Inside the Brains of Happily Married Couples

People who’ve been married to the same person for decades must have some sort of secret, right? Ask them, and you’ll get all kinds of good advice, but often those who are happily married can’t pinpoint the exact psychological process of marital success. Science can help.

As a society, we place a huge amount of emphasis on being there for each other when we’re in need, but past research has actually shown that relationship satisfaction is influenced as much, if not more, by how we react to each other’s good news. Whereas emotional support from a partner when we’re down can have the unfortunate side-effect of making us feel indebted and more aware of our negative emotions, a partner’s positive reaction to our good news can magnify the benefits of that good fortune and make us feel closer to them.

Where did this idea come from? An experiment by the Rotman Research Institute and the University of Toronto measured brain activity in women who have been married to the same person an average of 40 years, while watching their husband’s emotional reactions. Read about the experiment and some preliminary findings at New York magazine. Now we can wait for the same experiment to be performed on men.