Kim Mills: It's that time of year, when drugstore candy aisles fill with red hearts, the price of a dozen roses seems to skyrocket and people's thoughts turn to the state of their romantic relationship—or their lack of one. For psychologists, romance, attraction, and love are not merely the stuff of poetry. They’re subjects for scientific study. What are the qualities of a successful relationship? Why do some relationships last and others fail? What do we gain from our relationships and how do we know which ones are worth holding onto? These are some of the questions that relationship scientists delve into and their research can help the rest of us as we navigate this area that is so central to our lives.
Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.
Our guest today is Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a professor of psychology at Monmouth University whose research focuses on romantic relationships, self and identity. He's published more than 50 academic articles and three books on research methods and the science of relationships, including his most recent book “Stronger Than You Think: The 10 Blind Spots That Undermine Your Relationship...and How to See Past Them.” Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Lewandowski.
Gary Lewandowski, PhD: Thank you so much for having me.
Mills: Let's start with a timely question. By now many of us have been hunkered down with our partners for almost a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic first started, there were a lot of news stories, some joking, some not, about how all of this COVID stress combined with enforced togetherness was going to lead to a spike in the divorce rate, or the birth rate. You've actually done some research on how people's relationships are faring during the pandemic. What did you find?
Lewandowski: Well, it turns out a lot of those predictions were just wrong. We had a lot of cynical or negative outlooks about relationships and how the pandemic was going to affect them. But as it turns out relationships are a lot stronger than we think, and relationships have done a lot better than we thought. And in particular, along with colleagues at the Monmouth University Polling Center, we did a poll early on in the pandemic in May. And when we asked people, "How do you think the pandemic is going to affect your relationship?" there was a lot of optimism; 51% said that they thought the pandemic was going to make their relationship stronger. And that's completely counterintuitive to what a lot of people thought at the time. Only one percent thought it was going to have gotten worse.
Mills: One percent?
Lewandowski: One percent, right? So it's like one out of a hundred thought, this is going to be bad for us. And 46% thought it was going to be unchanged. And unchanged is sort of an unexciting thing a lot of times, but in the context of a global pandemic and all of the other worldly stress that our relationships have had to endure the past year, no change is a pretty good thing.
Mills: For those people who do feel like their relationships are suffering right now because of stress due to the pandemic, do you have any research-based advice to guide them?
Lewandowski: For people that are suffering, I think it's trying to rely on your partner as much as you possibly can. One of the reasons why relationships have done well is that for many of us, our romantic partner is our best friend. And by having to stay inside for a pandemic, you're basically being forced to spend more quality time with someone who's your best friend, which isn't so bad. And so I think a lot of people are having some trouble with their relationship. It's more of a matter of changing your perspective a little bit. There's a famous quote that says, "A shift in perspective is worth 80 IQ points." And so, shifting your perspective and really just trying to focus in on all the good that is there, that perhaps you're overlooking, might go a long way to help people do better during these troubling times.
Mills: More generally, what have you and other researchers found are the most important qualities or ingredients that make relationships work?
Lewandowski: Some research done by Rhonda Balzarini and many colleagues cleverly titled “Love in the Time of COVIDopens in new window,” found that COVID has been very stressful for lots of people, but what they found was when one of the partners was very responsive—so a responsive partner is someone who listens to you, cares what you think and tries to see things from your perspective—it really helped mitigate a lot of the stress that COVID has brought on. So being one of those partners who really takes the time to understand, validate and care for each other is really going to help your relationship weather the storm.
Mills: You did an interesting poll a few years ago where you asked people whether their partner was their best friend, and you found that 83% said yes—a far higher number than in a similar survey 25 years earlier. Why do you think that's changed?
Lewandowski: I think we're getting better at relationships. I think we're expecting more and rightfully so. Our relationships are one of the most important parts of our life. It's the source of lots of the good times, lots of the bad times. And so compared to 20 years ago, certainly 50 years ago, our expectations are just much higher and I think by and large, that's a good thing. We not only are looking for someone to help pay the bills and run the household and make just our day-to-day experience work. I mean, those were more partnerships. Now we're really looking to our partners to help us become better people, give us a more fulfilling and meaningful experience. And I think largely people are able to find that. We're waiting longer to get married so in some ways we're making a lot better choices, and the divorce rate has gone down. So we're getting better at this, which is really nice to see.
Mills: I'm going to speculate here because I think there's no data, but I'm wondering if you think the women's movement has had any effect on this because relationships are becoming more egalitarian.
Lewandowski: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think the best relationships are the ones that are, like you said, egalitarian where partners share power and they're equals, right? And both partners get to be their own person and help each other become better people. And so when you have an automatic imbalance of power from the start, particularly along male and female, gender roles and stereotypes, it's just going to bake in this automatic incongruity and inequity between couples that is just not going to lead to the equality that we know relationships need.
Mills: Are there universal warning signs that a relationship is doomed and if so, what are they?
Lewandowski: I wish there were, right? It would make everyone's life so much easier if there were.
Mills: Yeah. Ding, ding, ding. There it is.
Lewandowski: Yeah, there it is. There's the big red flag I need to avoid. It turns out relationships are complicated, it's between two different individuals. I'm not saying anything that people don't know, but we're just not very good at reading signs and knowing what the right signs are to read. And so, if there was any one big sign, I'm not sure we'd even pick up on it even if we knew about it, relationships are filled with a bunch of doubt. We have limited relationship experience. And the relationship experience we have is not the same as expertise. And so as much as we've had a few relationships here and there, there's so many more relationships out there for us to learn from, and that's where science comes in. And that's really what I'm trying to do with the book. There's 350 studies or more in this book. And science has the benefit of relying on a lot more people.
Mills: Well, one thing you write about in your book is that we're a lot less insightful about our own relationships than we think we are. You described a study where college students were less accurate at predicting how long their current relationships would last, than their parents or roommates were. Why is that? Is love truly blind?
Lewandowski: Yeah. So it's also a little deaf, a little dumb. I mean, that study shows you ask people to look off into the future and what's your relationship going to be like? And if you're asking the person who's in the relationship, they're really confident about that answer. It's your relationship, who knows you and your partner better than you? But what that study shows us is that as much as the person in the relationship is the most confident, they're also the least accurate. You really can't ask for a worse combination than being super confident about really inaccurate information. And really what happens is your parents, it's parents, but it's really mostly moms, and your roommate have some other information that you don't necessarily have, in the sense that they're not in love with your partner. And so when you're in love, you're making decisions from a more emotional side.
Your roommate knows what you've told them, but also sees some of the fallout perhaps of a bad experience you had with a partner, a fight, or perhaps crying in your room, those kinds of things, they have that inside information. And so both particularly your mom and your roommate to a large extent, just want what's best for you. They don't really care about your partner's feelings. And so a lot of times in relationships, we get really wrapped up and convinced that we're doing a lot of things that aren't good for us, for our partner. And that's ultimately going to be for the good of the relationship, which is actually another one of the blind spots I talk about in the book.
Mills: That experiment was with college students, what happens as we get older? Do we get better at this as we gain more wisdom and relationship experience?
Lewandowski: We do to a large degree, we get a clearer sense of who we are. And so when we have a clearer sense of who we are, it gives us a better chance to know what we want. And when you're clear about who you are, you can find partners who see you as you see yourself. And that's important because we don't want to form relationships with partners who are only willing to love us if we're willing to just change a little bit and similarly, we don't want to have to do that to other people as well. And so, as we mature and focus also in terms of our relationships, more on the friend relationship that we have with our partner, rather than the purely physical arousal, that immediate, passionate love types of feelings.
We get a little wiser as we age and realize that being friends is really important. And in fact, one of the studies I talk about is a study with what they called expert couples. And these are couples who are happily married for over 15 years. And they said, what's the secret? How did you do it? And the number one answer was my partner is my best friend. The number two answer was I liked them as a person. And so, it's certainly passionate love gets us married, but it's the companionate love that keeps us married and keeps us happy.
Mills: So what are some of the blind spots that you talk about in your book?
Lewandowski: So there's things like the amount of how much sex you're having and focusing too much on the number of times you're having sex per week, trying to aim for perfection, that setting your standards where you're looking for the perfect romantic partner, the idea that men and women in heterosexual relationships are completely different. The idea that we need to be as close as we possibly can to have a happy relationship that closeness is, again, should be taken to the extreme in some ways. One of the myths is that it's not okay to be a little selfish in your relationship. And in fact that you being a little selfish is a good thing. I mentioned the idea about sacrifice that we should make all kinds of sacrifices for our partner. Things like we shouldn't argue, things like my partner must support me in every way at all times. Those are some of the main ones.
Mills: How do you know when you've over sacrificed, when you've given up too much of yourself?
Lewandowski: Yeah. One of the things I say in the book is that sacrifices ideally should be mutual and minimal. And so if you're sacrificing a lot, that's fine, but just make sure your partner is, too. And so, you should be maintaining a sense of equity there and they also should be minimal. You shouldn't have to forsake major aspects of yourself and your interests and things that you enjoy for the sake of your relationship. And a lot of times, people kind of take on this martyrdom about their relationship, where it's like, I'm going to be the one that gives up all of this stuff because they really believe that it's going to help the relationship. And now we know that when you make sacrifices, your commitment does increase, which sounds like a really good thing. And by and large, it is, but your commitment increases, but your satisfaction and happiness doesn't, so you're becoming more locked in to a relationship that isn't necessarily making you happier.
We also know when you make sacrifices for your partner, it doesn't necessarily increase your partner's commitment. And that's seems odd, right? It's like, I'm making these sacrifices because it's helping me buy into the relationship. It should seem like it should help my partner buy in as well. But the problem that you run into is that partners, they don't notice everything that you're doing. In fact, they miss 50% of it. And so if you're making a bunch of sacrifices and your partner can't be bothered to notice, you're really setting up this toxic mixture that you're just going to start hating your relationship partner more and more rather than this sacrifice was supposed to help. And it turns out that it's hurting.
Mills: And so are you supposed to say, "So, honey, did you notice that I vacuumed today?" I mean, how are you supposed to deal with that?
Lewandowski: Yeah. It's really tricky because it's this needle you have to thread because as much as you want to make sacrifices... You're right. You should, if you feel like you're really giving that much and your partner's, really not noticing at all, it's always good to bring it up. It's always be willing to engage in those uncomfortable conversations. That's a good thing. But we also know that when it comes to support the best kind of support you can offer your relationship partner is invisible support, support that they don't notice. And so, if you're vacuuming and they're not noticing rather than trying to get credit for all the little things that you're doing, chalk it up to invisible support and just know that you're doing things for the benefit of the relationship. And in fact, we do know that when people are making sacrifices and they're doing it for that reason, for the benefit of the relationship, they work out much better than if they think it's out of obligation or some sense of duty.
Mills: What about conflict? I think we all know couples who are always bickering, but they've been together for a long time. And on the other hand, there are couples who almost never fight. So how much conflict is too much in a relationship? And is it possible for there to be too little?
Lewandowski: Yeah, I'm going to start with that last point. There's definitely such a thing as too little conflict. I think it's one of those larger blind spots where, I'll hear people say, "Well, I know I'm in a good relationship because we have never had a fight." And if you've been together a week, fine, that's great because early on you can get by without fighting. But if you're two people who share power equally in a relationship, you're going to have your own opinions. It's almost impossible not to experience some conflict. And so too much fighting, perhaps it depends on how you're fighting and how you're doing it, I think. But by and large, you mentioned those couples that are bickering all the time. Bickering is a very low intensity kind of conflict. And that's a good sign because it means that when little things are coming up, you're willing to engage.
And that allows you to address these small things. As I say, in the book, keep small problems small and avoid them sort of compounding and growing into these large scale, major, all out wars, something I call in the book kitchen thinking that turns into kitchen sinking, right? Where you throw the entire kitchen sink at your partner, because you've kind of built up all these little things, trying to let it go. I'm going to let it go. I'm going to let it go, whatever. Okay. And then all of a sudden it's a cap on a toothpaste. And they don't put the cap back on and you just lose it. So you definitely want to avoid that.
Mills: So how do you know when it's really time to go?
Lewandowski: It's the million dollar question really. People's relationships are filled with a lot of doubt. You know, one of the studies I started off the book with, they asked people who are considering leaving the relationship, what are you considering when you're thinking about staying and they asked, what are you thinking about when you think about going? There's 23 things. And people who are in these relationships had an above average inclination to stay. Those same exact people though had an above average inclination to leave. And so it just shows how hard it is to really decide, but the thing that I advocate more than anything, and this is going to sound a little bit like a cop out answer is... I say in talks and to my students all the time, better data leads to better decisions.
And so, there's not going to be one sign. There's going to be lots of signs and you want to make sure you're reading those signs properly. And the way to read those signs properly is to be as well-informed about the potential signs as possible. And the way to do that is through the relationship science that's out there, because relying too much on some of the anecdotes we've heard or family wisdom that's been passed down may not be so wise.
Mills: As we talk about the end of relationships, you've done research on breakups and you have a popular TED talk called Why Break-Ups Don't Have to Leave Us Broken. What did you find? What do you mean that breakups don't have to leave us broken?
Lewandowski: So a lot of times breakups is one of those experiences where we like to think in binary terms like things are either good or bad and breakup is always generally considered to be bad. And so when I was a grad student, you kind of look into your own life and think about how your life is going and use that as a way to create some research ideas. And I thought to myself, when I was learning about breakup, you know what? I've had some breakups, they're actually quite good. They're tough at the time, but very quickly you realize, "Wow, that was necessary to get out of that relationship." And so I started looking into it a little bit, did some research, and a lot of my research focuses on the self and found that, when your relationship, as it should, helps you become a better person, when you lose that relationship, you lose part of yourself.
So that's bad. And so that was the first study I did because we always looked at negative emotions. This was looking at negative impact on the self, and it definitely found that. But I looked at the flip side of that coin, which was, well, what if your relationship isn't helping you become a better person? What happens then? And it turned out that, it was addition by subtraction because your relationship should be a main source of self-growth. When you're with somebody who doesn't help you grow, simply getting out of that relationship now frees you up to pursue other opportunities for growth. And it's an important thing to realize, because so many people mis-predict how bad a breakup is going to be, and think it's going to be a lot worse than it is, which leads them to stay in something much longer than they should. And so, what we really want to make sure people do is know that great relationships seldom fail, but the bad ones do, as they should. But then when those bad relationships fail, you're have an opportunity to go find the great relationship that everybody deserves.
Mills: You've done a lot of work on something called self-expansion theory. Can you explain more what that is and how it relates to relationships?
Lewandowski: Yeah. So self-expansion is this idea that we all have a fundamental motivation to grow and improve ourselves. And so we can do that through lots of different ways, but the one of the primary ways is through our close relationships. And so, we seek out partners who help us have new and interesting and challenging experiences. We learn new perspectives, new skills, pick up new hobbies from our partner, all these things when we start forming a relationship with somebody, we start taking on their characteristics and experiences as our own. And so we actually literally experience an expansion or a growth of our sense of self and that our relationships should provide that for us.
Now, some of the research that I've done on the not-so-sunny side of things is that if our primary relationship isn't able to provide that sense of self expansion, one of the major consequences is that people are more likely to cheat. Not only are they more likely to cheat, cheating just doesn't happen out of nowhere. There's sort of a ramping up process. And one of the things they start doing is paying more attention to alternatives. So the idea is self-expansion is such a fundamental motivation, particularly in the context of relationships, that if you're not having that need fulfilled with your primary relationship, you're going to seek other relationships that will fulfill that need.
Mills: So relationships are as old as humans going all the way back to Adam and Eve. What is there left for us to look at? Don't we have this all figured out by now?
Lewandowski: Oh my gosh. If he had it all figured out, it would mean that relationships are really, really easy, which they're not. It's a good question. It's sort of, where can this go? And the simple answer is we can always understand whatever we understand better than we already do.
Mills: This has been really interesting, Dr. Lewandowski. I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to us. Thank you.
Lewandowski: Thank you.
Mills: You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at speakingofpsychology.org or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speakingofpsychology@apa.org. That's speakingofpsychology, all one word, at apa.org. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lea Winerman. Our sound editor is Chris Condayan. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.
Gary Lewandowski, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Monmouth University. His research, writing and public speaking focus on three main areas: romantic relationships, self and identity, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. He has published more than 50 academic articles and book chapters and authored more than 150 articles for mass media outlets. Dr. Lewandowski recently published his first trade book, “Stronger Than You Think: The 10 Blind Spots That Undermine Your Relationship...and How to See Past Them.”
