On the Homefront: What is Love to Most of Us?
Love can flow like a fast flowing river or it can be like a dry creek bed. Whatever it looks like, we all crave it. Finding a relationship that encompasses mutual joy and shared responsibility [...]
For Better, For Worse: Enduring Couples
New York Times writer Michael Winerip features enduring couples in his "Making It Last" column. Winerip asks couples to reveal the secrets of their successful union. Enduring Couples: Thea & Ron Thea and Ron Capone, [...]
Arguing From the Heart
How a couple argues may be more important than what they’re actually arguing about. One such study was performed by Elaine D. Eaker, who surveyed 4000 men and women on whether they vent their feelings [...]
Getting the Cold Shoulder
Many musicians, notably John Lennon, Robert Plant, and Mud, have compared the feelings of loneliness, insecurity, or isolation with the physical feeling of coldness. The comparisons may have been more apt than they realized, it [...]
Negative Behavior During Marital Conflict is Associated with Immunological Down-Regulation
While it has been reliably shown several times that people who are socially isolated from satisfying personal relationships have increased morbidity and mortality, the underlying mechanisms are still fairly mysterious. To further knowledge on the [...]
Five Ways to Renew an Old Love
Dr. Barbara Fredrickson took her experiences from her eighteen years of marriage and used them to create a scientific definition of love. Her definition describes a love that is naturally fleeting, but also capable of [...]
Dear Valentine, I Hate It When You…
Eli J. Finkel contributed to the New York Times this year with a Valentine’s suggestion he suggests may be the most valuable present a person may ever give his or her partner. The suggestion is [...]
Hostile Marital Interactions, Proinflammatory Cytokine Production, and Wound Healing
This study, originally published in General Psychiatry, shows how hostile marital interactions increase health risks of patients undergoing treatment for life-threatening diseases and slows physical wound healing as compared to couples in supportive environments. These [...]
How Not to Say the Wrong Thing
When something traumatic happens to someone you know, it is natural to want to complain about how shocked you are, how bad it makes you feel, how it reminds you of other things that happened [...]