Some couples want their sexual freedom, but don’t want their relationship freighted with the lies, secrets and ongoing deceptions that affairs require. In some cases, a contract for an open marriage is negotiated and agreed upon.

For example, one couple I saw in therapy had a “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy. They promised each other that they would only have sex one time with outside parties to avoid emotional entanglements–a promise that struck me as easy to break, given the agreed-upon silence surrounding their encounters and the fact that the emotional consequences of sex are impossible to anticipate. Plus, even otherwise honest people lie about sex.

Another couple had a “Tell all” policy with no holds barred. Another brought new sexual partners into the marital bed.

Last week, a sexually adventuresome woman who was finding herself strongly attracted to other people, asked her partner of eight years to consider having an open marriage. How did I see the risks, she wanted to know.

Here’s what I told her:

The biggest risk is that she may lose her marriage. Sex is deep and complicated. Restraining from sex outside marriage is the glue that keeps couples emotionally connected and truly present with each other. This is true even for couples that rarely or never have sex.

If she proceeds with her experiment, she or her partner (in this case, a woman) may start to feel threatened, jealous, angry, anxious, or even a little crazy. Alternatively, they may avoid the whole range of such painful feelings, but find that they have drifted into an entrenched distance and disconnection. She and her partner may end up feeling like cordial roommates in a climate of emotional flatness.

If a negative outcome occurs, will stopping the experiment allow them to restore the bond they now shares? That’s the big question. The answer is anybody’s guess.

I don’t mean to sound like a big prude or a sex cop making rules for others. I’ve worked with several couples who experimented with open marriages, quickly terminated the experiment when one or both partners started feeling badly, and moved forward from there. I have actually met one (only one) couple in my four decades of professional experience who claim to thrive over the years–as parents and partners–with an open marriage.

They are by far the very rare exception, not the rule. Usually, at least one person becomes an emotional casualty.

For those chomping at the bit to try open marriage, remember that you can’t know the outcome of an “open marriage” in advance. What’s certain is that the experiment cannot not affect your marriage. (Ditto for affairs) And your marriage is a big thing to put at risk.

Source:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-dance-connection/201003/the-truth-about-open-marriage

Confidence Is Key To Gauging Impressions We Make

Article Date: 12 Mar 2010 – 0:00 PST

The gift of “seeing ourselves as others see us” is particularly beneficial when we judge how we’ve made a first impression – in a job interview, during a sales pitch or on a first date..

Yet, many come away from these situations with at best a vague notion of how that first impression was perceived or at worst no clue at all.

Now, psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis and Wake Forest University have tested people in first impression settings in the laboratory and have found that confidence makes all the difference in knowing whether you’ve hit a homerun or struck out.

Erika N. Carlson, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology in Arts & Sciences; her advisor Simine Vazire, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology; and Wake Forest University’s R. Michael Furr, Ph.D., engaged some 280 students in opposite-sex pairings from both universities in five-minute conversation after which impressions (your rating of your partner’s personality traits) and metaperceptions (your rating of how you think your partner rated your personality traits) were recorded on 60 personality items (such as nice, funny, outgoing), which were rated on a scale from 1 to 7.

There was a twist to their study. The researchers asked a confidence question: How confident are you in your estimation of how your partner sees your personality?

“In the past, researchers hadn’t asked whether you know when you’re accurate in first impressions, nor your degree of confidence,” Carlson says.

“We found that people who were poor at making good meta-impressions were less confident than people who made accurate ones. So, after making a first impression, if you’re confident in your judgment, you’re likely to be right.”

The research was recently published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

At the crux of knowing you’ve made a good impression is something called calibration, or “being confident when you’re right and uncertain when you’re wrong,” says Vazire. “Not well-calibrated people are confident when they’re wrong and uncertain when they’re right.

The confidence and accuracy questions in our study shed light on participants’ calibration.”

She likens accurate calibration to a sort of internal gauge.

“You think, ‘This is the impression I think I made.’ And the internal gauge tells you to go ahead with that impression, you’re probably right,” she says. “Or, gather more information, you might be wrong. So, well-calibrated people have a good internal gauge.”

The goal of their research is to enable people to trust the confidence of their first impressions and pursue the next step, Carlson says.

When you have misjudged the way others see you, the result is often a bad decision, says Carlson. “You might have thought that the date you went on went well and she liked you, but it went wrong in the date’s eyes and she doesn’t like you. Your next move could be embarrassing and painful,” she says.

We’re sometimes wrong about the impressions we’ve made, Vazire says.

“We might think that obviously the other person could tell that I hated them, or that I obviously liked them, or obviously my brilliance came across, but we’ve all been wrong, so it’s important in any number of social settings when to actually doubt how you’ve come across,” she says.

Future metaperception research will explore videotaped first impression interactions from calibration studies to determine which factors affect calibration, like verbal or non-verbal clues, which might reveal who formed accurate metaperceptions and who didn’t, who was wellcalibrated and who wasn’t, and perhaps more importantly, why people understood the impressions they made. Such clues could be in overt behaviors like talking rates, smiles, how close the participants sat to each other, or more subjective things like the intimacy of the conversation.

Carlson says there is some preliminary evidence that when one person is more accurate in metaperceptions, their partner also is, suggesting that there might be something unique to relationships that influences whether we can pick up on the impression we’ve made.

With the exception of someone like Michael Scott (the totally clueless boss in the TV sitcom “The Office”), people have a surprising level of self-knowledge in judging their first impressions, says Carlson.

“For the most part, people understand when they’re right and when they’re wrong,” she says. “If you want to know if you’ve made the right impression, trust your gut.”

Source:
Gerry Everding
Washington University in St. Louis

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/181988.php

In modern times, the grandmother effect translates into continued emotional and practical support. Grandmothers now are a staple in the portfolio of child-care provision across all classes, across all ethnic groups. Grandparents Association reports that in the United Kingdom, 60 percent of child-care provision is provided by grandparents, and one in every hundred children is living with a grandparent. School records throughout Britain show that a grandparent is, in a majority of cases, the person listed as the back-up contact if the parents are not available. This suggests that parents recognize and depend upon grandparents as a reliable source of care.

From children’s perspective, too, grandparents are common sources of support; children often say they find it easy to confide in grandparents, and identify them as key members of their family. The emotional closeness and stability grandparents provide, particularly during times of family stress (such as divorce), has been shown to facilitate children’s emotional adjustment. The increase in divorce rate over the past sixty years is often seen as evidence that the family as a whole is in decline, but the bonds between grandparent, parent and child remain strong, and endure as a key social and emotional structure.

These important connections between grandparent and grandchild, however, often depend on good relationships between the parents and grandparents. Mothers remain the gatekeeper to their children, and maternal grandparents are far more likely to have close and regular contact with their grandchildren than paternal grandparents. For paternal grandparents, key to continuing closeness to a grandchild is a good relationship with a daughter-in-law. Yet, according to my study of in-law relationships, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships are often described as “uncomfortable”, “tense”, “uneasy”, and each is likely to describe the other as “difficult”, “unwelcoming” or “hostile”. In my study of 49 couples and their in-laws, 60% of the mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law said that they experienced disappointment or frustration with one another. In our culture, this tension is the subject of distasteful jokes, but the subject matter is deadly serious, and impacts on all members of the family.

In-law tension is common across cultures, and may be universal. Steven Pinker wryly notes that from an evolutionary point of view, it comes as no surprise that in-laws rate among the three major causes of marital strife – infidelity and stepchildren being the second and third sources. Someone who is close to you, with influence over your genetic offspring but not themselves genetically linked to you, will be carefully, suspiciously observed.

Marriage in some form is a feature of all known societies, and involves the paradox that marriage is both necessary to the continuation of the family, and threatens family solidarity by introducing strangers into its midst. From parents’ point of view, a child’s marriage displaces them as next of kin, with primary influence over a child’s well being. From the perspective of a new spouse, marriage marks the start of her own family, and her aim is usually to limit others’ influence. Daughter-in-law and mother-in-law tend to monitor their status and influence relative to one another far more carefully than the men. Domestic matters, such as housework, mealtimes and menus, retain symbolic meaning to women in the family: even women who are proud to have too much to do to maintain a perfectly tidy and dust-free house, may feel profoundly criticised by a mother-in-law’s quizzical appraisal of untended laundry and a muddy floor.

When children are born to the couple, the question may arise as to whose experience and values provide the final authority. Different attiudes towards child-care can lead to new battles about status and control. In-law conflict is likely to spread into marital conflict, as a wife says to her husband, “Why aren’t you supporting me?” In-law conflict can breach mother/son relations as a husband says to his mother, “Why aren’t you respecting my wife’s maternal authority?”

Some conflicts signal generational shifts in child-raising norms, particularly those involving a woman’s balance between child care and career. How can a grandmother stand respectfully aside when she thinks the mother of her grandchildren is not the best possible parent? “The best thing for my grandchildren is for their mother to stay at home with them,” says Chloe, Denise’s mother-in-law. “I know that’s not fashionable. I know that’s not Denise. But that’s what I want.” Denise’s mother, Alicia, is also concerned at her daughter’s workload. Alicia shares many of Chloe’s views about child care and family stress; but nonetheless, for Alicia, her daughter comes first, and she gives priority to Denise needs, while Chloe’s priority is with her own blood family.

Negotiating the trips and switches of overlapping families so that parents and grandparents alike can maintain those precious bonds is an essential skill, because so much is at stake. The balance between a grandmother’s emotional involvement and the modern assumption that a mother has primary control is difficult to achieve, but the cost of failure is high. I observed a gamut of unnecessary suffering-from the daughter-in-law who says, “My mother-in-law has made my life a misery. She tries to control everything I do because I’m the mother of her grandson,” to the mother-in-law who asks, “What have I done to deserve this ban against seeing my grandchildren. Look at me! Do you see the evil woman my daughter-in-law sees? The one who isn’t fit to have contact with the boys who matter more to her than anything in the world? How can she break my heart like this?” Such suffering lays waste to the possible benefits to children of contact with grandparents, and the emotional and practical contributions that grandparents might make to the entire family.

When we acknowledge and understand common patterns of in-law conflict, we shall be better placed to negotiate these complex alliances and make good use of the invaluable bonds of the extended family.

Source:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/domestic-intelligence/201003/grandparenting-positive-face-in-law-relationships

After You’ve Divided Up The Stuff, What About The Friends?

The final thing divvied up will be your mutual friends.

Published on March 4, 2010

When a couple breaks up, there may be a division of property and money, and if there are children (or pets), there will be a custody arrangement as well. The final thing to be divvied up will be your mutual friends. This process can be unsettling for everyone involved.

Most of the time, true friends try to remain neutral, and make no mistake, being in this position is tough and it can be burdensome on the friendship. The good ones won’t want to take sides, and they can find it hard to listen to the breaking-up friend vent. It’s simply uncomfortable to hear that kind of negativity about somebody you like.

Look, when we go through something as painful as a breakup, we need to rally our forces around us. It is natural and it makes sense. Problems occur when a person tries to hijack mutual friendships and turn them against the other partner. If you have ever been close to someone who’s done this, you know how difficult it can be. Choosing between two people you love is really hard. I believe that it’s emotional blackmail to tell someone that the only way he or she can still be your friend is to dislike your ex.

What some people don’t realize is that after things calm down and everyone starts to (hopefully) get along again, the divisiveness can come back to bite you. Friends who did not want to choose may have moved on, and those who did so may find it uncomfortable being around your ex because you’ve convinced them not to like him or her.

Breakups are at best a difficult thing, and most of the time both people feel hurt on various levels. Sometimes that pain comes out as anger and a need to win (or make the other person lose). When your friends become pawns in this game, they can actually end up getting hurt as well, so it is wise to be considerate of their feelings too.

As gut wrenching as a divorce or breakup can be, it will help if you do your best to avoid creating any additional drama. Because anger and sadness are part of the process, make sure to check in with yourself before you attempt to enlist your mutual friends to go to war with you. Truth be told, couples who can end their relationship like adults usually have an easier time moving on, co-parenting, and having appropriate relationships with the people who care for them.

Rather than trying to suck the life out of each other, put the effort into working together and separating with as little animosity as possible. The more thoughtful you can be during this very difficult time, the better you will feel about yourself and the less damage you will do to those who are close to you. That fact will help you live a full life once again.

Source:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotional-fitness/201003/after-youve-divided-the-stuff-what-about-the-friends

Men Enjoy Sex More Than Women As They Age

By Psych Central News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on March 10, 2010

A new survey suggests that men enjoy sexual activity long into their senior life, while women report much less satisfaction at similar ages.

At age 55, men can expect another 15 years of sexual activity, while women only can expect another 11 years.

Men in good or excellent health at 55 can add 5 to 7 years to that number. Equally healthy women gain slightly less, 3 to 6 years.

One consolation for women is that many of them seem not to miss it.

Men tend to marry younger women, die sooner and care more about sex, the study confirmed. Although 72 percent of men aged 75 to 85 have partners, fewer than 40 percent of women that age do. Only half of women 75-85 who remained sexually active rated their sex lives as “good,” and only 11 percent of all women that age report regularly thinking about or being interested in sex. Among those age 57 to 85 not living with a partner, 57 percent of men were interested in sex, compared to only 11 percent of women.

“Interest in sex, participation in sex and even the quality of sexual activity were higher for men than women, and this gender gap widened with age,” said lead author Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago.

Lindau and co-author Natalia Gavrilova focused on two large surveys, the National Survey of Midlife Development, involving about 3,000 adults aged 25 to 74 and completed in 1996, and the National Social Life Health and Aging Project, involving another 3,000 adults aged 57 to 85, completed in 2006. Participants provided information about their relationship status and rated the quality of their sex lives and how often they had sex. They also rated the level of their general health as poor, fair, good, very good or excellent.

The results showed that men are more likely to be sexually active, report a good sex life and be interested in sex than women. This difference was most stark among the 75 to 85-year-old group, where almost 40 percent of men, compared to 17 percent of women, were sexually active.

The study also introduced a new health measure, “Sexually Active Life Expectancy,” or SALE, the average remaining years of sexually active life. For men, SALE was about ten years lower than total life expectance; for women it was 20 years lower.

Men at the age of 30, for example, have a sexually active life expectancy of nearly 35 years, but they can, on average, expect to remain alive for 45 years, including a sexless final decade. For 30-year-old women, SALE is almost 31 years but total life expectancy is more than 50. So men that age can anticipate remaining sexually active for 78 percent of their remaining lifespan, while women at 30 can expect to remain sexually active for only 61 percent of the remaining years.

The authors conclude that “sexually active life expectancy estimation is a new life expectancy tool than can be used for projecting public health and patient needs in the arena of sexual health,” and that “projecting the population patterns of later life sexual activity is useful for anticipating need for public health resources, expertise and medical services.”

In an accompanying editorial, Professor Patricia Goodson from Texas University says Lindau and Gavrilova’s research is both refreshing and hopeful. She says, “The study bears good news in the form of hope… The news that adults in the US can enjoy many years of sexual activity beyond age 55 is promising.”

Goodson adds that many unanswered questions remain in the field of older people and sexuality, such as problems with measurement and silence regarding the sexual health of ageing homosexual, bisexual or intersexed people. “They stand as dim reminders of the limitations inherent in applying science to the study of complex human realities, and the cultural values shaping the topics we choose to study,” she concludes.

The study is published online in the March 10 edition of the British Medical Journal.

Source: University of Chicago Medical Center

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/03/10/men-enjoy-sex-more-than-women-as-they-age/12022.html

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Is Sexual Anoerxia the Flip Side of Sex Addiction?

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

March 11, 2010, 9:01 am

A panel of experts joined the Consults blog recently to answer readers’ questions about sex addiction. Here, Dr. Drew Pinsky responds to one reader who wonders why too little sex isn’t given the same attention as too much.

Is Too Little Sex as Much of a Problem as Too Much Sex?

Mobocracy from Minneapolis asks:

Why do we not treat “too little” sex as a disease or give it the same prominence as sexual addiction? It strikes me that having little or no sex, denial of eroticism, placing life-curbing restrictions on sex or sex partners should be considered just as much of a problem as too much sex. And it’s not a Viagra issue, which treats a physical dysfunction, not a behavior.

Dr. Drew Pinsky responds:

Categorically, professionals do take this problem very seriously. It is often referred to as sexual anorexia, and it is treated with the same rigor as sexual addiction.

Many times patients with sexual addictions and compulsions will have a “bipolar,” so to speak, swing to their sexual desire, in which they may move between periods of intense sexual activity followed by periods of sexual anorexia. Treatment usually is a slower process and does not require the sort of immediate interventions like an inpatient rehab that would be directed toward behaviors that can become threatening to livelihood, legal status and even one’s very life.

Nor is sexual anorexia a topic that grabs headlines, so you are not going to hear about this on the tabloids. Fundamentally, sexual anorexia is yet another manifestation of intimacy disorders, among which sexual addiction is one of the more common manifestations today.

People with intimacy disorders cannot tolerate closeness. Interestingly, the anorexia commonly kicks in when a patient gets involved with someone who might be genuinely available for true intimate connection.

It is a complex topic. I would caution anyone contemplating whether he or she or someone they love might have this disorder to first be certain that there is not a biological or medical explanation for the symptoms, particularly if they manifest as a sudden change in sexual desire. Certain medications, the recent delivery of a child, breast-feeding and perimenopause or menopause are terribly common culprits and have medical treatments.

Drew Pinsky, M.D., known as “Dr. Drew,” is board certified in internal and addiction medicine; his TV shows include “Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew.” drdrew.com

Source:  http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/is-sexual-anorexia-the-flip-side-of-sex-addiction/?ref=health

Disarming the Jealousy Complex

How could I trust someone who would love me?

Published on March 9, 2010

The recent post Mad about You distinguished two different kinds of jealousy. The simple variety occurs in all relationships. Absent chronic resentment, this minor form of jealousy motivates the partners to reconnect. The current post describes how to regulate complex jealousy, before it destroys your relationships and drives you crazy.

Simple Jealousy Can Get Complicated
Relationship dynamics can complicate even simple jealousy, especially when the parties are insensitive to each other’s different personality traits and temperamental qualities. For instance, an introverted partner is likely to disagree with an extroverted partner’s interpretation of “appropriate” interactions with the opposite sex. What is honest “friendliness” for one can seem “flirtatious” to the other. What sincerely feels like “consideration” to one: “You should show me respect,” honestly feels like “control” or even “oppression” to the other – “You don’t want me to be friendly! You don’t want me to be who I am! You’re trying to keep me down!”

This is still simple jealousy, without the paranoid or obsessional nuances of its darker cousin. The introverted partner is neither accusing the other of infidelity nor obsessing about the friendliness of the more sociable partner. It is really a classic temperamental error that occurs in most relationships: judging your partner by how you would react, even though your partner has a different temperament, different experiences, and different developmental and emotional history. Though we’re all tempted to do this, it’s really a form of narcissism – the way I would react is the standard for all decent people; so you have to conform to what I think is appropriate.

Reconciling disputes born of temperamental differences is the subject of another post. In short, it requires binocular vision – the ability to see your partner’s perspective alongside your own, indeed, to see the world through his/her eyes at the same time you see it through your own. Binocular vision, perhaps the most important of relationship skills, makes the world seem richer and more dynamic. Failure of binocular vision creates a reactive narcissism (you’re incapable of seeing your loved one apart from how you feel about him/her) and, of course, more jealousy.

Disarming Complex Jealousy

1. Don’t trust obsessions. They greatly distort reality. If you can’t stop thinking about your partner flirting with someone else, you must distrust the thought process. The longer obsessive thinking goes on, the more certain you become and the more likely you are wrong.

2. Regulate core hurts. The primary component of complex jealousy is self-diminishment – you feel unlovable and inadequate as an intimate partner. These “core hurts” give rise to the obsessions. If, in my heart, I don’t believe that I am worthy of love, how can I believe someone who says she loves me? I will assume that she doesn’t know the real me, or she wants something else (my money, house, car, or socks), or she wants someone else. Because I cannot possibly be enough for her, I will look for “clues” that she is seeking fulfillment somewhere else. Many studies show that whatever the brain looks for, it will find.

When attacked by the painful feeling of unworthiness, before it stimulates a cycle of obsessions and revenge motives, ask yourself out loud:

“What can I do to feel more lovable and adequate?”

Just uttering the words will make it clear that devaluing, belittling, hassling, or punishing your loved one is unlikely to make you feel like a lovable and adequate partner.

To feel worthy of love and adequate as an attachment figure, begin by trying as hard as you can to see the world through your partner’s eyes and to feel what it’s like in his/her shoes. Appreciate that he/she probably feels unlovable and inadequate as well. Think of what you can do to help the both of you feel more worthy of love.

3. Focus on compassion, not trust. If you have suffered from complex jealousy, you don’t have the confidence to trust. Focus instead on compassion for yourself and your loved one. Compassion, an important component of your core values, is sympathy for core hurts, with a motivation to heal, improve, appreciate, connect, or protect. Trust will eventually return, after a long period of self-compassion and compassion for loved one.

4. Follow the self-correcting motivation of simple jealousy. Be more compassionate, supportive, cooperative, and loving. Be mindful of the assets your partner brings to the relationship. Think of what you can do at this moment to make your relationship stronger.

Over time, this determined effort to strengthen your relationship will alleviate much of complex jealousy. But if it has become a habit, i.e., a conditioned response to feeling inadequate or unlovable, you may need a course in core value and emotional reconditioning (CompassionPower ) or focused psychotherapy to make significant changes.

Source:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201003/disarming-the-jealousy-comple

Brain Predicts Partner’s Emotional Resiliency

By Psych Central News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on March 10, 2010

Laboratory tests have long suggested a connection between a specific area in our brains and how we regulate our emotions. But a new study conducted at Harvard University now finds evidence in a real-world setting to support this connection.The new study suggests that brain activity — specifically in the region called the lateral prefrontal cortex — is a far better indicator of how someone will feel in the days following a fight with his or her partner.

Individuals who show more neural activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex are less likely to be upset the day after fighting with partners.

The findings point to the lateral prefrontal cortex’s role in emotion regulation, and suggest that improved function within this region may also improve day-to-day mood.

“What we found, as you might expect, was that everybody felt badly on the day of the conflict with their partners,” says lead author Christine Hooker, assistant professor of psychology in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

“But the day after, people who had high lateral prefrontal cortex activity felt better and the people who had low lateral prefrontal cortex activity continued to feel badly.”

Research has previously shown that the lateral prefrontal cortex is associated with emotion regulation in laboratory tests, but the effect has never been proven to be connected to experiences in day-to-day life.

This study involved healthy couples in a relationship for longer than three months. While in an fMRI scanner, participants viewed pictures of their partners with positive, negative, or neutral facial expressions and their neural activity was recorded while reacting to the images. While in the lab, participants were also tested for their broader cognitive control skills, such as their ability to control impulses and the shift and focus of attention.

For three weeks, the couples also recorded in an online diary their daily emotional state and whether they had had a fight with their partners.

Hooker found that participants who displayed greater activity in their lateral prefrontal cortex while viewing their partners’ negative facial expressions in the scanner were less likely to report a negative mood the day after a fight with their partners, indicating that they were better able to emotionally “bounce back” after the conflict.

She also found that those who had more activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex and greater emotional regulation after a fight displayed more cognitive control in laboratory tests, indicating a link between emotion regulation and broader cognitive control skills.

“The key factor is that the brain activity in the scanner predicted their experience in life,” says Hooker. “Scientists believe that what we are looking at in the scanner has relevance to daily life, but obviously we don’t live our lives in a scanner. If we can connect what we see in the scanner to somebody’s day-to-day emotion-regulation capacity, it could help psychologists predict how well people will respond to stressful events in their lives.”

While Hooker acknowledges that more work must be done to develop clinical applications for the research, it may be that lateral prefrontal cortex function provides information about a person’s vulnerability to develop mood problems after a stressful event. This raises the question as to whether increasing lateral prefrontal cortex function will improve emotion regulation capacity.

The study was published in this month’s issue of the journal, Biological Psychiatry.

Source: Harvard University

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/03/10/brain-predicts-partners-emotional-resiliency/12014.html

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