Research Claims This Trait Makes Relationships Last

An evidence-based secret to long-lasting relationships.

Whether you fight about the dirty laundry, how much money your partner spent, or not recalling the last time you had sex, conflicts show up in any relationship.

But why is it that some couples live happily ever after, despite the inevitable occasional conflicts? And why do other couples meet up in court for a divorce, right when everyone could swear they were perfect for one another?

Couples who stand the test of time have something in common. Contrary to what you may believe, it’s not money. Or sex. Or communication. It’s not having / or not having children. And it’s not even patience. Of course, all these help, but they’re not the secret sauce.

Scientists believe the way partners navigate conflicts determines the success of a relationship. After over 50 years of studies, the conclusion is surprisingly simple. Long-lasting relationships typically belong to those who show… kindness to each other. I bet you didn’t expect this one, right?

Why nothing else matters more than this trait?

Relationship psychologist Ty Tashiro, author of “The Science of Happily Ever After: What Really Matters in the Quest for Enduring Love,” looked at the most relevant romance and relationships studies and research data. In this book published in 2014, he revealed that only three out of ten people who tie the knot have happy marriages. This means that seven people out of ten are not quite happy in their homes!

For the other three out of ten who happen to have found happiness in their relationships, kindness seems to be the save from bitter togetherness. We know this from the extensive research led at The Gottman Institute, an institute devoted to supporting couples to maintain healthy and loving relationships through scientific-based evidence.

If you and your partner show kindness to each other, you should have a successful relationship — no matter how many children you’ll have competing for your time and attention, if you share one car and it’s not a limo, or if you hardly ever go on a vacation. That’s because kindness makes you feel understood, loved, and ultimately happy in your marriage.

What the marriage crisis in the 1970s taught researchers

We probably wouldn't have had such compelling evidence today if it weren’t for the marriage crisis back in the 1970s. At the time, the divorce rate in the United States was unprecedented. Numerous psychologists were intrigued by the negative phenomenon and especially worried about the impact these divorces would have on the children resulted from the broken marriages.

Trying to end this epidemic, researchers brought couples into labs and observed them while talking about their lives or resolving specific conflicts. They wanted to learn which couples would maintain a thriving, long-lasting relationship and hoped to identify what those couples had in common.

John Gottman was one of the psychologists involved in the initial study, but he took it one step further. He founded The Gottman Institute and spent over 40 years continuing such research on marital stability.

Teaming up with Robert Levenson, they set up the so-called “Love Lab” at the University of Washington in 1986. Initially, they brought newlyweds in, hooked them up with electrodes, and had them talk about their relationships — recounting how they met, sharing a positive memory they had as a couple, discussing a significant conflict they were going through at the time.

They had them talk and monitored their heart rate and blood flow, as well as how much they sweated. But that was it, and they send the couples home, determined to check up on them six years later.

Based on their measurements, they could split the participants into two groups. On the one hand, were those who seemed calm during the interviews but still showed physiological distress (increased heart rate and blood flow or extra sweat). On the other hand, they were the ones who show little to no signs of physiological distress.

As you can guess, six years later, the stressed ones were either severely unhappy in their relationships or already divorced. The less stressed ones were still in happy relationships.

Researchers labeled the two groups as Masters (the non-sweaty, still happy ones) and Disasters (the sweaty, eventually unhappy ones). They predicted which ones will be miserable or divorced years later by looking at what the electrodes measured during the initial stage of the study.

The explanation? Those who showed signs of stress did it because they were in a permanent state of fight-or-flight. Even when they seemed to get along with their partners, their bodies still acted as if they conflicted. They were always prepared to be attacked by their partner and always ready to fight back.

Needless to say, they weren’t kind to each other. Gottman even noted at some point an example of an apparently non-aggressive comment that clearly underlined something else. When asked to talk about how their day was, a husband invited his way to talk first, as follows — “Why don’t you start talking about your day. It won’t take you very long.” Neat and subtle, huh?

When you’re kind to each other, one thing comes naturally

Gottman was intrigued by his findings and wanted to watch more closely the couples’ behaviors. In 1990, he initiated a follow-up study where he arranged a sort of bed & breakfast retreat on the campus of the University of Washington.

The retreat was, of course, a cover-up for a study. He invited 130 newlyweds and asked them to spend the day together while he monitored their interactions. You’d assume he watched them being intimate, and he did, but only not in the sense you might be fantasizing about. It was more like the mundane intimacy that couples show on a relaxing getaway where they rent something, and they cook and eat, clean and chat, listen to music, or hang out.

Gottman’s discovery was crucial. He noticed that, throughout the day, the partners were making comments meant to initiate a connection. Comments such as “Look at that lovely bird sitting over that fence” that the researcher called bids. It was hard for the researcher to overlook how people reacted to their partners’ bids. In paying attention to this detail, he noticed that the couples who were the happiest together six years later were the ones who responded positively to their partners’ bids during that retreat study.

Nine times out of ten, the happy couples responded positively to their partners' attempts to connect. Whether it was a mere “Yes, indeed, it’s a lovely bird” or a more enthusiastic “Wow, it does have such beautifully colored feathers,” the partners who were kind to each other and responded with interest to the connection attempt have successfully stood the test of time.

By contrast, only three times out of ten unhappy couples responded positively to their partners’ attempts to connect. Their rejections ranged from pure ignorance to a hostile “Don’t interrupt me, can’t you see I’m reading?”

Happy couples were couples with kind partners who cared about their better halves enough to respond to their comments kindly. No matter how small or insignificant those comments were.

Ever since that study, Gottman developed a set of observations that can predict with up to 94% accuracy whether that couple will stay together whenever applied to the interactions he notices on a couple.

You know the old controversy on whether couples should have common interests that they can share or, on the contrary, different interests that they can introduce their partners to. It turns out it doesn’t matter what hobbies you and your partner have. What matters most is how you respond when your partner wants to tell you about something they’re interested in!

“The habit of mind” that happy couples have

Back to what Gottman learned from his extensive studies about couples in the Masters/Disasters categories, here’s how he summed it up:

“There’s a habit of mind that the masters have, which is this: they are scanning social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. Disasters are scanning the social environment for partners’ mistakes.”

Being kind to each other makes you available to listen to your partner, answer his initiatives to connect, and make him feel seen, heard, valued. Meaningful interactions that make your relationship last longer happen much easier when you’re naturally kind. And when you choose to turn towards your partner rather than away from him, with every chance you get.

If anything, Gottman’s research shows that while there may be no formula for love, there is definitely a science behind it. And by looking into what happy couples have in common, you can accurately look at your own relationship and determine the direction it’s taking.

If you can honestly tell yourself that you’re rather looking for your partner’s mistakes than for his positive gestures, you might be in a position of war with the person you claim to love. Of course, that’s not to say you should ignore whatever wrongdoings from your partner, but rather that you should generally be more inclined to seek the reasons of gratitude and choose a kind and loving attitude whenever you can.

Work on it every day because love is a skill. Like any skill, it takes practice. But all the practice in the world will prove useless when you’re set out to find the flaws at every step of the way.

Thank you for making it to the end! I’ve got more stories like this one if you want to peek: