Although romantic relationships progress in a variety of ways, some theories and research programs illuminate certain commonalities in how relationships change over time. As we have done throughout this chapter, we will generally discuss these issues without focusing on the sexual orientation of the partners in the relationship. To be sure, the vast majority of relationship research has been conducted with heterosexual couples, and this can be an important factor to keep in mind. At the same time, however, the factors that influence relational commitment and satisfaction have generally been found to be similar among same-sex and heterosexual couples (e.g., Balsam et al., 2008; Ducharme & Kollar, 2012; Kurdek, 2004; Roisman et al., 2008).

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Imagine two people meeting for the first time. During this initial stage of a relationship, people engage in varying degrees of self-disclosure, sharing information about themselves. Self-disclosure plays a key role in the formation and maintenance of close relationships and in the intimacy developed between two people. When people first meet, they usually engage in small talk, superficial forms of self-disclosure that generally go no deeper than the weather or where they are from. If both find these initial encounters rewarding, they tend to open up, communicating about a broader range of topics and revealing deeper, more intimate information about themselves (Altman & Taylor, 1973). Typically, smooth, enjoyable conversations in early stages tend to involve exchanges of self-disclosure at the same depth. Too much self-discourse too soon is viewed as bizarre and off putting (think of the colloquial abbreviation TMI-too much information); too little self-disclosure can interfere with the progress of trust and intimacy.

It turns out that relationship partners share different types of information about themselves at different stages of the relationship. According to Bernard Murstein’s (1987) stimulus-value-role theory (FIGURE 15.8), when partners first meet, their attraction to each other is primarily based on stimulus information—conspicuous attributes such as age and physical appearance.

If the relationship progresses beyond these first impressions, partners enter the value stage, in which they share their attitudes and beliefs (about religion and sex, for example). This stage helps them to decide whether they are sufficiently compatible to continue the relationship. It is generally only later, after partners have been committed to each other for a while, that they begin communicating about their roles, meaning their attitudes and plans when it comes to major life tasks such as parenting and establishing a career.

Research suggests that these stages are not really that discrete or orderly (e.g., Brehm, 1992). Some couples get into values and roles early in the relationship; some may discuss roles before getting to know their values. However, Murstein’s model is useful when we think about how relationships progress and the types of shared knowledge that matter. One consequence of sharing different types of information at different stages of the relationship is that partners may not be aware of differences that can create problems down the road. In the budding stages of a new relationship, during the value stage, people learn about each other’s likes and dislikes. Having found someone who shares their interests in cuisine, entertainment, and politics, they may believe that they have finally found the one. It may not be until they are together for a long time that they learn of incompatibilities in, for example, role expectations. Of course, for some couples this can be a time when partners discover how truly compatible they are and that they share a foundation from which their relationship can grow.

Another reason that people in a new romantic relationship often believe that they have found the perfect partner is that they perceive their new partner through rose-colored lenses. People all over the world want to have a romantic partner who is warm and trustworthy, loyal and passionate, attractive and exciting, and smart and competent (Tran et al., 2008). What we usually end up with, however, is someone with less than the total package. How is it, then, that we can be satisfied with the partner we’re with? As you’ll remember from our discussion of cognitive dissonance theory (chapter 6), after a person has made a choice between alternatives that are similar in attractiveness, the nagging doubt that she made the wrong choice creates an uncomfortable feeling of dissonance. To reduce dissonance, people often exaggerate the positive qualities of the alternative they chose and, at the same time, exaggerate the negative qualities of the alternative they did not choose.

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In a similar manner, people show a powerful tendency—at least, early in a relationship—to construct idealized perceptions of their romantic partners that highlight their positive qualities and downplay their faults. These idealized perceptions are called positive illusions (Murray et al., 1996). They are not full-blown illusions in the sense that partners are completely blind to the truth about each other’s virtues and faults. Rather, they are illusions in the sense that individuals interpret facts about their partners in a more benevolent fashion than other people would (Gagné & Lydon, 2004).

To illustrate, in one line of studies people wrote about their partner’s greatest fault (Murray & Holmes, 1993, 1999). People judged their partner’s faults to be less important than outside observers judged them to be. Also, they focused on the bright side of their partner’s faults. For example, a woman might write that although her boyfriend got upset easily, that behavior reflected his exceptionally passionate and vivacious personality. Similarly, people offered “yes, but” interpretations of their partner’s faults—that is, they recognized their partner’s faults but focused on the positive repercussions. For example, a man might write that, yes, his fiancée does not help with household chores, but at least that gives her more time to pursue her yoga career, which is probably more important. Related research shows that people perceive their partner’s faults as affecting the relationship less than the partner’s many positive qualities (Neff & Karney, 2003).

You might be asking yourself, Is it really such a good idea to put our lovers up on a pedestal? Aren’t we setting ourselves up for crushing disappointment when our partners inevitably fail to live up to our idealized perceptions of them? The answer hinges on just how removed from reality people’s positive illusions are (Neff & Karney, 2005). If people are projecting positive qualities onto their partners that they simply don’t have, then they likely are setting themselves up for disappointment (Miller, 1997).

On the other hand, if people are aware of their partner’s positive and negative qualities but interpret them positively, such illusions can benefit the relationship. Sandra Murray and her colleagues have shown that people who idealize their romantic partners are more satisfied and feel stronger love and trust (Murray & Holmes, 1993, 1997; Murray et al., 2000; Neff & Karney, 2002). In one study ( Murray et al., 1996), married couples and dating partners were asked to rate themselves and their partners on their positive and negative qualities. They also were asked to indicate how satisfied they were in the relationship. Idealization was measured by the participants’ tendency to overestimate their partner’s positive qualities and underestimate their faults, compared with the partner’s ratings of him- or herself. The more participants idealized their romantic partners, the more satisfied they were in the relationship.

By idealizing our partner, we are likely to view his or her qualities and behaviors as all the more rewarding—so much so, in fact, that it seems inconceivable that someone else out there could provide us with the same rewards. Although perhaps illusory, such perceptions have the beneficial consequence of strengthening commitment.

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Furthermore, these positive perceptions also can motivate people to reach for the ideal with which they are perceived, and thus grow and develop in ways that are appreciated by their partners. When Murray and colleagues (1996) followed couples over time, they found that in more satisfied relationships, the partners came to perceive themselves more as they initially were idealized to be. This may partly reflect the operation of self-fulfilling prophecies, which we discussed in chapters 3 and 11. When people hold expectations of us, we often come to act in a way that confirms those expectations. Such findings led Murray and colleagues to suggest that these illusions can be more prescient than blind.

So far, we have seen that early in the relationship, partners disclose in a way that obscures potential incompatibilities, and they view each other through the rose-colored lenses of positive illusions. As a result of these (and other) processes, romantic relationships usually start off with a rapid increase in satisfaction as partners are overtaken with the excitement and passion of new love. But soon after this initial state of bliss, most dating relationships—even those that eventually result in marriage—hit a plateau in which satisfaction levels off for a while (Eidelson, 1980) (see FIGURE 15.9).

Why? According to the model of relational turbulence proposed by Solomon and Knobloch (2004) (FIGURE 15.10), in the early stage of a relationship there is little conflict, largely because partners are relatively independent and thus do not interfere with each other’s routines or goals. But as partners make the transition from casual dating to more serious involvement in the relationship, they go through a turbulent period of adjustment and turmoil (Knobloch & Donovan-Kicken, 2006; Knobloch et al., 2007). As they spend more time together and become dependent on each other, they can start to feel that the partner is restricting their freedom and demanding too much of them. Partners start to interfere with each other’s daily routines, which take up the time the partners previously devoted to the activities they enjoyed before the relationship began. For example, perhaps Jane had plans to hang out with her friends this weekend, but her long-term boyfriend assumed that she was going to hang out with him, and now she is stressed out by the competing demands on her time.

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If the partners stay together and learn how to adjust to their increasing inter-dependency, coordinating their routines and accommodating each other’s personal needs and plans, the period of turmoil quiets down. (“Honey, let’s agree that Friday is my ‘friend night.’”) This can result in another, albeit subtler, increase in satisfaction (see FIGURE 15.9).

This model helps to explain why conflict in romantic relationships is particularly high during the period of young adulthood. As you can see in FIGURE 15.11, the frequency of conflict increases as people go from their late teens to their mid-20s. Things become more peaceful after that (Chen et al., 2006).

This pattern occurs most likely due to the fact that, during their mid-20s, many people are starting romantic relationships while simultaneously choosing what occupational role to pursue and making plans to get their careers off the ground. As we discussed earlier in this chapter (see also chapter 6), individuals raised in Western cultures derive a sense of self-esteem from choosing their life path and making a unique mark on the world. But this motive of asserting individuality can conflict with relationship demands. If individuals invest their resources into a romantic relationship, they may be held back from pursuing other personal goals. At the same time, if they focus too much on making their unique mark, they will likely create tension in the relationship (Baxter, 2004). After their mid-20s, many people have a firmer footing in their professional careers, so they experience less conflict between their desires for attachment and intimacy and their desires for independence and achievement, allowing them to get along better with their partners.

Let’s say a couple has made it through the turbulence caused by adjusting to interdependency, and they have struck a workable balance between their motives for independence and belonging. They decide to get married, pledging to spend the rest of their lives together. We can now expect that they will live happily ever after, enjoying the same or even higher levels of satisfaction. Right?

Unfortunately, research shows that, in most cases and even despite the partners’ good intentions, the prognosis for the course of the marital relationship is not so blissful as most couples expect it will be when they tie the knot. In one of the more comprehensive studies of marital satisfaction, Huston and colleagues (2001) followed dozens of spouses who married in 1981. Relationship satisfaction steadily declined for both husbands and wives as the years ticked by (see FIGURE 15.12). It’s unlikely that the married couples in this study were particularly hard to please: Other studies show a similar overall decline in ratings of marital quality (Karney & Bradbury, 2000; Kurdek, 1999). Of course, not all couples experience the same rate of decline, but most do (Kurdek, 2005).

Marital satisfaction tends to take a particularly steep dive at two points (Kurdek, 1999). The first drop occurs within the first year of marriage; the second occurs at about the eighth year of marriage (Kovacs, 1983). The big question, of course, is what causes the decline in marital satisfaction once the honeymoon is over. Although many important factors are involved, let’s focus on six important ones.

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Slacking Off

When two people start dating, they go to a lot of trouble to be—or at least appear to be—polite and thoughtful. They suppress their burps, hold the door open, and put on makeup. But once this initial courtship phase has passed and the ink on the marriage certificate is dry, people may stop trying so hard to be consistently courteous and charming (Miller, 2001). One study showed that acts of kindness and expressions of affection dropped by half within the first two years of marriage (Huston et al., 2001). Remember how we said that relationship satisfaction is largely a function of rewards? Well, soon after the marriage vows, spouses start getting fewer rewards, due in large part to a lack of effort.

Small Issues Get Magnified

Interdependency acts like a magnifying glass, exaggerating conflicts that do not exist in more casual relationships. Why? Because we spend so much time with our romantic partners and depend so heavily on them for unique and valuable rewards, they have the power to cause us more pain and frustration than anyone else can. Indeed, spouses can stress each other out even if they do not intend to do so. For example, people are more negatively affected by their intimate partner’s cranky moods (Caughlin et al., 2000) and work-related stress (Lavee & Ben-Ari, 2007) than they are by the similar tribulations of their friends or of strangers. Another consequence of spending so much time together is that trivial annoyances can, through sheer repetition, add up to significant frustration. Just as the light tapping of a dripping faucet can drive you insane after a couple days, frequent interaction means that a partner’s grating quirks gradually build up to real annoyance (Cunningham et al., 2005).

Sore Spots are Revealed

As we mentioned, increasing levels of intimacy are closely associated with self-disclosure. As the relationship grows, partners reveal more and more of themselves to each other. Although opening up to another person can be very exciting (Archer & Cook, 1986; Taylor et al., 1981), it also means that partners know a lot of not-so-pleasant information about each other, including their secrets, foibles, and weaknesses. This means that when conflict occurs, our romantic partners have at their disposal an entire arsenal of emotional weaponry that they can use to tease us, wound us, and threaten us in ways others can’t. In fact, even if partners do not intend to cause each other harm, their access to this sensitive information suggests that they can, sooner or later, accidently reveal our secrets (Petronio et al., 1989), hurt our feelings (Kowalski, 2003), or embarrass us in public (Miller, 1996).

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Unwelcome Surprises Appear

Although couples might recognize their incompatibilities when they choose to get married, it’s often the surprises down the road that dampen marital satisfaction. These surprises tend to fall into two general categories. First, we can be surprised to learn the truth about things we thought we knew. One clear example of this is what are called fatal attractions (Felmlee, 2001). Qualities that we initially found attractive in the other person gradually become irritating or disappointing. Although, as we mentioned, newlyweds initially idealize each other (Murray et al., 1996), positive illusions usually wear off over time. For instance, at first you liked the fact that your partner was spontaneous and fun, but now he seems irresponsible, flaky, and childish. Or perhaps you initially celebrated your partner’s high level of attention and devotion, but after a couple years you come to resent the same behavior when it seems overly possessive and clingy. It’s not that partners are unaware of each other’s fatal qualities when they choose to marry. Rather, they fail to appreciate how their attitudes toward those qualities will change after a few years. Needless to say, these unexpected shifts in attitudes can take a bite out of marital satisfaction (Watson & Humrichouse, 2006).

A second category of unwelcome surprises occurs when married couples discover things that they did not know or expect at all. A good example is offered by the realities of parenthood, which, along with money, is the biggest source of marital conflict (Stanley et al., 2002). Most newlyweds, if they plan to have children, presume that parenthood will be enjoyable and bring them closer to each other. But most soon discover that parenthood, though wonderful at times, takes a significant toll on their marital satisfaction. Parents often underestimate how much time their children will demand, and therefore how little time they will have to enjoy each other’s company (Claxton & Perry-Jenkins, 2008). The arrival of babies increases stress, robs people of sleep, and introduces new responsibilities, thereby heightening conflict and, in turn, decreasing how satisfied partners are and even how much they love each other (Lawrence et al., 2008).

How do we know that this decline in satisfaction is related to the stress of having and raising children? For one, cohabitating couples without children do not show the same dip in satisfaction as their heterosexual, child-raising counterparts (Kurdek, 2008). In fact, same-sex couples who have children also report a decline in relationship satisfaction (Ducharme & Kollar, 2012). Second, parents report a small but reliable increase in marital satisfaction once their children have grown up and left the nest (Gorchoff et al., 2008). And you thought your parents were devastated when you went away to college!

Partners Have Unrealistic Expectations

Good relationships demand a great deal more work and sacrifice than is typically portrayed in movies and on greeting cards. If a couple weds with unrealistically high expectations about the magic of marriage, they can feel cheated and disappointed later on, even if their relationship is healthy according to objective criteria (Amato et al., 2007). As we mentioned when discussing social exchange, satisfaction in close relationships depends on how well the partners’ current outcomes match their comparison level—the outcomes they expected to have when they married.

Passionate Love Loses Steam

A final reason satisfaction declines during the first years of marriage is that passionate love—that burning desire for each other that makes life so blissful and exciting—tends to diminish over time (Sprecher & Regan, 1998; Tucker & Aron, 1993). Whereas early on husbands and wives claim that they feel an urgent longing for each other and that they melt when they look into each other’s eyes, pretty soon the intensity dissipates. Indeed, the decrease in a couple’s romantic love can happen rapidly. Only two years after tying the knot, spouses express affection about half as often as they did when they first wed (Huston & Chorost, 1994). This may be one reason that, across the globe, divorces occur most frequently in the fourth year of marriage, when married couples complain that the “magic” has died (Fisher, 1995).

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Part of the reason for this dwindling of romance is that, over time, what was novel becomes less so. The sheer novelty of new love makes the partners especially arousing and exciting (Foster et al., 1998). Partners may continue to view each other with affection and sexual interest but the intensity of the arousal—a principal ingredient in passionate love—inevitably diminishes somewhat (Acker & Davis, 1992). FIGURE 15.13 displays some of the results from a broad survey of American sexuality.

Here we see that the average couple has intercourse less and less frequently over the course of their marriage. In fact, some married couples have so little sex after age 50 that the researchers made a separate line just for married couples who have sex at least once a month (Call et al., 1995). Couldn’t this decline occur simply because the spouses are getting older? Although advancing age is indeed a factor, evidence also shows that people who remarry (and thus experience the novelty of a new partner) increase their frequency of intercourse, at least for a while (Call et al., 1995).

For these and many other reasons, relationships often do end. As we will see later in this chapter, some estimates place the U.S. divorce rate near 50%. A much higher percentage of even serious dating relationships will ultimately come to a close. What are some of the consequences of the breakup for the individual? Even for the “dumper” as opposed to the “dumpee,” a breakup often exacts a severe toll on overall well-being (Sbarra, 2006).

The two major emotions that people experience in the face of a breakup are anger and sadness. Anger typically is pretty strong at first but diminishes somewhat quickly, whereas sadness may not be so severe initially but will diminish more slowly. Of course, the strength of these emotions depends on the importance of the relationship, the circumstances of the breakup, and how quickly the individual can accept it. Those who maintain love for the partner and are unable to accept the dissolution of the relationship recover much more slowly from these negative emotions (Sbarra, 2006). Recall our discussion of self-regulatory perseveration from chapter 5. When people stay invested in a goal, such as being with another person, that is unattainable, this perpetuates a cycle of negativity (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987a). They continually confront their failed aspirations.

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Who is best able to come to terms with the dissolution of a relationship? A person’s level of attachment security plays a pivotal role. Those who are higher in attachment anxiety cling more tightly to the relationship. The hope of rekindling the extinguished flame allows the negative emotions to persist. In contrast, more securely attached people generally are better able to accept the breakup and so recover from sadness more quickly (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).

Perhaps when getting dumped by an ex, you’ve heard the line that your now ex-partner would rather “just be friends.” Do you think this is a good idea? For the person whose love has dissipated, it may not be that bad, but for the person who just got jilted, it can be difficult. Indeed, in one study that followed college students for a month after they broke up, recurring contact with an ex was associated with persisting love and sadness (Sbarra & Emery, 2005). After a breakup, absence makes the heart grow less fond, and that might be exactly what you need to move on with your life. Investing in alternative pursuits, such as other relationships or challenges at school or work, can be precisely the catalyst that helps people to disengage from the failed relationship (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987a).

In addition to causing an emotional upheaval, a breakup can also jar our sense of who we are, blurring our sense of self and ultimately instigating a redefinition of our self-concept. Research by Slotter and colleagues (2010) found that when people recalled or imagined a breakup, they reported changes in their self-concept and reduced self-concept clarity. This is reflected in the language that people use to talk about breakups. One study, for example, examined what people wrote in their online diaries and blogs. Unlike with other life disruptions such as a career change, those who experienced a breakup used more words connoting confusion (“bewildered,” “uncertain”) when describing how they thought of themselves. This lack of self-concept clarity plays a key role in the reduced well-being that people experience after a breakup. Over a six-month window, the more self-concept confusion people experienced, the more distress they experienced (Mason et al., 2012). This kind of dynamic occurs, for example, when the person reflects back and says something such as “Now that I’m not with Carol, I just don’t know who I am anymore.”

So what can you do to facilitate the recovery process? We previously mentioned that recurring contact with the ex probably is not a good idea, but that engaging in alternative activities and investments is. In addition, research suggests that you also should strive to have compassion for yourself, that is, to love and appreciate yourself and be aware of your place in a shared humanity. When Dave Sbarra and colleagues (2012) studied divorcing couples, they audiotaped the participants talking about the divorce for four minutes, and later had judges rate the participants’ level of self-compassion. Even this short snippet of observation was informative. The more self-compassion judges saw in the participants, the better the participants’ emotional recovery in the nine months following the divorce.

All of this can seem depressing, but it shouldn’t be. The processes we’ve described—the trials and tribulations, the inevitable decline in novelty, and so on—are normal and probably will happen to most married couples. But people can mitigate the negative impact of these processes simply by being informed of what to expect as marriage develops over time. Studies show that spouses who began their marriages with unrealistically positive expectations of marital bliss are the least satisfied with their marriages as the years tick on. Conversely, after four years of marriage, the happiest couples are those who started out with realistic outlooks about what married life would be like (McNulty & Karney, 2004). Simply by being aware of these processes and starting marriage with reasonable expectations, couples can still enjoy their relationships long after the honeymoon is over (Srivastava et al., 2006).

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Of course, some committed romantic relationships end in a few years, some last but become less and less satisfying, and others remain satisfying and passionate for a lifetime. Even in marriages where the passion has dwindled, older couples sometimes continue to express deep companionate love for each other that can keep them genuinely happy (Hecht et al., 1994; Lauer & Lauer, 1985). Next, we’ll take a close look at factors that contribute to romantic relationships that dissolve and those that thrive.