Week 26: Elements
For Malachi
First, living apart may be one way to enhance the novelty or excitement in a relationship. In the beginning, couples tend to engage in lots of novel and exciting activities together – what researchers call self-expanding activities. 3 They dress up for dates, they explore new parts of the city, they try each other’s hobbies, and they have engaging discussions with each other. As time goes on, though, it can be easy for long-term couples to fall into such a routine that they stop doing fun new things together, leading to boredom. By choosing not to live together, LAT couples may have found a way to help prevent their relationships from becoming monotonous. These couples have less time to spend together, so they have to actually plan or schedule their time. It is easy to see how this “opt-in” versus “opt-out” arrangement may encourage these couples to put more effort into dates, leading to more exciting, self-expanding activities that reduce boredom and increase satisfaction. 3 ...
