facing problems together and sharing the responsibility of their parents’ needs.

Adjustment to retirement is usually a temporary challenge. Some individuals may want to begin new careers while their partner is winding down. Roles may reverse with household responsibilities and earning. Again, if the connection is strong and secure couples can work through the change by compromising and being conscious of each other’s needs.

If you are in a committed relationship, ready or not, you will eventually be face to face with your partner. The outcome will depend on how much you prepared. If you want to have a great relationship in the future you will need to start now.

• Children become independent and responsible over time. If you hover over them you may be neglecting your marriage/relationship. It is possible to be a very good parent and have a great relationship. Part of parenting is teaching your children about healthy relationships by the example you provide.
• Tend to your relationship by carving out private time, affection, talking about your future together, having fun, and saving for retirement.
• Seek help for your relationship early on if problems arise. Your children are much better off if your relationship is healthy now and in the future.
• Remember that your life as a couple matters too.

Sadly, some couples may not be able to stay together and choose to separate or divorce once children are gone due to domestic abuse, mental health issues, infidelity or ongoing conflicts. That is a difficult and painful choice to make but is sometimes best for all concerned. With help and time people do recover and can turn the loss into a positive life changing experience.

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Skepticism Surrounding Sex

"It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies; the only variable is about what"

One of my favorite shows from years ago was House; a show centered around a brilliant but troubled doctor who frequently discovers the causes of his patient's ailments through discerning what they - or others - are lying about. This outlook on people appears to be correct, at least in spirit. Because it is sometimes beneficial for us that other people are made to believe things that are false, communication is often less than honest. This dishonesty entails things like outright lies, lies by omission, or stretching the truth in various directions and placing it in different lights. Of course, people don't just lie because deceiving others is usually beneficial. Deception - much like honesty - is only adaptive to the extent that people do reproductively-relevant things with it. Convincing your spouse that you had an affair when you didn't is dishonest for sure, but probably not a very useful thing to do; deceiving someone about what you had for breakfast is probably fairly neutral (minus the costs you might incur from coming to be known as a liar). As such, we wouldn't expect selection to have shaped our psychology to lie about all topics with equal frequency. Instead, we should expect that people tend to preferentially lie about particular topics in predictable ways.

Lies like, "This college degree will open so many doors for you in life"

Source: Flickr/Jacob Roeland

The corollary idea to that point concerns skepticism. Distrusting the honesty of communications can protect against harmful deceptions, but it also runs the risk of failing to act on accurate and beneficial information. There are costs and benefits to skepticism as there are to deception. Just as we shouldn't expect people to be dishonest about all topics equally often, then, we shouldn't expect people to be equally skeptical of all the information they receive either. This is point I've talked about before with regards to our reasoning abilities, whereby information agreeable to our particular interests tends to be accepted less critically, while disagreeable information is scrutinized much more intensely.

This line of thought was recently applied to the mating domain in a paper by Walsh, Millar, & Westfall (2016). Humans face a number of challenges when it comes to attracting sexual partners typically centered around obtaining the highest quality of partner(s) one can (metaphorically) afford, relative to what one offers to others. What determines the quality of partners, however, is frequently context specific: what makes a good short-term partner might differ from what makes a good long-term partner and - critically, as far as the current research is concerned - the traits that make good male partners for women are not the same as those that make good females partner for men. Because women and men face some different adaptive challenges when it comes to mating, we should expect that they would also preferentially lie (or exaggerate) to the opposite sex about those traits that the other sex values the most. In turn, we should also expect that each sex is skeptical of different claims, as this skepticism should reflect the costs associated with making poor reproductive decisions on the basis of bad information.

In case that sounds too abstract, consider a simple example: women face a greater obligate cost when it comes to pregnancy than men do. As far as men are concerned, their role in reproduction could end at ejaculation (which it does, for many species). By contrast, women would be burdened with months of gestation (during which they cannot get pregnant again), as well as years of breastfeeding prior to modern advancements (during which they also usually can't get pregnant). Each child could take years of a woman's already limited reproductive lifespan, whereas the man has lost a few minutes. In order to ease those burdens, women often seek male partners who will stick around and invest in them and their children. Men who are willing to invest in children should thus prove to be more attractive long-term partners for women than those who are unwilling. However, a man's willingness to stick around needs to be assessed by a woman in advance of knowing what his behavior will actually be. This might lead to men exaggerating or lie about their willingness to invest, so as to encourage women to mate with them. Women, in turn, should be preferentially skeptical of such claims, as being wrong about a man's willingness to invest is costly indeed. The situation should be reversed for traits that men value in their partners more than women.

Figure 1: What men most often value in a woman

Source: Flickr/Mike Burns

Three such traits for both men and women were examined by Walsh et al (2016). In their study, eight scenarios depicting a hypothetical email exchange between a man and woman who had never met were displayed to approximately 230 (mostly female; 165) heterosexual undergraduate students. For the women, these emails depicted a man messaging a woman; for men, it was a woman messaging a man. The purpose of these emails was described as the person sending them looking to begin a long-term intimate relationship with the recipient. Each of these emails described various facets of the sender, which could be broadly classified as either relevant primarily to female mating interests, relevant to male interests, or neutral. In terms of female interests, the sender described their luxurious lifestyle (cuing wealth), their desire to settle down (commitment), or how much they enjoy interacting with children (child investment). In terms of male interests, the sender talked about having a toned body (cuing physical attractiveness), their openness sexually (availability/receptivity), or their youth (fertility and mate value). In the two neutral scenarios, the sender either described their interest in stargazing or board games.

Finally, the participants were asked to rate (on a 1-5 scale) how deceitful they thought the sender was, whether they believed the sender or not, and how skeptical they were of the claims in the message. These three scores were summed for each participant to create a composite score of believability for each of the messages (the lower the score, the less believable it was rated as being). Those scores were then averaged across the female-relevant items (wealth, commitment, and childcare), the male-relevant items (attractiveness, youth, and availability), and the control conditions. (Participants also answered questions about whether the recipient should respond and how much they personally liked the sender. No statistical analyses are reported on those measures, however, so I'm going to assume nothing of note turned up)

The results showed that, as expected, the control items were believed more readily (M = 11.20) than the male (M = 9.85) or female (9.6) relevant items. This makes sense, inasmuch as believing lies about stargazing or interests in board games aren't particularly costly for either sex in most cases, so there's little reason to lie about them (and thus little reason to doubt them); by contrast, messages about one's desirability as a partner have real payoffs, and so are treated more cautiously. However, an important interaction with the sex of the participant was uncovered as well: female participants were more skeptical on the female-relevant items (M = about 9.2) than males were (M = 10.6); similarly, males were more likely to be skeptical in male-relevant conditions  (M = 9.5) than females were (M = 10). Further, the scores for the individual items all showed evidence of the same sex kinds of differences in skepticism. No sex difference emerged for the control condition, also as expected.

In sum, then - while these differences were relatively small in magnitude - men tended to be more skeptical of claims that, if falsely believed, were costlier for them than women, and women tended to be more skeptical of claims that, if falsely believed, were costlier for them than men. This is a similar pattern to that found in the reasoning domain, where evidence that agrees with one's position is accepted more readily than evidence that disagrees with it.

"How could it possibly be true if it disagrees with my opinion?"

Source: Flickr/CollegeDegrees360

The authors make a very interesting point towards the end of their paper about how their results could be viewed as inconsistent with the hypothesis that men have a bias to over-perceived women's sexual interest. After all, if men are over-perceiving such interest in the first place, why would they be skeptical about claims of sexual receptivity? It is possible, of course, that men tend to over-perceive such availability in general and are also skeptical of claims about its degree (e.g., they could still be manipulated by signals intentionally sent by females and so are skeptical, but still over-perceive ambiguous or less-overt cues), but another explanation jumps out at me that is consistent with the theme of this research: perhaps when asked to self-report about their own sexual interest, women aren't being entirely accurate (consciously or otherwise). This explanation would fit well with the fact that men and women tend to perceive a similar level of sexual interest in other women. Then again, perhaps I only see that evidence as consistent because I don't think men, as a group, should be expected to have such a bias, and that's biasing my skepticism in turn.

References: Walsh, M., Millar, M., & Westfall, S. (2016). The effects of gender and cost on suspicion in initial courtship communications. Evolutionary Psychological Science, DOI 10.1007/s40806-016-0062-8

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The 'A' Word

Work done by Jerome Schultz, Ph.D. suggests that when people who have ADHD (in his case, children) and who don’t understand the label ‘ADHD’ take on the negative stereotypes often associated with the condition rather than see themselves as a greater 'whole.'  This isn’t a huge surprise.  All you have to do is stand around for a while in a school hallway before you hear “Oh, that’s so ADD!”  It’s not a compliment.

Adults with ADHD know this all too well – they’ve lived it.  For years people told them they were inadequate, ought to try harder, never learned, or were stupid (because they didn’t test well or had problems with memory)…this list goes on and on.  Sadly, many of them believed it because they didn’t have another explanation.  Take ‘stupid’ – a child with ADHD might be exceptionally smart yet test poorly because s/he reads slowly (a common issue with ADHD) and runs out of time.  Or perhaps she did her homework and learned the material but forgot to bring it to school, getting a “0” for her effort.  Or was distracted and didn’t even know she had homework – even though she was perfectly capable of acing it.  Perhaps the ADHD child had a co-existing math learning disability, such as dyscalculia, which kept him from doing more than 5 problems on that 25-problem math quiz in 2nd grade.  That brain that can’t calculate might be amazing with words or pictures…but this gets lost in our ‘teach to the test’ school environment and the taunts of other school children.

People diagnosed with ADHD as adults are often relieved to hear about their diagnosis.  Finally!  A reason for all that has happened to them!  And, if they do some research and tackle the task of treating the ADHD, their lives most often change for the better*.

But over time, if both partners don’t really learn about ADHD and how to live with it, ADHD can morph into a curse – ‘the A word’ as one woman told me.  Having a label – and particularly the label of ‘ADHD’ – can translate into ‘because you have ADHD, our relationship problems are all your fault.’  The woman with ADHD who normally stays on top of things isn’t just deciding that she doesn’t ‘feel like doing a chore right then’…no, she’s ‘not controlling her symptoms well enough’ and gets corrected by her partner.  The man who has ADHD who stays on his computer too long to finish reading an interesting news story ‘has a computer addiction.’   The man who thrills at arriving at the airport just in the nick of time is judged ‘inconsiderate’ and to have an ‘issue with time management’ by his more anxious, and less adrenaline-driven partner.

One frustrated ADHD man told me “I think of this as ‘the leeway conundrum.’  My wife, who does not have ADHD, can change her mind and everything is okay.  I, on the other hand, must never change my mind because if I do, it means I’m ‘ADHD unreliable.’”

This is part of the parent/child dynamic that is so destructive in ADHD-impacted relationships.  The ADHD partner, in the child-like role, has little autonomy and is critiqued on an ongoing basis by non-ADHD and ‘other ADHD’ partners who believe their way – sanctioned by the neuro-typical world – is ‘better.’  Sometimes they have a point…but not as often as they think.  And ADHD isn’t always the reason for differences of opinion, either.  As a non-ADHD partner I may prefer getting to the airport early so that I don’t feel stress.  But as long as my ADHD partner makes it on time, is my way really more successful (‘better’) than his?  Objectively, no.  We do things differently.  Viva la difference!

I’m not one who thinks that ADHD is a gift.  I’ve seen it play a role in the suffering of too many couples.  Research backs me up.  Having ADHD can wreak havoc with your life.  But…and this is a big but…it’s not all about ADHD, either.   Using the label of ADHD without empathy or compassion is simply cruel.  The dysfunction in the couples I work with comes from their interactions and attitudes about ADHD as much as from the ADHD symptoms themselves.  Using ‘ADHD’ as a criticism – as ‘the A word’ if you will – is one of the bigger problems.  It signals disrespect, and a willingness to label another in a way that allows the other partner to ignore his or her own role in their joint problems…leading to much-less-than-optimal healing.

Non ADHD partners, teacher, parents and anyone who loves someone with ADHD would be well-served to think about the undertones so many read into the label of ‘ADHD’…and to remember it’s not just about ADHD.  A person with ADHD is much more than his or her ADHD symptoms – and deserves autonomy and respect for his or her different way of being.

*Research done by Dr. Russ Barkley and Dr. Kevin Murphy suggests that the majority of adults with ADHD who use medications see significant improvements in symptom management.  See Barkley’s book, Taking Charge of Adult ADHD for more information. 

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How Thinking Before You Speak Can Save Your Relationship

Source: charles taylor / shutterstock.com

The emotions of people invested in irrelationship are all over the map and are often poorly managed. As seen by an outsider, those affected often display a jumbled up mélange of potentially destructive impulsivity mixed willy-nilly with overly tamped-down, or even dissociated emotions and ideas that seriously complicate trying to come to a healthy place of healthy give-and-take (what we call relationship sanity).

In impulsive and dissociated styles of relating, “subcortical” brain activity dominates higher cortical functions (“executive control”) which are unable to adequately inhibit deeper brain regions (Morien-Zamir & Robbins, 2015). This is common in people with addictions, but is also an aspect of brainlock associated with the automatic defenses of irrelationship even in situations which do not include substance use disorders. Typically those affected suffer from poor frustration tolerance as well as excessive denial of feelings, both of which mechanisms are implicated in managing disturbing feelings (Bion, 1962).

Dysregulated relationships don’t survive the transition from the passion of the honeymoon period into a mature, profound, and sustainable commitment that includes mutual caregiving and effective communication necessary for jointly navigating life challenges.

Poor frustration tolerance can be especially damaging during an argument since it easily gives way vicious attacks that may be regarded as unforgivable later, even if made only once. But other, less vitriolic attacks can be just as devastating if they’re repeated over and over. On the other hand, keeping one’s feelings firmly bridled over a long period can bring about the slow death of a relationship.    

Dominick was thrilled and hopeful that his newly born insight into his wife Subrina’s personality would be a turning point in their relationship. His excitement, however, didn’t take into consideration the possibility that Subrina not only might not buy into Dominick’s insight, but that she’d find it threatening and confrontational.  

As it turned out, much of Dominic’s excitement was unconsciously inflamed by the prospect of retaliating against his wife for her day-after-day criticism of (it seemed to him) everything he did. He’d tried in the past to express to her how vulnerable and uneasy this made him feel, but her response was to tell him to “stop acting like a little girl.” Finally, during an ugly argument, Dominick flung his newfound “insight” at his wife: “No wonder Josh (Subrina’s ex-) just walked out one day. You’re totally stuck on being ‘smarter’ than everybody else—and you don’t let anybody forget it for a minute! You know what you’re really doing? You’re making sure everybody keeps the hell away from you. Then when things go wrong, you can play innocent with your ‘nobody tells me anything’ routine. Of course nobody tells you anything! All you do is blame them—just like you do to me! How many times have you told me that when your father bothered to come home, it was just to beat up your mother? Well, that’s just how I feel: every time you open your mouth, it’s to put me down! And If I say a word about it, you tell me to just suck it up!”

As soon as he’d gotten his “insight” off his chest, Dominick could see from Subrina’s face that he had opened a door that might never close. Even as he was doing it (and as he could feel it snowballing out of his control), he knew he’d hit below the belt. But his accumulated frustration at being brushed aside won out, and he unloaded every ugly feeling he had against Subrina.

Though Dominick was able genuinely to express his sorrow afterwards, their old pattern continued: Subrina repeatedly brought up the incident until Dominick was provoked into blowing up again. Despite this, however, Dominick still believed he had stumbled onto something important about their life together. But whenever he tried to talk about it, Subrina reframed it as “just another example of how men always betray me,” thus ensuring that their old pattern was kept alive. Despite Dominick’s hope that somehow things could change, this recurrent conflict became the defining characteristic of their relationship.

It sounds bad, but Dominick and Subrina had a lot going for them. Even though a lot of times Subrina said they had nothing in common (sometimes walking out the door or running away down the street saying she wasn’t coming back) these kind of impulsive comments and behaviors (based on an all-or-nothing take on the relationship as being either all good or all bad, but not both) gave the impression there wasn’t anything there, anymore. But at the same time, this was clearly not the case.

In fact, they liked each other quite a bit, they shared most if not all of their core values, and they had accomplished a tremendous amount together. Most of the time, Dominick felt like he was holding all the good in the relationship, remembering and reminding them of it, while Subrina’s job was to destroy and deny all goodness. This gave Dominick a chance to redeem himself. But it came at the cost of eruptions of aggression, until he was able to do the personal work required to deal with the broken up parts of himself and start to bridge them together with better internal communication. It was a lonely place to be, without much tenderness or affection.

Irrelationship theory tells us that when we look past the surface, there may be more there than meets the eye—people who want to be close cannot acknowledge their fear of closeness with each other, and to make matters worse, don’t know how to relate with one another to foster and deepen closeness once they’ve discovered what they’ve been doing together, and what they’ve been missing—together.

Reference

Bion, W. R. (1962) Study of thinking. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 43, 306-310.

Morien-Zamir, S., &Robbins, T. W. (2015). Fronto-striatal circuits in response-inhibition: Relevance to addiction. Brain Research, 1628, 117-129. 

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The Surprising Emotion Behind Anxiety

“Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” —Malcom X

We rarely associate anger with anxiety because chronic worriers tend to be kind, polite, responsible, high-achievers, people-pleasers and overly self-critical. Beware the conscientious exterior in yourself or others, because anger is the primary underlying emotion of anxiety.

Let’s start with the physical manifestations.

Source: Peter John Maridable/unsplash.com

Anger is a powerful emotion, and if not handled appropriately, serious health consequences can ensue. According to research published by the American Psychological Association, anxiety and anger have been proven to be hazardous to health:

“These ‘terrible twos’ increase  vulnerability to illnesses, especially  upper  respiratory illness; compromise the immune system; increase lipid levels; exacerbate  pain; and increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and from all sources of death.”

And a study from Concordia University shows that for millions of sufferers of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), anger is more than an emotion; it’s a conduit that intensifies anxiety. Specifically, when the anger is internalized rather than expressed—think seething inside without showing it.

If this information leaves you feeling confused or doubtful, not to worry, the anger-anxiety connection is rarely linear. “Why would someone who avoids conflict and doesn't like getting mad, in actuality, be an angry person?” is a common query. And it’s a great question. But first, let’s proceed with the societal rules. In general, we don’t reward anger.

Many children are taught from an early age that anger is mean, impolite, rude, hot-headed and out of control behavior.

When adults are afraid of their anger (and that’s a hint) they tend to repress their emotions. But you can only deny feelings for so long because eventually, all feelings go somewhere. Acting “as if” the situation or person at hand did not upset you is to deny your authentic emotional state, not to mention, set off a ticking time bomb. Kids model what they are taught at home, so if Mom or Dad didn’t own their feelings and subsequent behavioral reactions, what lessons are passed along?

Basically, uncomfortable feelings are not to be expressed, acknowledged or validated. This can lead to confusion, shame, and a sense of unworthiness.

After all, if Johnny or Sara can’t communicate their anger when the school bully smashed their lunch, or laughed when they read aloud, they must have done something to provoke this unwanted behavior. In time, Johnny and Sara internalize that they are somehow broken or defective. Complicating matters is the fact that their feelings of humiliation and rage do not just disappear…

Transitioning to adulthood and a lifetime spent in emotional-expression limbo, means adopting unhealthy coping skills. For example, hyper-vigilance (if your parents didn’t provide a safe container for your feelings, who can you trust?), dependence on others' approval, a lack of trust in the safety of the world, in others, and in yourself, chronic self-doubt, and pleasing others so they don’t reject you, as your parents did.

A psychological breakthrough occurs when you recognize that your greatest fears around anger expression likely center around the following:

1. If you're allowed to unleash the torrent of pent-up rage, there's a good chance of causing irreparable physical or psychological damage to others.

2. You will no longer be liked or loved by those around you.

While there's no quick-fix or one-size-fits-all to manage anger, the following steps can help you experience less anxiety around getting mad:

1. Feel your feelings. Because you weren’t taught to handle anger, it’s important to allow yourself the time and the space to stew in emotional upset. Sometimes the goal is not to "fix" the problem, but to learn to sit with uncomfortable feelings.

2. Normalize anger. Anger is not a "bad" emotion, and it can certainly be an appropriate response to injustice. It may also lead to more favorable outcomes in business negotiations as well as an increased motivation to change what’s wrong with your life and with the world.

3. Assess when to confront and when to walk away. Developing firm and consistent boundaries will help you decide when it’s wise to stand up to the person or situation which upset you, or whether it’s best to avoid conflict. Pay close attention to your thought process so you remain in the here and now. Mindfulness-based practices are beneficial for catching yourself before reacting through a distorted lens of past experiences. Anxious minds are uncomfortable with uncertainty, so avoid the trap of catastrophic thinking when waiting on an answer.

4. Come to terms with childhood wounds. This is tall order, for sure. While your parents may have mistreated you, they are not living your life right now. Viewing yourself as a victim will not allow you to focus on your strengths or accomplish your goals. Therapy can help you reframe negative core beliefs and heal from past events.

5. Learn that you teach people how to treat you. When you’re upset, you have a right to your feelings. If others don’t support you in the way you want or need, let them know. Just remember, your response is your responsibility.

The key to effective anger management is knowing how to express anger at the right time, in the right amount, and to the right people. Doing so can means you'll sleep better at night, too.

*****

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Copyright 2016 Linda Esposito, LCSW

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UFC Fight Night Date

Protect Your Relationships By Communicating Effectively

Communication and Long-Distance Relationships

In my early twenties, I said goodbye to my family in New York City and moved to Boston for graduate school. While I'd been living in my parents' house, I talked to my mother, father, and teenage brother all the time, and felt really good about doing so. After I moved out, I wanted to stay close, so I called my family often. However, phone calls with my brother proved a major challenge. I called him regularly but he usually did not call back. My mother encouraged me to keep calling him, and reminded him often to call me – which he rarely did. I was upset and confused by this, as you can imagine, and when I visited NYC and pressed my brother to call me, he apologized, and said he would call back when I called. He did so for a bit, but then stopped again. My mother was distraught, and I was too. Negative feelings and thoughts kept running through my head: why didn’t he call me back? Didn’t he love me? Didn’t he care about me?

This issue festered for a couple of years, until I decided to deal with it directly. On my next extended visit to NYC, I sat down with him, and had a serious conversation. It turned out that my brother really dislikes talking on the phone. This form of communication just stresses him out. He has a much stronger preference for instant messaging as a mode of communication. Moreover, his Elephant brain developed an “ugh field,” a variety of negative emotions, around communicating with me. This was due to the combination of pressure he experienced from my mother and me, and the guilt and shame that came from him failing to call.

What I Should Have Done

I really wish I knew how he felt! What I should have done was notice that he was not calling me back, and have a conversation about the problem with him right away. I should not have insisted that he call me, but instead express curiosity about why he did not. That way, I would have found out about his anxiety and stress around phone conversations. He would not have felt guilty and pressured. I would not have felt sad and confused. Everyone would have been better off!

Broader Relevance for Communication and Relationships

This story illustrates the importance of adapting one’s communication style to one’s audience. Much has been written about the vital role of communication in the workplace and in civic engagement, especially analyzing and targeting the preferences of your audiences to meet you communication goals. Research shows that such communication is also vital in our personal lives, such as ensuring healthy romantic relationships. Studies of family communication have likewise shown the importance of communicating well and especially being flexible about one’s communication style and preferences.

Flexibility and Anchoring

Such flexibility was the missing ingredient in my communication to my brother. I had the goal of cultivating my relationship to my brother, but was trying to reach this goal in a way that was not intentional. So I decided to be more flexible and started exchanging Facebook messages with him, using Gmail chat, and other instant messaging services. We grew closer and had a much better relationship. We even worked to solve occasional problems that would come up between one of us and our parents!

Now, why did this problem occur in the first place? Well, from my background growing up, I developed a reference point, in other words a perception of what is normal and appropriate, of the phone being the “right way” to maintain and cultivate relationships with close people. I suffered from the anchoring bias, a common cognitive bias, the scientific name for thinking errors frequently made by our minds. The anchoring bias occurs when people rely too heavily on information they got early onward, and do not move away from this anchor sufficiently based on new information. I had to acknowledge that I failed at my brother’s mind and forgot that my mental map does not match his mental map.

Dealing with Anchoring

So how does one deal with the anchoring bias? A useful strategy is remembering the benefit of re-examining our cached patterns. This term refers to habits of thought and feeling in our mind that we absorbed uncritically from the social environment around us, as opposed to conclusions we arrived at by our own intentional reasoning. Re-evaluating our cached patterns of thought and feeling enables us to see reality more clearly, make more effective decisions, and achieve our goals, thus helping us gain greater agency in personal relationships and other life areas.

So whenever you notice yourself confused or upset by something that you did not expect, stop and think: what is the origin of your confusion? Is it coming from some sort of cached pattern, where you think something is the only “right way” of doing things? Think about whether there are any alternative ways of achieving your desired outcome. (This is part of a broader strategy of dealing with common thinking errors by considering alternatives, which research shows is a very effective way for avoiding thinking errors.) Try listing at least 3 alternatives, and describe why each of them can be valid and right, at least for other people if not for you. Remember, relationships are a two-way street, and you need to respect the other person and their preferences in order to communicate well.

Questions for Consideration

• Can you identify any ugh fields you developed? How do you deal with ugh fields?
• In what ways, if any, can you be a better communicator in your professional, personal, and civic life areas?
• Are there any instances where the anchoring effect caused you to make suboptimal decisions?
• Do you think you have any cached patterns that might be harmful to your mental wellbeing?
• If so, what steps can you take to deal with these cached patterns?

_______________________________

Bio: Dr. Gleb Tsipursky runs a nonprofit that helps you reach your goals using science to build an altruistic and flourishing world, Intentional Insights, authored Find Your Purpose Using Science among other books, and regular contributes to prominent venues; and is a tenure-track professor at Ohio State. Consider signing up to the Intentional Insights newsletter; volunteering; donating; buying merchandise. You can support him personally on Patreon. Get in touch with him at gleb@intentionalinsights.org.

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How Intimate Partners Manipulate Each Other

Despite their intent to be as authentic and open, many committed and caring couples use covert behaviors to get their needs met when they don’t trust that direct requests would work. It’s not they intend to take advantage of each other, but simply feel they will be more successful if they use more strategic tactics in certain situations. They don’t feel they are trying to manipulate; they’re just doing what they believe makes their relationship more workable.

Many people define manipulation as a behavior that intentionally uses another for personal gain. Though it is commonly believed this regularly happens in the outside world, most intimate partners either don’t recognize that they practice it in their relationship, or don’t want to admit that they do. Even the most loving and caring partners regularly use manipulative techniques to get their partners to do things they might not otherwise choose to do. When I ask them if they would rather be open about all of their wishes, they agree that would be more ideal, but are fearful that kind of transparency would create more problems.

Learning to strategize begins early in childhood. Every child quickly learns when and how to ask for something that will get them what they need. They usually start by saying what they want directly, but soon realize that a more strategic move works better. I fondly remember a six-year-old little boy in my office ignoring his mother’s requests to behave. After she made several unsuccessful attempts to control him, she raised her hand to give him a swat on his bottom. He looked at her with a very sweet expression on his face and said, “You’re so beautiful when your mad, mommy.” We both tried to keep a straight face, but it worked. Yes, he copied it from watching his dad.

Many of my patients have told me that their partners could easily see behind their manipulative tactics if they wanted to, but believe that they really would rather not. Or, both partners have accepted that neither is always straight in all areas, but they are usually more honest in the most important ones. They’ve also told me that a good outcome justifies strategic choices because being direct can cause unnecessary conflicts.

I recall a middle-aged patient many years ago who was determined to stay married to her often-unfaithful husband, showing me her latest “re-entry bracelet.” She loved beautiful jewelry and he had learned to soothe her by the timely acquisition of just the right token at the right time. It was a non-spoken, dual strategy that seemed to work for both of them. Another told me that she crushed Viagra and put it in their husband’s dinner because he would not acknowledge his erectile dysfunction. She knew it worked better if taken without food, but he wasn’t willing to acknowledge his predicament, and she enjoyed intercourse too much to give it up.

Very often those “working the system” behaviors can become so much part of a couple’s habits that they see them as just part of running a successful partnership. And, very often those behaviors are reinforced because they work. Sadly, though, major problems can arise when intimate partners unconsciously or consciously use them on each other and the covert behavior is unearthed. If trust is the act of believing that one’s most reliable and intimate friend is always honest, then the discovery of manipulative behavior in any important area to either partner can shake that trust and threaten the relationship.

The use of manipulative techniques will likely continue to be part of every intimate relationship. But caring partners, who want to be as authentic with one another as possible, can recognize when they are being strategically indirect, and learn ways to be more transparent without necessarily risking their intimate connection. The closer both can come to being completely open and honest in what they want from one another, the more they will be able to create a spiritual and emotional sanctuary that sustains love as no other connection can.

There are many ways that people indirectly try to control a situation’s outcome. Most of them are used often, but others are far less obvious. Some are minor indiscretions but others could be more potentially threatening to the relationship if they are inadvertently exposed.

As I share the twelve most common manipulative techniques with you, please do not judge yourself if you recognized that you or your partner practice some of them, or perhaps others that are unique to your own relationship. Try to help each other feel more comfortable sharing them with each other.

The Twelve Most Common Manipulative Behaviors

1) Using guilt

People feel guilty when they don’t live up to the expectations of people who are important to them. If you know what makes your partner feel badly about him or herself, and use that knowledge to get what you need, you are using emotional blackmail as your manipulative strategy.

2) Martyrdom

If you over-give on a regular basis, you could be trying to build an emotional credit card balance that your partner may feel obligated to pay when you want something, even if he or she would not have chosen to do that for you otherwise.

3) Using others to “sell” your idea

This kind of coercion happens when one partner cites biased references to get the other to comply. “Everyone thinks...” “Our best friends always take a least two vacations a year.” “The newest research shows that…” “Lots of happy couples…”

4) Hiding your errors

If you fear your partner’s criticism or disappointment, you may find yourself hiding something you’ve done wrong and waiting for a time when you’re getting along well, hoping to soften the blow.

5) Presenting exaggerated, embellished, or untrue reasons for your behaviors to neutralize a potentially bad reaction

If you’re caught doing something that your partner feels upset by, you create a more believable story to sway your partner to your side. If he or she “understands” that your behavior was legitimate under those circumstances, you might be able to neutralize a potentially negative response.

6) Over-reacting to get your partner to feel wrong about what he or she was feeling

Creating drama is a typical way to getting your partner to back down, if he or she dislikes scenes, emotional turmoil, or exaggerated consequences. Even if you actually feel that intensely, you are consciously or unconsciously counting on the fact that your partner will back down to avoid the intensity of the situation.

7) Presenting something as a gift to your partner when it was really something you wanted

One example would be telling your partner that a fantastic deal came up that you know he or she would really like but might have not thought of, when it’s really something you want but didn’t think you could get it if you didn’t present it as a “gift.” 

8) Feigning an excuse when you either don’t want to do something, or don’t want to be held responsible for breaking an agreement or disappointing your partner

“I have a headache, honey.” “It’s been a really hard day. Just didn’t expect so much stress. I’ll get to it tomorrow.” “I’m so sorry. I just forgot. I guess too much on mind.” “I can only do so much. I’m only human.”

9) Passive/Aggressive Behaviors

Agreeing with your partner’s request in the moment to avoid disappointing or upsetting him or her, but somehow never getting around to what you agreed to. If you use this strategy often, your partner will lose trust in you.

10) Being intentionally accommodating in advance to create compliance when you want something later

This is one of the most common types of manipulation. Most intimate partners know what pleases the other and how to put on momentary charm for a later request the other can’t comfortably refuse.

11) Padding a request to ensure that what you want will be granted

This strategy requires that you purposefully ask for much more than you know you will get, knowing that your partner will offer less, which is what you really only wanted. “Honey, my dream would be to get that new Tesla. What do you think?” (He really would be very happy with a Lexus.)

12) Temporarily hiding something you’ve done wrong to fix it before it is discovered

It’s understandable that you don’t want your partner disappointed in something you’ve done and you’re sure you can hide or fix it before he or she finds out. You’re playing against the clock, so you have to get very good at keeping him or her off the trail until you have it covered.

Remember, most intimate partners only resort to manipulative behavior when they truly believe they can’t get what they need by being more open and direct. Very often those fears and subsequent behaviors that began in childhood are not necessary in adult relationships, but people continue using them. If loving couples are willing to share the ways they are fearful of being fully open with their needs and fears, they often end up learning that covert strategies have kept them from a deeper love.

Dr. Randi’s free advice e-newsletter, Heroic Love, shows you how to avoid the common pitfalls that keep people from finding and keeping romantic love.  Based on over 100,000 face-to-face hours counseling singles and couples over her 40-year career, you’ll learn how to zero in on the right partner, avoid the dreaded “honeymoon is over” phenomenon, and make sure your relationship never gets boring.  www.heroiclove.com

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Is the World More Dangerous Now Than Ever?

Steven Pinker’s excellent 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why violence has declined, upsets many people.  They believe that the world is more dangerous — now than ever before.  And they believe it is dangerous to go around saying that the world isn’t more dangerous now.  They are wrong, according to Pinker.  And this is because of human psychology.  There is, here, a fascinating story to tell about us and our fears.

Some readers might not want to tackle the hefty Better Angels, from cover to cover, it is almost 800 pages long.  Never fear: Pinker has in several places provided good synopses of his research and conclusions.  One can google “Pinker, safer world,” or read this or this or this.

Let’s have our own synopsis (these four passages are quotes, taken from Pinker’s and Mack’s December, 22 2014 Slate article).

Homicide. Worldwide, about five to 10 times as many people die in police-blotter homicides as die in wars. And in most of the world, the rate of homicide has been sinking.

Violence Against Women. The intense media coverage of famous athletes who have assaulted their wives or girlfriends, and of episodes of rape on college campuses, have suggested to many pundits that we are undergoing a surge of violence against women. But the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ victimization surveys (which circumvent the problem of underreporting to the police) show the opposite: Rates of rape or sexual assault and of violence against intimate partners have been sinking for decades, and are now a quarter or less of their peaks in the past. 

Violence Against Children. A similar story can be told about children. The incessant media reports of school shootings, abductions, bullying, cyberbullying, sexting, date rape, and sexual and physical abuse make it seem as if children are living in increasingly perilous times. But the data say otherwise: Kids are undoubtedly safer than they were in the past. 

War.  . . . In a historically unprecedented development, the number of interstate wars has plummeted since 1945, and the most destructive kind of war, in which great powers or developed states fight each other, has vanished altogether.

There’s more (and of course, much more in Pinker’s book), but this paints the picture we need: Our current world is the safest time in all of human history.  In his Wall Street Journal article, Pinker sums this up his conclusions: “Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species.”  Hallelujah!

Nevertheless we Americans do fear (and not just Americans).  Few will relax and rejoice upon learning of Professor Pinker’s data-driven conclusions about the decline of violence.  Many will find his conclusions unbelievable (partly because we are a nation that doesn’t like or trust science).  In fact, we know that there is an entire political campaign for the U. S. presidency based on fear of increasing violence: The campaign of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly stressed the increasing violence here in the U. S., and the increasing war and destruction abroad.  According to Vox, Trump said in his speech of July 21, 2016 that ‘America is more dangerous "than I have ever seen and, frankly, than anybody in this room has ever seen."’ (Dara Lind, Vox, July 22, 2016).  Enough people believe him, enough people feel the truth that violence and danger are increasing, that Mr. Trump is not only the Republican nominee for the presidency, he is doing well in the polls.

(For fairness, I should add that many on the Democratic side are also pushing fear: the fear of Mr. Trump.  This in an effort to get Ms. Clinton elected.  But this is different, at least some.  The “fear of Trump” movement is not primarily a “fear of violence” movement.)

Last month’s blog was about the feeling of truth — we are connected to the truth by feeling it.  We know the truth because we feel the truth.  And the truth that we feel is that the world is more dangerous now than ever. We feel this because we are scared. Statistics like Professor Pinker’s while undoubtedly true, clash with statistics like this one from Excellent Beauty, chapter 3, footnote 10. 

In their significant and authoritative book Sacred and Secular (Inglehart, R., and P. Norris. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge University Press, 2004.), the political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris point out that the long-heralded demise of religion, predicted by the likes of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and other nineteenth- and early-twentieth century thinkers, has not happened.  And it is probably not going to happen: religions are growing worldwide (that is, the number of people belonging to one religion or another is growing). What makes their findings disturbing is that Inglehart and Norris claim to have discovered that religions persist and grow in at-risk populations — populations in poor nations, nations under the rule of tyranny or the threat of terrorism, nations suffering large environmental degradation, and so on—where the members of the population face a decrease in existential security (Inglehart’s and Norris’s term). In populations where there is an increase in existential security (in nations that feel affluent and safe), religious membership decreases.

So, religions are growing because people feel unsafe, but Professor Pinker is jumping up and down pointing to data that we are, in fact, more safe — safer now than ever.  We should stop feeling unsafe and instead feel safe.

But we don’t.  Why?

There is really one reason, that plays out in different ways: Our psychology.  Specifically, we love fear.

In 2001, psychologists Roy Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Catrin Finkenauer, and Kathleen D. Vohs wrote their important and seminal paper: Bad is Stronger than Good (Review of General Psychology, 2001. Vol. 5. No. 4. 323-370.)  Short form: you are more upset about losing $50 than you are happy about gaining $50. (Their paper discusses dozens of such examples.)  The bad is stronger than the good because humans evolved: it is more adaptive to avoid the bad than to search out the good.

Because of our evolutionarily supplied love of fear and preference for the bad, our modern news is 24/7 reporting about bad and scary things.  Violence is always newsworthy; peace is not.  No one wants to hear 24/7 that someone was nice to someone.  Sure niceness can be tossed in at the end of a segment on the latest school shooting by an angry gunman, but the real news is the latest school shooting by an angry gunman.  So, because humans evolved — which is why the bad is stronger than the good and why we are bad at statistics (see, e.g., Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow) — we tend to think that all the bad news is the whole truth.  But it’s only a small part of truth. 

I suspect that increased diversity and rights for others historically denied rights is also increasing many American's fears.

When is a fear rational?

Could it be rational to think that our world is more dangerous now than ever.  Yes. How?  By focusing on the future: We are heading into the most dangerous time in human history.  Just consider global warming as one example.  It is clear that global warming will change everything, from coastlines to what we eat.  It will profoundly alter religious beliefs and governments and alliances and treaties.  Perhaps it will change who can reproduce.  Wars will be fought over food and water.  Hundreds of millions could die.  And global warming is just the beginning.  A special issue of Science — 15 July 2016 — discusses the probability of other extinction-level natural disasters.  For example, Yellowstone National Park is actually a supervolcano, which appears to be on schedule to erupt.  When it does, life east of it all the way to England will be exterminated.  And the rest of the world will feel the effects, too.  For those who’ve not read a really scary story in a while, I recommend this issue of Science. 

But as Professor Pinker would be the first to point out, Yellowstone is not the kind of violence he’s studying.  No doubt, Pinker would agree that we should take steps to deal with global warming and Yellowstone and extraterrestrial impactors . . . .  But this doesn’t change his point that human violence is on the decline.  This is important because, after all, Mr. Trump is not riding a wave of fear of Yellowstone erupting.

So the world is today significantly less dangerous than it used to be.  Most of us will die of old age, not in a hail of bullets.  But try telling our psyches that.  Our evolved psychology will carry the day, and we will live and fear and worry and stew and vote as if the hail of bullets is our most probable end.

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The Problem with Living Together to Test a Relationship

by Scott M. Stanley and Galena K. Rhoades

A “Majority of Americans Now Believe in Cohabitation.” That’s the headline and conclusion from a national survey conducted by the Barna Group.[i] They surveyed 1097 adults in April 2016, finding that 65 percent of Americans now approve of cohabiting prior to tying the knot, while 35 percent do not.[ii] Given that nearly 70 percent of Americans marrying today will cohabit before getting married,[iii] these findings are not too surprising.

The Barna Group also found that 84 percent of those who support premarital cohabitation do so because it provides a test of compatibility prior to marrying. That will be our main focus in this piece, but first, here are some other findings from the report:

• Millennials are more likely (72 percent) to endorse cohabitation prior to marriage than the older generation (36 percent). 
• Those identifying as liberal are more likely (86 percent) to endorse cohabitation prior to marriage than those identifying as conservative (37 percent). 
• Those identifying as more religious, particularly those who report being practicing Christians, are the least likely (41 percent) to endorse cohabiting before marriage while those reporting no faith at all are the most likely to embrace the practice (88 percent).

The survey also asked about behavior, finding that 57 percent of those surveyed had cohabited with a partner outside of marriage at some point. Further, and entirely consistent with what we might expect, older, more conservative, and more traditionally religious respondents were the least likely to report a history of cohabiting compared to the rest of the sample.  

The embrace of cohabitation before marriage is sweeping. As Roxanne Stone, editor-in-chief for the Barna Group, explained, “Even a growing number of parents—nearly half of Gen-Xers and Boomers, and more than half of Millennials—want and expect their children to live with a significant other before getting married.”

Cohabitation is here in a big way.

Reasons Why People Believe Cohabitation is Good

The Barna Group found that 84 percent of those who approve of cohabiting before marriage said that it was valuable for testing compatibility. This has been the dominant belief of young adults for 20 years or more. By way of comparison, in a detailed report on attitudes related to family in 2001, sociologists Arland Thornton and Linda Young-DeMarco[iv] (citing findings from the Monitoring the Future project at the University of Michigan) noted that, by the late 1990s, more than three-fifths of high school students in the U.S. endorsed this sentiment: “It is usually a good idea for a couple to live together before getting married in order to find out whether they really get along.’’ Simply put, most young people believe this.

The Barna Group found that other reasons for valuing premarital cohabitation paled in comparison to testing, with the reason that “it’s convenient/practical” coming in at 9 percent and “cheap rent” coming in at 5 percent (2 percent chose “other).

Reasons Cohabiters Give for (Actually) Moving In Together

From 2007 to 2012, we followed a national sample of 1294 unmarried young adults (ages 18 to 34) who were in serious romantic relationships, surveying them about their personal lives and relationships for 11 waves.[v] This is the Relationship Development Study (RDS), and the sample well represents Americans in that age range.

At the first time point in this longitudinal study, we asked people if they were cohabiting and, if so, their reasons for doing so. Based on prior work in this area,[vi] we gave people six options for ranking their reasons for moving in with their partners[vii] (displayed in the accompanying chart). Although the Barna Group showed that most people who endorse cohabiting before marriage believe it is a good idea because it provides a good test of compatibility, that’s not the most common reason people give for actually moving in together.

Source: Stanley & Rhoades: Relationship Development Study

As you can see, we found that the number one reason both males and females gave for moving in together was to spend more time with their partners. Convenience was the second most strongly-endorsed reason, followed by wanting to take a step-up in commitment.[viii] Convenience would include the types of financial benefits noted in the Barna Group report. In our sample, men and women strongly diverged in two categories. Women were more likely than men to say they cohabited because they had a child to raise (13 percent vs. 6.6 percent) whereas men were more likely than women to say they cohabited to test the relationship (10 percent vs. 4.5 percent).

Is Cohabiting a Good Test of a Relationship?

We (particularly Galena) began carefully studying reasons people have for cohabiting around 2005 as part of a range of efforts to study cohabitation and why it was not typically associated with the improved outcomes in marriage that most people expect. Using an earlier sample of cohabiters (not the national and more representative sample we have in the RDS), we gathered in-depth quantitative data from 120 couples, and we looked at reasons people gave for cohabiting and what those reasons were associated with (Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009[ix]).

In that data set, the top three reasons people gave for cohabiting were to spend more time together (61 percent), financial convenience (19 percent), and to test the relationship (14 percent). These findings parallel those we obtained in the same sample of that report using a more sophisticated scale of reasons for cohabitation that we used in more complex analyses of what is associated with various reasons people hold for cohabiting.  

Women who reported cohabiting for reasons of convenience were more likely to report lower level of confidence in their relationships, less commitment, and higher levels of negative dynamics with their partners. Those findings are consistent with the fact that, for some, cohabitation is something driven by perceived and real necessities. Some people really do have poorer options, and they are more likely to end up in difficult relationships where cohabitation probably would not otherwise have been their first choice, at least with “this” partner.

What about testing? As with our national data set, men were more likely than their partners (all women) to report cohabiting in order to test the relationship. We examined the personal and relationship characteristics of both men and women who reported testing, and found that:

• “For men, higher levels of depressive symptoms, generalized anxiety symptoms, difficulty depending on others, and anxiety about abandonment were significantly associated with higher scores on testing.” (p. 247)
• “For women, . . . greater abandonment anxiety was significantly associated with higher testing scores.” (p. 247)
• “For both men and women, greater negative interaction and psychological aggression and lower relationship confidence and adjustment were significantly associated with higher scores on the testing subscale. For men only, greater physical aggression and lower levels of dedication were significantly associated with testing the relationship.”

These findings suggest that cohabiting to test a relationship is associated with many kinds of negatives. Does that mean that cohabitation causes those negatives? Probably not. There is a lot more evidence that those negatives were largely there before cohabiting.

We think of these findings this way. If you are considering whether or not you should move in with someone to test the relationships, it’s likely not the wisest thing you could do. In fact, it seems to us that many people who are thinking about testing their relationship by cohabiting already know, on some level, what the grade of that test may be; they are hoping that the answer looks better over time. 

Even cohabiting to spend more time together may not be without risk. We’ve argued elsewhere and often—with a lot of empirical evidence in many published studies—that the number one thing people miss about the risk of cohabiting is that it makes it harder to break up. Cohabiting relationships break up all the time, and increasingly so,[x] but the relative difference is the point. All other things being the same, a couple who is cohabiting will have a harder time breaking up than a couple who is only dating. We think that’s a big deal.

If you want to read more about this issue, what we call “the inertia of cohabitation,” you can read more here and here and here. Or, see our 4-minute video on the subject: Relationship DUI.

What’s the point? Simple, actually. Because many people cohabit before even having mutual clarity about commitment, such as through engagement or marriage, some people end up staying in relationships, including on into marriage, that they otherwise would have left behind.[xi] Essentially, many people slide into situations that make it harder to end a relationship before they have made a clear decision about what is best. The situation looks quite a bit different for those who have strongly clarified mutual commitment to the future before moving in together, such as by being engaged or even—gasp—being married.

Cohabitation Fails the Test

There are a lot better ways to test a relationship than to do something that makes it harder to break up before you’ve really figured it all out. Take a relationship education course (i.e., some kind of premarital preparation before you even get engaged), talk about what a future together would look like, and see if you are compatible by dating. Take the time to see your partner in a lot of different social settings.

Ever take any college classes? If so, you know that people sometimes sign up for a class and then decide, part way in, that it’s not for them and they drop the class. But some people figure it out too late and cannot drop the class or, at best, drop it late and lose their money.

It’s easy to slide into cohabitation without even a serious discussion or decision and then get stuck. When it comes to moving in together before marriage, some people may find that they are failing in a class that has become too hard to drop.  

Follow me on Twitter: @DecideOrSlide

Scott M. Stanley is a research professor at the University of Denver. Galena K. Rhoades is a research associate professor at the University of Denver.

[i] The Barna Group specializes in survey work that is often used by those in religious ministry. As for the methods used by the Barna Group, they seem reasonable to us and the findings are entirely consistent with what we know in this field. However, we have not examined the specific procedures beyond what is stated in their report, where they note: “The study on which these findings are based was conducted via online survey from April 7 to April 14, 2016. A total of 1,097 interviews were conducted. The sample error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points at 95-percent confidence level. The completion rate was 85%.”

[ii] In creating their report, the Barna Group combined those who either strongly or somewhat agree into one group and those who either somewhat or strongly disagree into the other.

[iii] Manning, W. D. (2013). Trends in cohabitation: Twenty years of change, 1987-2010 (FP-13-12). National Center for Family & Marriage Research. Retrieved from http://ift.tt/2a6D5iK... See also Kennedy, S., & Bumpass, L. (2008). Cohabitation and children's living arrangements: New estimates from the United States. Demographic Research, 19(47), 1663-1692.

[iv] Thornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four decades of trends in attitudes toward family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(4), 1009-1037. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.01009.x

[v] You can find out more about the sample and the methods in these articles: Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., and Markman, H. J. (2010).  Should I stay or should I go? Predicting dating relationship stability from four aspects of commitment. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(5), 543-550.; Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., and Markman, H. J. (2012). The impact of the transition to cohabitation on relationship functioning: Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(3), 348-358.

[vi] We also gave people the option of saying they moved in together because they did not believe in marriage, which was endorsed by less than 1 percent of the respondents.

[vii] These particular findings from our national sample have not, as yet, been published.

[viii] This was actually listed as “inconvenient to live apart” in the survey

[ix] Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2009). Couples' reasons for cohabitation: Associations with individual well-being and relationship quality. Journal of Family Issues, 30, 233 - 258. doi: 10.1177/0192513X08324388

[x] Guzzo, K. B. (2014). Trends in cohabitation outcomes: Compositional changes and engagement among never-married young adults. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 826 -842. DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12123

[xi] Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., and Markman, H. J. (2006). Sliding vs. Deciding: Inertia and the premarital cohabitation effect. Family Relations, 55, 499-509.; You can read a full text version of this paper here. 

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Can Trauma Improve our Psychological Health?

Traumatic events are not necessarily traumatizing. In fact, traumatic events are usually not traumatizing. Most people suffer no enduring psychological consequences from them, even after events as horrific as the 9/11 terrorist attacks or a mass shooting. After decades of confusion about our capacity to cope with acute stress, we now know—based on study after study—that people have a robust and likely inherent capacity to cope effectively with trauma.

The Complex and Sometimes Paradoxical Effects of Trauma

My purpose here is not to review the evidence for resilience to trauma (see here for that). Instead, I want to suggest an even more radical idea: That trauma can—sometimes and for some people—have beneficial effects. Yes, beneficial effects.

My colleagues, Heather Littleton and Amie Grills, and I had an extremely rare opportunity to test this possibility in a study of 368 female survivors of the Virginia Tech campus tragedy in 2007, the second most deadly civilian shooting in US history. It was rare because students’ functioning (depression and anxiety symptoms) had been assessed before the shootings (as the result of an unrelated study) and again at 2, 6, and 12 months after. This allowed us to precisely gauge the impact of the shootings on their psychological health.

We expected to find a range of psychological responses to the tragedy, and we did. Most (about 60 percent) were resilient, with no statistically discernible uptick in distress after the shootings. On the other hand, about 20 percent of survivors saw large increases in anxiety or depression that continued to increase for 12 months—a reaction consistent with posttraumatic stress disorder. Given the typical prevalence of resilience and the indisputable potential of such events to generate distress, these findings were unremarkable. 

What was remarkable was a group of survivors whose psychological health improved. This group had high levels of depression and anxiety before the shooting and substantially less anxiety and depression after the shootings. About 15 percent of the sample, in fact, saw substantial and statistically significant improvement in psychological functioning.

Social Relationships Can Be Strengthened after Traumatic Events

Why would some people improve? We hypothesized that people who felt isolated, anxious, and depressed before a traumatic event would benefit from a well-documented phenomenon: The power of acute stress to strengthen our relationships, particularly with close others. The UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor has described this as “tend-and-befriend.” Indeed, for more than half a century, historians and sociologists have variously described the aftermath of mass trauma as a “post-disaster utopia,” a “city of comrades,” and “a democracy of distress.”

This is exactly what we found. Psychologically improved survivors reported a substantial increase in the belief that friends and family would be available if needed. They were more likely to report gains in intimacy with friends or family, and to perceive an increased sense, for example, that “I can count on my friends when things go wrong” and “I can talk about my problems with my family.” Remarkably, their social ties continued to strengthen for a full year after the shootings. As expected, the group with potential posttraumatic stress disorder reported no increase—and even a slight decline—in their perceptions of support from others.

“The Remedial Influences of Pure, Natural Human Relationships”

The trauma appeared to improve their relationships. And this in turn may well have improved their psychological functioning. Indeed, close and active social relationships are essential to well-being and happiness. Not surprisingly, then, psychological distress is exquisitely responsive to the quality of our relationships: The perceived absence of supportive relationships is one of the strongest predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder, a devastating and potentially chronic illness. All of this points to a fundamental and often overlooked reservoir of healing: what the novelist George Eliot once described as “the remedial influences of pure, natural human relations.”   

References

Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59, 20-28. 

Bonanno, G. A., Galea, S., Bucciarelli, A., & Vlahov, D. (2006). Psychological resilience after disaster: New York City in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attack. Psychological Science, 17, 181-186.

Mancini, A. D., Littleton, H. L., & Grills, A. E. (2016). Can people benefit from acute stress? Social support, psychological improvement, and resilience after the Virginia Tech Campus Shootings. Clinical Psychological Science, 4, 401-417. 

Solnit, R. (2010). A paradise built in hell: The extraordinary communities that arise in disaster. Penguin: New York.

Wolfenstein, M. (1957). Disaster: A Psychological Study. Free Press.

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