Forty hours a week is a lot of time to spend with someone you can't stand.

What's more, not having friends at work can actually make you stupid.

That's why it's so important to foster positive relationships at work.

Psychologist and couples counselor John Gottman spent 40 years researching exactly what goes into healthy relationships, and he posited in his book, "The Relationship Cure," that the same principles that make marriages work also hold true for other kinds of relationships.

"Relationships in the workplace, including friendships, collegial relationships, and relationships with superiors or subordinates, are human relationships,"Dr. Michael McNulty, a master trainer from the Gottman Institute and founder of the Chicago Relationship Center, tells Business Insider."Much of the same advice given to spouses who seek to make their marriages work also applies to people who want good, productive relationships with their coworkers."

According to Gottman's research, any relationship that involves people trying to live and work closely together should be built on trust and commitment and involve positivity, friendship, and successful conflict management.

McNulty says:

First and foremost, good friendships in a company occur when employees feel like they can trust one another. Workers have to mostly feel like their bosses and coworkers are acting in their best interests or at least trying to. They have to feel like they have one another's backs. It is only then that they will feel safe and motivated to invest in their relationships in the workplace.

In love or at work, people who do these three things are most likely to have positive relationships:

SEE ALSO: How to make friends at work

Get to know people

McNulty says:

In marriage, research tells us that knowing one's partner and the important parts of one's partner's world is the basis for friendship and positivity. Spouses feel important when others take time to get to know them. The same holds true at work.

He says that managers and employees who feel like people are trying to get to know them and care enough to ask about their lives are more likely to feel positive about others at work.

Appreciate others

People are also more likely to feel positive about work-based friendships if they feel appreciated.

McNulty teaches a course that includes a video of a therapist working with a real couple who started a company together.

He says:

At one point, the woman says to the man, "I would almost work free if you would just tell me you appreciate what I do more often." Her revelation speaks to how much people may need to feel appreciated by those close to them.

While most employees will not work for free, they feel a lot more positive about work when they feel appreciated, and they feel most positive about those in the workplace who express authentic appreciation for their talents and contributions.

Expressing appreciation, he says, could be as simple as commending a colleague on how well they spoke in a meeting or how reliable they are because they arrive to work early every day. The key is using positive adjectives and then backing them up with specific examples.

"If you think it, try and say it," McNulty says. "And if you're not thinking positive thoughts, that may mean that you're scanning for the negative too much and you need to get back into thinking about what you appreciate about the people around you."

Make time for others

"As in marriage, people who know and appreciate one another are better positioned to connect with one another," McNulty says.

He says that spouses who develop rituals for connecting with each other like date night, nightly walks, or phone calls to check in do better in relationships. Similarly, coworkers who find ways to remain connected keep their work relationships in a more positive place.

"That's why talks around the water cooler, lunch dates, sports teams, and happy hour become so important," McNulty says.

"That's also why teams and managers have to be sensitive about making assignments of who does what with whom on work projects," he adds. "For some employees, their routines of doing projects with certain colleagues may be their way of checking in and remaining connected."

Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia University, has published more than 150 scientific articles, chapters, and teaching cases in the fields of management and social psychology. His new book "Friend & Foe" with coauthor Maurice Schweitzer is about the balance of conflict and cooperation in almost every interaction.

We asked him why it's so common for people to fall in love with a coworker. 

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Money issues are indifferent to your age, gender, sexual orientation, life stage, and upbringing. And, despite the material wealth and bright smiles we see on the outside, money issues affect rich couples, poor couples, and those in between.

Sadly, financial incompatibility is the leading cause of separation and divorce in North America, which is a shame because it’s completely avoidable!

You and your honey don’t have to become another separation or divorce statistic. You simply need to find a way to respectfully communicate with each other — and follow these seven steps to building wealth together.

SEE ALSO: A financial planner explains how to figure out if you need a prenup — and what to include

1. Get on the same page

Do you and your love have a clear idea of where you want to go, and what you’d like to accomplish in the next five to ten years? Getting on the same page is all about understanding your common goals like home ownership, starting a family, purchasing a vacation home, or becoming debt free.

This is the fun part of financial planning — dreaming of the future and creating practical strategies to make it all happen.

2. Scrap your emotions and sort out your accounts

There’s no room for finger pointing, name calling or dwelling in the past when it comes to money management. Sit down together and open your financial backpacks to form a combined list of your assets and liabilities. Total them all up and determine your net worth.

Your net worth is what the two of you will need to focus on growing to ensure your dreams (those from step one) become reality. Financial transparency is key in this step, even if it’s painful, and will build trust.

3. Curb overspending

Overspending leads to debt and is often the root of heated arguments between couples … especially when one of the partners is the primary culprit. Overspenders and savers can indeed live in harmony, but only if they’ve got a plan to spend within their means. This involves using, and sticking to, a budget and including fun expenditures within it.

Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and author of "Anatomy of Love," explains the ups and downs of open relationships. There are a few keys to making one work.

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Conflict is a part of any relationship. 

As a therapist once told Business Insider, you need to have conflict if you and your partner are going to grow as a couple. 

The question is — how do you get good at it? 

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, sheds light on what's important. After a series of experiments, psychologists Amie M. Gordon and Serena Chen found that feeling understood by a partner makes people feel like conflict helps, rather than harms, their relationship.

"Conflict is only negatively associated with relationship satisfaction postconflict when people do not feel their thoughts, feelings, and point of view are understood by their romantic partners," the authors write.

For one study, participants — all of whom were in their 20s or 30s and in relationships of at least six months — were recruited online. They reported on how the frequency of conflict influenced how they felt about the health of their relationships. The more conflict, the worse they thought they were faring — unless they felt understood.

In another study, couples were brought into the lab where they were interviewed in person about a conflict they had in their relationships. Before and after the interviewing, they rated their relationship satisfaction. As with the other study, individuals who felt understood by their partners had a higher rating of satisfaction after the conflict. 

Gordon and Chen found that couples who use "affection, humor, or effective problem-solving" are the best at conflict.

The lesson: Conflict is not something to be avoided; it's something to learn how to do well. 

John Gottman, one of the world's leading relationship psychologists, said there are four components to getting good at these uncomfortable conversations: 

• Putting your emotions into words. Your partner's best attempts at listening aren't going to be fruitful unless you can articulate what's happening in your head. It's about "being able to put your emotions into words that really are what you actually feel," Gottman says. "Knowing where you feel tense, what relaxed feels like, what truth feels like." A meditation-like technique called Focusing helps with developing these skills. 

• Asking open-ended questions. Open-ended questions allow you to explore your partner's feelings. "They open up the heart and have acceptance at the base of them," Gottman says. For example, you might ask: So what do you feel about this living room — how would you change it if you had all the money in the world? What do you want your life to be like in three years? How do you like your job?

• Making open-ended statements. "These are exploratory statements," he says, where you encourage your partner to tell you a story. For instance: I want to hear all of your thoughts about quitting your job. I want to hear all of your thoughts about your job.

• Empathizing with your partner. Rather than saying you understand, show that you understand. "Empathy is really communicating that you understand your partner's feelings and they make sense to you," Gottman says. "It's really caring about your partner's welfare, not just your own." 

When you do that, the conflict doesn't harm the people involved. It helps both of them grow. 

SEE ALSO: 6 healthy relationship habits that most people think are toxic

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Relationship expert Melissa Schneider, author of "The Ugly Wife Is A Treasure At Home," shares the differences between China's beauty standards and our own.

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It's a common assumption that children of divorce are more likely to get divorced themselves.

For the most part, that's what psychologists have found when they've studied this phenomenon.

But perhaps divorce per se isn't exactly what's to blame.

A recent study in Marriage & Family Review looked at whether it was experiencing divorce itself as a child that played a role in later breakups, or whether it was merely conflict that might be at play.

Researchers analyzed a data set of American families stretching from 1987 to 2003 to track how children of divorce and unhappy marriages turned out. The researchers found that children who experienced high levels of family conflict (not divorce) — parents fighting, worrying about money, abuse, etc. — were likelier to get divorced as adults.

But children in high conflict families whose parents got divorced fared the same as children in low conflict families whose parents stayed together.

In other words: High levels of conflict are a big problem. But a divorce can actually be part of the solution.

Children in high conflict families whose parents didn't get divorced were the ones who were actually most likely to get divorced as adults. The researchers think this is because by staying together, the family actually had to endure more conflict than if the parents had split up.

"We suggest that ... children's exposure to daily conflict is diminished after union dissolution, thus reducing children's opportunities to model their parents' conflictual style, which may be associated with an inability to resolve relationship conflict," the researchers concluded. "This lack of ability to make resolutions or compromise may lead to their inability to have successful cohabiting or marital unions."

While this study shows an association between high-conflict childhoods and divorces in adulthood, children who grow up in families with a lot of conflict may well grow up to have happy marriages themselves. The research shows a higher likelihood of divorce, not some kind of predetermined fate. And this finding of course isn't applicable to every family situation.

There is other scientific evidence supporting the researchers' conclusion. Studies have found, for example, that children's wellbeing often increases when their parents divorce after a lot of conflict.

The lesson here may be that if the parents are happy — even if that's attained by getting divorced — the kids could be happier, too.

SEE ALSO: 1% of people in the US don't have this ability

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NOW WATCH: A recent scientific study claims parenthood actually makes you less happy

It's clichéd because it's true: You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

Or at least scientists thought it was true for years. Specifically, they thought that while you could change someone's explicit evaluation, you'd have a hard time changing their implicit evaluation of you.

In other words, you could get someone to say, "Sure, I like you," and even believe that they did. But you couldn't really alter their deep-seated negative beliefs about you, beliefs that they weren't necessarily consciously aware of.

Then, in 2015, a pair of researchers at Cornell University devised a clever series of experiments, the results of which suggest that implicit evaluations are in fact subject to change if people can see your behavior in a new light.

In one experiment, experimenters had 200 participants read about a man named Francis who had broken into a neighbor's home, destroying their property and taking "precious things" from the bedrooms.

Unsurprisingly, participants disliked Francis, both on an explicit and implicit level. (Experimenters tested their implicit evaluations of Francis by briefly flashing pictures of his face before showing neutral symbols and seeing how participants reacted.)

Then, while some participants read that Francis had thrown rocks at the home from the street, other participants read that Francis had broken into the neighbor's home in order to save two kids from a fire.

Once again, experimenters measured participants' evaluations of Francis. This time, those who had read that Francis had saved the neighbor's kids from a fire liked him, on both an explicit and implicit level.

The key here was giving participants information that allowed them to see Francis' actions in a new context.

In another experiment, some participants read that, before burglarizing the neighbor's home, Francis had previously saved a baby from an oncoming train. That didn't work to change their implicit evaluations, presumably because it had nothing to do with the burglary.

Interestingly, even after three days had passed, participants who had read about Francis saving kids from a fire still liked him on an implicit level. They hadn't reverted back to their first impressions.

You can easily apply these findings in your own personal and professional life.

Say you ignore an acquaintance on the street because you just had a massive fight with your partner and aren't in the mood to talk. Later you find out the acquaintance thinks you're a jerk. You might want to get in touch with her and explain that you normally love talking to her, but you'd just finished sobbing and didn't want to embarrass yourself or her.

The idea is to give the other person a chance to re-think the causes of your behavior. It's not a given that they'll forgive and forget, but it's certainly worth a try.

SEE ALSO: 5 psychological strategies to reverse a bad first impression

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NOW WATCH: TONY ROBBINS: How to make a good first impression

Our brains may have developed a way to help keep us from cheating — or, at least, to make cheating less appealing.

People in relationships find "threatening" (i.e. available) attractive individuals less attractive than single people do, according to a study published on May 20 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

And if they're in happy relationships, people are even more likely to think other potential mates are unattractive.

To test this phenomenon, researchers first confirmed that a method to alter facial attractiveness (based on previous research) did in fact change people's perception of how good looking someone was without alerting them to the fact that that's what was being changed. (For this, they relied on Amazon Mechanical Turk users: anonymous people who respond to researchers' questions — and complete other tasks — in exchange for very small sums of cash.)

This is what the faces looked like, with the actual photo of a man in the middle, his altered less attractive versions on the left, and the more attractive ones on the right:

Next, the researchers told 131 straight college students that they'd be working closely with someone of the opposite sex (who actually didn't exist), then shared their hobbies, relationship status, and a photo.

The participants then had to match the person's photo to the altered images of their face in what they thought was a memory test. Remarkably, people in relationships consistently chose the fake person's less attractive photos if he/she was single, which the researchers called a "high threat."

In a second test, 114 different straight college students filled out questionnaires about how happy their relationships were if they were in one, then repeated the first test. Again, people in relationships thought the fake person was less attractive if he/she was a high threat, and this effect increased if they said they were in happy relationships.

While college students are not a representative sample, and face-matching in a lab is not akin to meeting people out in the world (the participants in this study were not drinking at a dimly-lit bar, for example), previousresearch has found similar results — though the researchers here note that theirs is the first study to use faces that differed in attractiveness. Others have relied on questionnaires asking people directly whether they found someone attractive, which can alert participants that that's what the researchers are studying, potentially yielding less reliable (and honest) results.

This finding is rather comforting for couples and suggests that "I only have eyes for you" is more than just a suave line. If your partner meets someone who's attractive and available, they probably won't think that person is as good looking as they really are.

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NOW WATCH: A Harvard psychologist reveals the secret to a happy relationship

Take a look at a bunch of women's OkCupid profiles and you'll be hard pressed to find one that says, "I'm looking for a guy who makes me laugh, loves trying new foods, and — oh! knows how to spin a mean yarn."

And yet new research suggests that storytelling prowess is a desirable quality in a guy — possibly because it signals that they're high-status. Men, on the other hand, don't seem to be fazed by women's ability to tell a good tale.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University at Buffalo came to these conclusions after conducting a series of studies with hundreds of male and female undergrads as participants.

In one study, undergrads read descriptions of men and women, some of which specified that the man or woman tells great stories. Results showed that women found men who were good storytellers more attractive as long-term partners than men who were only decent storytellers, or men whose bios didn't mention storytelling ability at all.

Men, on the other hand, didn't rate women more attractive when those women were described as good storytellers.

The researchers also asked the participants to indicate whether they thought the man or woman would be popular, admired, and a good leader. Answers to these questions indicated how high-status the person seemed.

Sure enough, men who were supposedly good storytellers were perceived by women as higher status. Again, though, women who were supposedly good storytellers were not perceived by men as more attractive or of higher status.

At this point, it's hard to say for sure why women are drawn to men who can tell a good story. The authors suggest that "storytelling ability reflects a man's ability to gain resources. Good storytellers may be more likely to influence others or to gain positions of authority in society."

Previous research has found that women prefer high-status guys, so this isn't especially surprising — what's new is the idea that storytelling ability is an indicator of status.

Of course, future research is necessary to see if watching and listening to a man tell a story is as appealing as reading a story he's written.

Yet this study adds to a growing body of research on the nonphysical characteristics that can make men attractive to women, like mindfulness and altruism. In some cases, these attributes seem to be even more important than a man's looks.

Bottom line: Women might not explicitly reveal that they're looking for a guy who can tell a good story — in fact, they might not even realize that's what they want. But if you want to impress a woman, consider ditching the pickup lines and starting with "Once upon a time ..." instead.

SEE ALSO: We're on the cusp of an explosive change in how we treat one of America's most ignored health problems

DON'T MISS: 17 science-backed ways men can appear more attractive to women

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NOW WATCH: What you should talk about on a first date, according to research

We've talked about how you can get someone to be attracted to you by using scientifically proven flirting techniques, but how can you get someone to fall in love with you? We talked to psychotherapist and author M. Gary Neuman who cites five scientifically proven ways to transcend simple attractiveness and inspire the feelings that could lead to a long-term connection.

Business Insider readers get a 20% discount on Neuman's products for a limited time by using the promo code "businessinsider." Click here to visit his website.

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We've all seen, experienced, or thought about office romances. 

Some say they're a terrible idea (people might gossip, or things can get awkward at work if the relationship goes sour) — while others believe they make perfect sense (you're with these people eight hours a day, and you know you have at least one thing in common). But what's the real deal with interoffice dating?

Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job," says she hears this question all the time, and shared her thoughts on the topic with Business Insider.

"Modern thinking is that you spend so much time in the office and online that those are the most likely places you will meet Mr. or Ms. Right," says Taylor. "Occasionally you'll hear: the gym, supermarket, or Starbucks, because those may be the only other places you even have time to escape to outside the busy office these days."

But since about one-third of human life is spent working, it's not unreasonable that romances occur in the office, she adds. "And this is time spent with people we know — theoretically they're not ax murderers."

A survey from CareerBuilder revealed that nearly 40% of employees admitted to having a romantic relationship with a coworker, and almost one-third of office relationships result in marriage. 

"Considering that there are some eight billion people on the planet, some question why anyone would choose an office mate for romance, with all the potential gossip, possibility of a job nightmare if things go south, terminations, and maybe even a lawsuit as icing on the cake," Taylor explains.

But the fact of the matter is: Nobody knows when true love will strike. "It could happen in the break room just as easily as it could at your cousin's wedding or at the tire store," Taylor says. "Why put arbitrary parameters on something so important? Certainly there are endless cases of coworkers who have found love in the workplace and moved on to marry and live happily ever after."

Ultimately, she says, the success of this path will depend on you, your partner, boss, workplace, and many other variables. And it's up to you to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons — or if you're better off steering clear of an office romance.

Before you flip the switch, here's what you need to ask yourself: 

SEE ALSO: 15 questions to ask yourself before you accept a job in a new city

1. Is this person in a direct supervisory or subordinate position?

If they are, stay away. 

"Problems can result from dating a person in a subordinate or superior position," says Taylor.

If your boss (who happens to be your partner) takes you to lunch or promotes you, people will claim it's based on favoritism — not merit. (And it's also a problem if you deserve to be promoted but your significant other doesn't offer you the position because they fear people will think it's an act of favoritism.)

"Also, remember this: If things go sour in your relationship with a subordinate, there may a claim of sexual harassment or hostile work environment," she explains.

2. What is the company's policy on this? 

"The variation on corporate practices is so broad that you have employers with lenient policies, strict policies, and no policies, even at Fortune 500-sized companies," Taylor says.

Some firms make a conscious choice not to incorporate them into their general "sexual harassment" policy. "Policy or no policy, lovehappens. So in the absence of written rules and/or in the interpretation of them, there's one common barometer: your common sense. That must always prevail." 

3. How closely do I work with this person? 

Keeping your distance in another department, floor, or building will help keep things less awkward, messy, and challenging. "And if you are ever in a competitive situation, it takes that element out of the fray, too," she adds.

Money may not be the root of all evil — but it's the clincher in a great many relationships gone haywire.

Research shows that arguing about money is by far the top predictor of divorce. "It's not children, sex, in-laws, or anything else. It's money — for both men and women," says Sonya Britt, an assistant professor at Kansas State University who conducted a study of 4,500 couples about the interplay between financial arguments and relationship satisfaction.

We all have deeply ingrained beliefs about how money should be spent, when it's appropriate to splurge, and how much we should have stowed away in savings. And it can be difficult to the point of deal-breaking to try and mesh our own attitudes about money with another person's financial beliefs, which very well may differ drastically from our own. That's why a large number of financial advisers urge couples to remain financially independent.

Read on for our roundup of the top reasons why it pays to keep money matters separate in your relationship. (See also: 6 Ways Regular Budget Meetings Might Save Your Marriage)

SEE ALSO: 9 dumb money choices you will probably always regret

1. You'll avoid a power imbalance

Merging finances means there's no more "yours" and "mine" in the money department. The divisions blur and it all goes into the same piggy bank.

But what if your partner earns much more than you, and now you're suddenly living a lifestyle you can afford only with your partner's assist? What if the opposite is true, and you're subsidizing your partner's income with your own earnings? When your relationship is healthy and sparkling, you might not be bothered by either of these scenarios. But what about in the wake of a blowout fight?

Or let's say you're the breadwinner in the relationship and you subsidize a good chunk of your partner's lifestyle because he or she isn't earning enough to keep up. Then, suddenly, you lose your job and your partner's income isn't enough to pick up the slack.

Would you feel resentful? How would you cope with that? This is the kind of financial imbalance that has a tendency to instigate the fights that ultimately tear couples apart. Luckily, you can avoid them by keeping your financials separate from your sweetie's.

2. We're more accustomed to financial independence than ever

Young adults are delaying marriage longer than ever before. The average age of people at their first marriage in the U.S. today is about 27, which means many people rack up six or more years of complete financial independence before saying their vows.

The money habits we develop during our years as single adults become so deeply ingrained in us that it's difficult to shift them in an attempt to mesh with the financial habits of our partner.

And, unfortunately, finding common ground on financial matters is not necessarily something that gets better with practice. When asked how much they will need to save to maintain their current lifestyle in retirement, for example, nearly half of all couples are in disagreement about the amount needed. This level of disagreement is highest, however, among those who are closest to retirement.

3. It promotes healthy spending habits

Financially independent couples tend to practice better discipline when it comes to paying off their own debts. And that makes for a healthy relationship.

When one partner starts to feel like their partner's pockets are deep enough to offset the burden of their own financial risks, they sometimes become irresponsible in their spending and saving habits. And that can create the kind of friction that could start a fiery argument later on down the road.

With the legalization of same-sex marriage, queer couples have been solidifying relationships as fast as they can say “I do.” However, queer couples have familial considerations that, until June 2015, were like AstroTurf to grass.

Having children is not easy, financially or emotionally, and for older couples, the financial and emotional burden may be hard to overcome. That’s why we decided not to have children. We made this choice not because we don’t like kids but because of the time and place in which we were born.

In part, because our relationship experiences were five to 10 years behind our straight peers, we settled down about 10 years later. When our relationship evolved to a point where we could think about supporting kids, we felt it was too late.

At the time, we already had $51,000 in credit card debt. We knew we needed to pay that off as quickly as possible and then focus on saving for retirement. We couldn’t do that to the degree we felt necessary while giving our kids the life we felt they deserved.

The financial costs of kids

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost to raise a kid until 18 as of 2013, the most recent year for which data was available, was $245,340. When we considered these costs in addition to our credit card debt and retirement needs, we were overwhelmed.

And when we considered the Human Rights Campaign’s estimate that the cost for a gay couple to have a domestic adoption ranges between $5,000 and $40,000, the prospects of having kids seemed downright impossible — and even selfish. We didn’t feel we could give our kids the life they deserved without sacrificing our retirement. If we did the latter, we feared we’d be a burden if we got to a point where we could no longer care for ourselves.

The emotional costs of kids

Had we been more emotionally and financially mature when we were younger, having kids may have been more viable. Having suffered our financial insecurity, we didn’t want to put ourselves in a precarious position again.

We’ve shared many times that one of our best financial decisions was figuring out what we most want in life. This gave us the focus to pay off our credit card debt and helped us stay out of it. One of those two wants is being prepared for retirement.

Knowing what we do now, we would be on an emotional roller coaster, stressed about our retirement, while raising our kids. The expectations (read: costs) for children are high in dwindling middle-class America. Our relatives once told us they spent $2,000 each on their two kids for six weeks of soccer camp. That doesn’t even factor in costs for the rest of that season or the fact that neither of those kids will ever become professional soccer players. Still very young, those kids will be lucky if they’re able to stay interested in soccer, much less good enough to receive a college scholarship.

Cynics will say we shouldn’t get caught up in the superficiality of raising kids today, but we know that’s easier said than done. It’s not socially acceptable to advise people to not have kids, and there’s often a stigma for couples who don’t. Some even make the decision not to have kids out to be selfish and self-serving.

For us, our concern was exacerbating the financial mistakes we made in our younger years and being a burden on our kids. When deciding whether or not to have kids, it’s important to remember your kids’ whole life — not just the day the stork brings them home.

[Editor’s Note: You can monitor your financial goals, like building a good credit score, each month on Credit.com.]

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A friend once told me that the only time she writes in her journal is when she's just broken up with a guy.

I suspect a lot of people can relate to this desire — something about heartbreak makes us feel poetic and creative — like pouring our psychic guts out all over the page.

But how effective is this strategy, really, in terms of helping us cope with the dissolution of the relationship?

Back in 2012, psychologists published a study that suggested simply writing about your emotions surrounding the breakup can make you feel worse than when you started.

More recently though, another set of psychologists, at Villanova University, found that a particular type of journaling can reduce the emotional distress associated with a breakup: writing a "redemptive narrative."

The researchers say redemptive narratives "encompass the idea that negative life events or circumstances can be meaningful points in individuals' lives that result in positive outcomes or silver linings."

In other words, it's a story that outlines how you turned suffering — in this case, a breakup — into a positive experience. Maybe, for example, you learned something important about yourself or relationships in general.

To test the effectiveness of redemptive narratives, the researchers recruited about 100 adults who had recently gone through a breakup to participate in a four-day online daily diary study.

Specifically, they were interested in whether redemptive narratives or a strategy called "cognitive processing" could help people deal with breakups. Cognitive processing involves changing your interpretation of a negative emotional event.

For the study, one-third of participants were told to journal from a self-focused perspective; one-third to journal from a relationship-focused perspective; and one-third to write anything they wanted about the relationship's end. Participants journaled for an average 8.5 minutes a day.

Then, the researchers reviewed all the journal entries and looked for words linked to redemptive narratives and words linked to cognitive reappraisal.

For example, one person who wrote in a redemptive-narrative style said, "‘I am really sad that we broke up, but maybe it's for the best. I am better off without somebody who doesn't treat me right." People who used cognitive processing included words like "because,""think," and "should."

As it turns out, cognitive processing and redemptive narratives independently reduced the emotional distress people felt, which the researchers measured using questionnaires. But redemptive narratives were even more effective than cognitive processing.

In other words, as University of Massachusetts Amherst professor of psychological and brain sciences Susan Krass Whitbourne writes in a blog post for Psychology Today:

The simple act of writing wasn't enough to cause change, nor was the ability to reframe the relationship's ending in more intellectual terms. Instead, it was the reshaping of memories of the breakup, and the role the breakup played in the individual's personal story, that seemed to reveal the silver lining.

Of course, this study lasted only four days, so it's unclear whether redemptive narratives work to reduce emotional distress in the long run.

It's also worth noting that the researchers didn't find that redemptive narratives eliminated emotional distress — just reduced it. So you probably shouldn't use this strategy expecting to be relieved of your entire emotional burden.

That said, writing a redemptive narrative is a free and relatively easy way to cope with a breakup — and if it's not helping, you can always stop.

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If you ask philosopher Alain de Botton, spouses should take comfort in the fact that they piss each other off every now and then.

It could just be a sign that a marriage is running smoothly.

In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, entitled "Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person," de Botton challenges the romantic notion that successful marriages contain no conflict.

People can't be perfect for one another, he argues. Suffering is inevitable, which means the only important choice is "which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for."

As bleak as this premise may seem, de Botton argues that his philosophy is actually liberating for couples. People who embrace their significant other's flaws — and stay mindful of their own imperfections — don't get nearly as upset when their partner does something offensive like forget a birthday or leave dirty clothes on the floor.

"It might sound odd," he writes, "but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded."

De Botton's pessimism has research on its side — relationship psychologist Dr. John Gottman has repeatedly determined that successful marriages necessarily include fights.

Gottman published a study in 1998 suggesting that 15-minute video tapes of couples' conversations held enough clues to predict whether they'd get divorced with 83% accuracy. Later, Gottman published additional research that bumped the rate up to 91% after just five minutes of observation.

His main observations about relationship pitfalls have since been distilled into the so-called "Four Horsemen": four behavioral patterns that can signal an unsustainable partnership. Those negative indicators include acts of contempt, such as eye-rolling; accusations against the other person; stonewalling techniques; and absolute declarations like "You always leave the seat up" or "You never help with the garbage."

Learning to avoid these behaviors is crucial, Gottman has found, because the way in which couples handle disagreements may be the biggest predictor of a relationship's durability.

"Many couples tend to equate a low level of conflict with happiness and believe the claim 'we never fight' is a sign of marital health," Gottman wrote in Psychology Today in 1994. "But I believe we grow in our relationships by reconciling our differences. That's how we become more loving people and truly experience the fruits of marriage."

Both de Botton's philosophy and Gottman's research echo the same truth: Marriages inevitably involve disagreements because people are naturally flawed. The two also agree that the manner in which people attempt to resolve those differences says more about their compatibility than whether conflict arises in the first place.

"Compatibility is an achievement of love," de Botton writes. "It must not be its precondition."

So suffer — you're bound to. But for the sake of your relationship, make sure you're suffering productively.

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Most people approach relationships backwards.

It's not that our intentions are bad. Our attention is just in the wrong place: on ourselves rather than the other person.

It turns out, a little empathy is all you need to fix nearly any situation.

Empathy is perhaps the most needed skill in life and business.

Without it, your relationships and business will be shallow and irrelevant.

Example:

You're late for dinner with a friend because a work call went a little long.

What's the first thing you do when you meet your waiting friend? You explain why you're late. In other words, you validate yourself. 

But what ends up coming of this?

Your friend may be nice and brush it off, but there's still a sense of hurt. 

If this behavior repeats, trust, and thus intimacy, will be lost.

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Artist James Needham painted a picture of himself and his wife, Alix, in the bathroom — and it's since gone viral, with nearly a million views on social media.

The Sydney-based artist captured the definition of marriage in his unglamorous painting of him with just a T-shirt on, reading a book on the toilet, while his half-dressed wife brushes her teeth nearby.

The painting depicts the comfort and familiarity between a married couple — the friendship that allows them to let their guard down in the bathroom, and the unconditional love that allows them to accept one another even when at their most vulnerable (on the toilet).

Needham's painting has gone viral on Imgur — where his wife admitted that he created the work of art after she asked why he had never painted them in the same painting together — as well as Instagram. 

 Due to popular demand, Needham is now selling prints of the painting online.

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Maybe it's because a journalist, but the way I know I'm in a good conversation is that I unconsciously start to reach for my notepad, because everything we're discussing fascinates me so.

On the one hand, I want to take notes on what we're talking about — maybe they're telling me about an awesome vacation they took or maybe I'm telling them about my relationship with my family.

But on the other hand, I want to record those subtle strategies they're using to guide the interaction. How did I wind up gripping my chair in suspense? Or, how did they get me to open up like that?

I imagine I'm not the only one who's had these questions. So I turned to some Quorathreads for insight into the most common behaviors that make someone a pleasure to talk to.

Read on to find out what those excellent conversationalists do — and how you can start emulating them.

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1. They learn what you care about — and let you talk about it

Quora user Rajesh Setty says it's important to allow your conversation partner to reveal what interests them.

"You will be tempted to interrupt and share what you care about every now and then," he says. "The trick is to hold off and focus on the other person first. You will get your chance."

In fact, recent research suggests that talking about yourself is inherently pleasurable; it stimulates the same reward centers in the brain that are lit up by sex, cocaine, and good food. So it makes sense that people would feel positively about a conversation in which they held the spotlight.

2. They show their emotions

Max Lukominskyi writes:

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of emotions during the dialogue. While talking, accompany your words with corresponding gesture and feelings. Meanwhile, as a listener show your reaction and let your partner know how you feel about what she says.

Research backs him up: One study found that people who suppress their emotions are often perceived as less likable than those who express their feelings.

3. They find something they have in common with you

Brian Blose recommends that you "find ways to transition conversations to areas of mutual interest."

Blose says he often starts out by asking what his conversation partner does for a living; other times he mentions a new restaurant he visited.

"You might have to try a few topics before you find something you have in common."

Psychological research helps explain why this strategy might work — according to the similarity-attraction effect, we tend to gravitate toward people who are just like us, and especially when we share similar attitudes and values.

It's hard enough to maintain a relationship when you have a regular 9-to-5 job.

But when your job could take you halfway around the world at the drop of a hat, and missing out on family events is the norm, things get exponentially more complicated.

"You miss a lot of holidays and you miss a lot of big things, like graduations,"Annette Long, a flight attendant with 13 years of experience, tells Business Insider. "My family is kind of used to it. They don't even expect me."

Long says that, because she is on reserve and has to fly wherever and whenever the airline sends her during the month of December, she hasn't spent many Christmases at home with her family.

"I think when you become a flight attendant you kind of have to give up big holidays with your family, and you find other ways to celebrate them," she says. "You do what you have to do."

Long says that flight attendants often find dating to be particularly tricky. "It could be difficult I think trying to explain your job, your schedule, and what going out means," she explains. "It's really not going to the nightclub. It's going out to dinner, maybe getting a cocktail, and then to bed."

Aircrew will generally do things together for the duration of a trip, she says. "But we're just a family for the three or four days we're working together and that's it. We're done."

"When you say, 'Oh yeah, I went out with the crew and the pilots picked up the check' — I'm just using this as an example because it usually doesn't happen that way — a guy could get jealous," Long says.

"If you start dating someone who doesn't know what the business is like, I think there could be a lot of opportunities for jealousy," she explains.

It's not surprising, then, that, according to data from the US census bureau, flight attendants are highly likely to marry other flight attendants. The reason likely comes down to lifestyle compatibility.

As Dr. Michael McNulty, a master trainer from the Gottman Institute and founder of the Chicago Relationship Center,previously told Business Insider, it's understandable for people who share atypical hours, intense demands and responsibilities, and a distinct way of life that goes with their occupation to marry each other.

"It may feel more workable to marry someone who shares the same kind of schedule, rather than having to constantly explain the demands of one's position to a partner or spouse who works in a different profession," he said. "The fact that partners hold the same type of position may mean that they can relate to each other's compassion for work or the challenges one another face."

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