Psychological research: Don't spend all your time together, or the cost will be...

Leviathan Press:

In the movie Little Children (2006), Sarah, played by Kate Winslet, found her husband in his attic one day, DIYing used toilet paper:

Stills from "Little Kids". © Douban Movies

The film wants to emphasize some signs of the crisis in Sarah and her husband's marriage: the lack of sex life is of course a superficial phenomenon, but its essence points to the increasing alienation of the couple's inner spiritual world. Sarah's husband did develop some "little hobbies" of his own in the attic, but if measured by the "relevance" and "autonomy" in today's article, it is obvious that he has basically lost the element of "relevance" and has developed a set of lonely skills.

This article points out a common phenomenon in today's society, that is, in a reality centered on the nuclear family, how should couples deal with themselves? How can they avoid gradually losing themselves in the process of compromise? How can they maintain social interaction outside of intimate relationships?

If you have a romantic partner, perhaps you've noticed that the two of you have been together for a long time and that you haven't been seeing other people as much as you thought.

Or, if you’re single (and many of your friends aren’t), you may occasionally get the weird feeling I had: You’re in a deserted town, as if you woke up one morning to find all the houses empty and the stores boarded up. Where did everyone go?

Regardless, this feeling may not just be in your head.

Kaisa Kuurne, a sociologist at the University of Helsinki, told me that when she set out to map the relationships of Finnish adults in a 2012 study[1], she was “a little shocked” by the respondents. The study was designed to examine who they felt close to and how they interacted with each other on a daily basis.

Respondents who lived with their romantic partners seemed to have completely retreated into their couple life.

When Kuehn asked them to rate the closeness of various relationships on a scale of 1 to 7, they often gave top marks only to their partners and children (if they had any); and when respondents mapped their social networks, they typically placed other connections (friends, coworkers, siblings) on the periphery of the core network.

For the most part, people outside the family “are not integrated into everyday life,” Kuehn told me.

© Weronika Gęsicka/Alamy

Relationship trends may differ between cultures, but Kuerne told me that the patterns she’s noticed aren’t limited to Helsinki. Researchers in the United States have made similar observations. Katie Genadek, an economist who studies Census Bureau data, told me that the average amount of time couples spend together has actually increased slightly since 1965.

Finding love is, of course, a wonderful and fortunate thing. Some research suggests that time spent together can make couples happier, at least to some extent (although the strength of this association is debated)[2]. But there are only so many hours in the day, and the time you spend with your partner means you’re missing out on opportunities to deepen your connections with friends and relatives, to build new bonds, or to enjoy some alone time or to pursue interests that are unique to you.

If you put your relationship at the center of your life, everything else gets pushed to the periphery. There is a way to maintain what I think of as a "love-life balance," which is to maintain your identity and autonomy while nurturing a caring partnership. Losing that balance can be damaging to an individual, a relationship, and society.

You might say that in 2023, couples no longer have the same level of interdependence that they once did. Even as the importance of friendships is increasingly discussed, community becomes an overused buzzword, and alternative relationship models such as non-monogamy, “cohabitation” (sharing a life but not a room), and co-living become more common.

Of course, women have gained more economic and social independence over the past few decades; for this reason, according to Sean Lauer, a sociologist at the University of British Columbia, many researchers believe that marriage has become “individualized,” with spouses free to pursue their own identities and goals.

But the reality is more complicated.

© UnHerd

According to Ginaike, couples today are “intertwined” in part because they spend so much time together caring for their children.[3] Whereas in the 1960s parents might have gone about their own business while their children played, today they are more likely to share child care. But couples are also spending more leisure time together than they did in 1965. And the coronavirus pandemic has further disconnected some couples from their social networks.

Benjamin Karney, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told me that he and his colleagues found[4] that when the coronavirus outbreak hit, couples’ interactions with other people dropped dramatically, especially for low-income study participants who were less likely to use video chat platforms; about 18 months later, after vaccines have become available, these connections are still far from returning to their previous levels.

Of course couples need quality time, but the question is how much time and at what cost.

Erin Sahlstein Parcell, a professor of communications at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told me that couples who spend little face-to-face time together can maintain very strong relationships; they can benefit from developing other aspects of their lives, having their own experiences to share with their partner, and appreciating the precious time together they do have. More time together is not necessarily better.

On the one hand, couples who lose their sense of love-life balance risk abandoning important supports. Research shows that married people, on average, are less connected to their friends, siblings, parents, and neighbors than single people are. Carney told me that this lack of connection can make them vulnerable, especially when they eventually need help: if, say, they have children, or one partner loses a job or becomes ill. No couple can do it all on their own.

© HillFaith

In addition to sharing time and resources, family and friends provide emotional care that is different from that of a partner. In one study[6], participants who said they met different emotional needs with different people in their lives (e.g., having fun and venting with college friends, but discussing problems with siblings) reported higher levels of well-being. Those who had a similar number of close relationships but only had a fraction of those needs met reported lower levels of well-being.

No one person can respond to all different types of feelings or give advice on every topic. But some experts believe that today’s couples are more likely than ever to rely on each other to meet their psychological needs.[7] Even worse: If the relationship ends, people may be left with no one to turn to.

When you focus too much on your partner, it can affect not only your relationships with others, but also your relationship with yourself. Some researchers call this a lack of "self-differentiation," or a lack of clear self-perception. More self-differentiated partners can support each other without losing sight of their own desires. But if you're not doing the things you know how to do, seeing the people you know how to see, or pursuing the goals you know how to pursue, the parts of your life you're neglecting may wither.

Stills from the movie 45 Years (2015). © Douban Movie

If you spend most of your energy and time with your partner, it can be difficult to avoid this kind of “self-differentiation”; over time, partners can even begin to match each other’s negative emotions and even cortisol levels.[8] You may actually feel like you’re more of a “we” than a “you” and a “me.”

Patricia Marino, a philosophy professor at the University of Waterloo, told me that the romantic notion of two lovers being one is dangerous: If their interests conflict, whose interests get ignored?

Historically, Marino says, the concept of "we" was created in the context of women's will being dominated by men's will. Today, this inequality is not so explicitly assumed.

But the question of whose self is disappearing remains important, even on the simplest everyday level, when, say, you’re deciding what you want to do in the evening.

In one study[9], researchers followed heterosexual couples for more than 10 years and found that the link between shared leisure time and marital satisfaction was not strong at all, largely because the subjects spent some of that time on activities that only one of them enjoyed.

This highlights an important point: having a balance in love and life is not only good for the individual, but also for the relationship. It’s too stressful to rely on one person alone; being with one person alone is restrictive and, frankly, a bit boring.[10] Even simply involving other people in your partner’s daily activities, Carney told me, can provide partners with “new experiences, new insights, new perspectives” that keep the relationship interesting.

© Develop Good Habits

He points to a study[11] that found that in a gathering of two couples, couples who discussed personal topics seemed to feel more “passionate love” for each other afterwards , especially when the other couple responded positively. It can be fascinating and instructive to see your partner display different traits in front of different people.

If you spend most of your time with your partner, you may not fully understand them; at the same time, you may also feel that your personality is not fully expressed.

Some psychologists believe that to truly meet their needs, couples need to balance two factors: "relatedness," which refers to a sense of connection and intimacy, and "autonomy," which refers to the degree to which one can follow one's own wishes.

Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the Australian Catholic University, told me that sometimes this might mean choosing to spend time together, but given that partners don’t always have the same interests, autonomy ultimately depends on a certain amount of independence.

© Crushpixel

Partners who feel more autonomous may be able to communicate more openly and may be more likely to respond to their partner’s mistakes in a forgiving and accommodating way [12]; whereas partners with less autonomy may feel that their feelings about themselves depend on their relationship, which may make them more emotionally reactive.

In one study[13], the couples who responded most constructively to conflict were those who felt that both their needs for relatedness and autonomy were met. These two factors may seem contradictory, but Ryan told me that you can’t have one without the other. This suggests that the healthiest relationships don’t involve self-fusion at all, but rather allow intimacy and independence to coexist.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to achieving a balance between love and life is time.

There’s never enough time – to do everything you want to do and see everyone you want to see, especially if you have children and loved ones to care for, or work long hours with little flexibility.

This isn’t just an individual problem; it’s also a structural one: lower-income couples are less likely to have access to child care than wealthier couples and are more likely to work longer hours outside the home. And yet, regardless of socioeconomic status, many couples would theoretically like to divide their time more evenly, though in reality it’s often difficult to do so.

Even if couples want roughly the same levels of autonomy and relatedness, Carney told me, “that doesn’t mean you’re thinking the same thing all the time… We might say, ‘Oh, we both want to be together four nights a week,’ but we might not be thinking the same four nights.” In this sense, Carney said, love-life balance is a “coordination problem.”

But it’s also a question of values. Kuehn argues that many people (even if only subconsciously) believe that intimate relationships are exclusive by definition. Romantic relationships are special because they are given priority over everything else.

Finding a better love that’s balanced with life in everyday life means creating what she calls “inclusive intimacy”; it means imagining a world in which the things that give life meaning don’t need to be placed in such a strict hierarchy.

© Conscious Rethink

It’s not a task that any couple can fully accomplish, but there are steps everyone can take to achieve love-life balance. Rather than arguing about how partners should spend time together, Carney told me, couples should intentionally negotiate time apart—making a specific plan for it and making compromises when necessary. (“Negotiation is better than debate,” he told me, “10 times out of 10.”)

For Kuerne, opening up her life outside of her nuclear family means accepting certain limitations. She can’t always plan a party or clean the house before friends and family come over, but she has a team of people around her who will show up at any time, no matter how messy the house is or what she has prepared.

Her dad comes over to help take care of her daughter. Neighbors often come over, too; “the kids play, maybe we open a bottle of bubbly.” When she hosts more family gatherings, she keeps the barriers to entry low — no pressure, and certainly no gifts required.

She tries to remember what she learned in her research: To stay connected to people, you have to share. That can mean specific resources, but it can also just mean sharing moments of honesty and vulnerability. She told me about one day when she called a close friend at lunch. Her friend’s son had just moved out, so she asked how her friend was feeling and shared her day.

The whole time, she was chewing her food indecently. When it comes to intimacy, she told me, "You can't just put it in a nice little box. You need to give what you have."

The struggle to balance all aspects of your life may never end. Every day requires a new negotiation, a new set of things vying for your attention. But expanding your focus isn’t just about you and your partner, it’s about all the other people in your life who might be left out.

This is the flip side of Kuehn's 2012 study: Couples build walls between themselves and others. When the drawbridge goes up, those outside the couple's fortress are left there.

These couples may not be setting out to exclude anyone; they just have limited time. But whether intentionally or not, everyone is — all the time — choosing how to spend their time.

When I asked Carney if he had any wisdom to share about love-life balance, he told me he wasn't an expert at giving advice. But he paused for a second, considering what he could surely say. "As a relationship scientist, we know this: Relationships need to be nurtured . Not just your relationship with your partner, but your relationships with other people as well," he told me.

References:

[1]citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=22225c4c3a84d06a614af0b8695a6629e0271800

[2]onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jomf.12255

[3]www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/07/helicopter-parenting-child-autonomy-standards/674618/

[4]journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01461672231169591

[5]journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265407515597564

[6]journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550614564223

[7]psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-09142-001

[8]pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20053034/

[9]onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00433.x

[10]www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/09/we-expect-way-too-much-from-our-romantic-partners/541353/

[11]today.wayne.edu/news/2014/02/12/light-a-fire-in-your-relationship-wayne-state-university-research-says-double-dating-may-be-the-answer-to-a-perfect-valentines-day-5215

[12]selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2005_KneeLonsbaryCanevelloPatrick.pdf

[13]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7057354/

By Faith Hill

Translated by tamiya2

Proofreading/tim

Original article/www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/09/relationship-balance-love-friendship-autonomy/675321/

This article is based on the Creative Commons License (BY-NC) and is published by tamiya2 on Leviathan

The article only reflects the author's views and does not necessarily represent the position of Leviathan