Couples
He thinks she's funnier than she is
Her friends have noticed he describes a slightly different woman to the one they know. A long-running study suggests that is not a problem.
4 min read
Couples
Couples
The thing you stopped saying thank you for
He has made the coffee every morning for six years. She has not mentioned it in about five of them. A 2010 study followed couples who did the opposite.
3 min read
Couples
The same restaurant every Friday
Nothing was wrong. They just felt like flatmates who liked each other. A ten-week experiment found the fix was not talking more, it was doing something new and slightly awkward.
4 min read
Couples
The year they stopped saying we
Their worst year had a tell, and it was hiding in their pronouns. Researchers can hear it on a recording.
4 min read
Couples
Nobody decided anything
The flat, the dog, the joint account. Each one just happened. Researchers have a word for relationships built this way, and a warning.
4 min read
Couples
Best friends with nothing left
They tell each other everything and have not touched each other in months. The closeness is not the cure for that. It might be part of the cause.
4 min read
Couples
The person you become around them
Two years in, he had taken up running and stopped apologising for things. She had barely noticed doing it. There is a name for what she was doing.
4 min read
Couples
What you do when they come home happy
Most advice is about surviving the bad news. The research says the good news matters more, and almost nobody handles it well.
4 min read
Couples
Why "we need to talk" never works
Four words, one afternoon ruined, and the research on why the first three minutes decide the whole conversation.
4 min read
Couples
The bird outside the window
A tiny moment most couples miss, and why one researcher says it matters more than the big fights.
3 min read
Couples
It was never about the dishwasher
A Sunday-morning argument that every couple has had, and the research that finally explains what it's actually about.
4 min read