Reposted from: http://www.businessinsider.com/lasting-relationships-rely-on-2-traits-2014-11?utm_content=bufferdc881&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Written by:  EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH, The Atlantic

Science says lasting relationships come down to—you guessed it—kindness and generosity.

Every day in June, the most popular wedding month of the year, about 13,000 American couples will say “I do,” committing to a lifelong relationship that will be full of friendship, joy, and love that will carry them forward to their final days on this earth.

Except, of course, it doesn’t work out that way for most people.

The majority of marriages fail, either ending in divorce and separation or devolving into bitterness and dysfunction.

Of all the people who get married, only three in ten remain in healthy, happy marriages, as psychologist Ty Tashiro points out in his book “The Science of Happily Ever After,” which was published earlier this year.

Social scientists first started studying marriages by observing them in action in the 1970s in response to a crisis: Married couples were divorcing at unprecedented rates. Worried about the impact these divorces would have on the children of the broken marriages, psychologists decided to cast their scientific net on couples, bringing them into the lab to observe them and determine what the ingredients of a healthy, lasting relationship were.

Reposted from: http://elitedaily.com/dating/11-reasons-why-a-single-girls-life-is-the-happiest-life/634613/

Author:      Ashley Fern in Ladies from January 18, 2014

Single girls may get a bad rap, but I’m here to defend them. Despite what society may believe, being single is more of choice than you think. Every time I pass a couple fighting on the street, I say to myself: I’m so glad that isn’t me.

I silently laugh to myself because I know the rest of this couple’s day is going to be spent dealing with arguments and tears and the only thing I’m worried about is what I’m getting for lunch.

I could not imagine if I spent half my day worrying about someone else. I can barely manage my own sh*t, let alone have the patience to deal with someone else’s. And, honestly, I don’t really care that much because I’m too busy with my own job and problems.

But seriously, why is a single life the happiest life?

1. No stress

The amount of stress you have on a daily basis while you are in a relationship is something I never want to deal with. I don’t care if you have the best relationship out there, you are definitely more stressed than the singles out there.

Dealing with the mind games and concerns of someone else is just something I don’t have the time for — honestly, does anyone though?

2. You can do whatever the f*ck you want

Do I want to go out, get trashed and consume two pies of pizza? Do I want to waste entire days away, binging on Netflix in bed? Or do I want to go to a concert by myself?

Being single gives you the absolute freedom to do whatever the hell it is you want, without having to worrying about someone’s opinion on the situation.

Reposted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-m-flanagan/the-9-most-overlooked-thr_b_5972534.htm

Written by: Kelly M. Flanagan

I feel bad for marital communication, because it gets blamed for everything. For generations, in survey after survey, couples have rated marital communication as the number one problem in marriage. It’s not.

Marital communication is getting a bad rap. It’s like the kid who fights back on the playground. The playground supervisors hear a commotion and turn their heads just in time to see his retaliation. He didn’t create the problem; he was reacting to the problem. But he’s the one who gets caught, so he’s sent off to the principal’s office.

Or, in the case of marital communication, the therapist’s office.

I feel bad for marital communication, because everyone gangs up on him, when the truth is, on the playground of marriage, he’s just reacting to one of the other troublemakers who started the fight:

1. We marry people because we like who they are. People change. Plan on it. Don’t marry someone because of who they are, or who you want them to become. Marry them because of who they are determined to become. And then spend a lifetime joining them in their becoming, as they join you in yours.

2. Marriage doesn’t take away our loneliness. To be alive is to be lonely. It’s the human condition. Marriage doesn’t change the human condition. It can’t make us completely unlonely. And when it doesn’t, we blame our partner for doing something wrong, or we go searching for companionship elsewhere. Marriage is intended to be a place where two humans share the experience of loneliness and, in the sharing, create moments in which the loneliness dissipates. For a little while.