The holidays are a wonderful time of year, especially when it means getting together with family and friends you haven't seen in a while.

Of course, despite even the best intentions, catching up on the latest goings on in people's lives can take a turn for the worse when awkward topics come up.

From "When are you going to have kids?" and "Are you in a relationship yet?" to what will surely become classics this year, "Who did you vote for?" and "This country's going to hell in a handbasket!", certain topics should really remain off the table during this time together. But you try telling that to your 95-year-old grandma who says whatever she damn-well pleases.

If you're looking to keep things civil this holiday season, try these tips for navigating potentially awkward conversations:

1. Set some ground rules

"You can set expectations before the meal even begins by saying something like, 'It has been a really interesting year for everyone, and I would like to ask that we not talk politics. We all have a lot to catch up on and connect over,'" suggests Lizzie Post, co-author of several Emily Post etiquette books and founding partner of the Bob Evans Holiday Helpline.

2. Try starting with popular topics

If you know that a healthy dialogue about controversial topics is not possible at your holiday celebration, avoid the hot-button issues and stick to more popular and socially acceptable topics like sports. You could try throwing out something general like, "How about them Cubs?" and see who bites.

"Do not invest your time in a discussion where there is no chance of being heard,"Dr. Michael McNulty, a master trainer from The Gottman Institute and founder of the Chicago Relationship Center, tells Business Insider. "People have to be able to listen to and respect one another before a healthy dialogue can occur."

3. Redirect the conversation to something personal and positive

"If there are still contentious conversations happening, it's important to redirect, not correct, so everyone feels comfortable," Post says.

She recommends saying something like, "Sam, I'd love to get away from politics (or finances, religion, romantic drama, etc.) and hear about your vacation to Florida."

"By turning the conversation to more personal topics and encouraging discussion, you can be sure not to offend any of the guests while also maintaining a positive atmosphere at the table," Post says.

4. Be firm but polite

If you try to redirect the conversation a few times and it's not working, Post says it's completely appropriate for you to say with a smile and a friendly, firm tone, "We are finished talking about this at the table." And then once again, begin a new, positive conversation.

5. If debate is unavoidable, make it a dialogue

It's expected that families have diverse opinions, but if you have to keep talking about politics or other potentially contentious topics, it's best to change the debate into a dialogue in which everyone feels respected and understood, McNulty says.

"Dialogues are a way to understand and support one another, even when people have significantly different points of view," he explains.

To have a dialogue, McNulty suggests talking about your positions one at a time, telling the stories behind them that explain why they are important to you, and as you listen to others, summarizing and reflecting back what you are hearing.

"Do not attempt to changes people's minds. Show respect for each person. This is healthy for all involved," he says. "In fact, people who are able to dialogue feel more connected to the ones they love, even with their differences. Model this for younger generations."

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You don't have to be a Freudian psychoanalyst to realize that money problems in a relationship are rarely just about money. Often they stem from differences in the partners' core values, their experiences growing up, and their deepest insecurities.

So if you're in a relationship with someone who's constantly blowing cash, know that resolving the issue will require both financial changes and some probing of each other's psyches.

Business Insider spoke to Don Cloud, president and founder of Cloud Financial Inc., who said he frequently works with clients facing this problem.

Recently he counseled a couple in which the husband, who was self-employed and highly successful, felt his wife, who had stayed home to help facilitate his success, was overspending. Eventually, Cloud helped them get to the bottom of it: The wife felt jealous of her husband's success and spending money made her feel better about it.

Having realized this, the couple was able to create a new budget and set up a discretionary spending account for the wife, so that they started saving an additional $2500 a month.

If you and your partner are facing similar issues, Cloud outlined a five-step plan to help you tackle them head-on:

1. Share your beliefs about money

"You can't resolve anything if there's no communication between the couple," Cloud said. Which is why the first thing to do is to start asking questions.

"Find out exactly what it is that your significant other believes about money. Some people believe it should be used as a resource for happiness, while others believe it should be used some for needs, some for fun, and some put back for a rainy day."

Next, share your own feelings and beliefs. Whatever you do, Cloud said, don't be accusatory — as in, "Your spending problem is the reason we're in this financial state."

Armed with knowledge of each other's beliefs and feelings, which are driving your financial behavior, you'll be in a better position to reach a compromise.

2. Create a budget

"Oftentimes we can find money literally leaking through the cracks of our households just by making a budget," Cloud said. Together, the couple can curb any frivolous expenditures.

This step typically helps the "saver" partner feel more comfortable because now the couple is starting to save more, Cloud said.

As for the "spender" partner, in some cases they might get a discretionary spending account — funds specifically designated for personal purchases — as in the example above.

3. Regulate your spending

This step involves cutting back on those unnecessary expenditures — not necessarily eliminating them entirely. Maybe that means dining out one night less per week or reducing the amount you spend on a particular hobby.

Knowing that you're within a budget when you make these purchases "makes people feel better about it when they do spend the money," Cloud said.

4. Track your long-term financial goals

After steps 1-3, Cloud said, usually some excess income begins to build up. Now it's time to allocate that income to a specific goal, like retirement or college savings.

"The one that's historically been the spender — they get excited because they start to think in different terms," Cloud said. In other words, it's no longer about being denied a fancy new coat, but being able to finance their hopes and dreams.

5. Monitor your spending

As your income and priorities evolve, tweak your budget accordingly. It's important to continue communicating with your partner to make sure you're always on the same page.

SEE ALSO: The case against completely merging finances with your spouse

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Most everyone has been in a situation where the person you're dating, or interviewing, or arguing with makes a comment and something just feels ... off.

Perhaps it's less about what they said explicitly and more about how they looked while they said it. As in, their gaze was freakishly fixed on your face or their left leg kept jiggling.

Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out what these nonverbal displays really mean.

And while sometimes they mean absolutely nothing, in other cases they can reveal a lot about what the person is thinking or feeling. Maybe they're super nervous, or maybe they're trying to trick you.

Below, we've rounded up 18 of the most useful scientific insights into the significance of body language, pulled from Psychology Today, research journals, and a few awesome books.

Keep in mind that context is really important — for example, you can interpret crossed arms to mean that someone's closed off, or that they're cold. Use your own judgment.

This is an update of an article originally posted by Drake Baer and Max Nisen.

SEE ALSO: 8 body language tricks to instantly appear more confident

The shoulder shrug is a universal signal of not knowing what's going on

According to Barbara Pease and Allan Pease, authors of "The Definitive Book of Body Language," everybody does the shoulder shrug. 

The shrug is a "good example of a universal gesture that is used to show that a person doesn't know or doesn't understand what you are saying," they write.

"It's a multiple gesture that has three main parts," they continue. "Exposed palms to show nothing is being concealed in the hands, hunched shoulders to protect the throat from attack, and raised brow, which is a universal, submissive greeting." 

Open palms are an ancient display of honesty

Ever notice how when someone swears to tell the truth in a court of law, they put one hand on a religious text and raise their other hand into the air, palm facing whoever they're speaking to? 

That's because, the Peases write in "The Definitive Book of Body Language," an open palm has been associated with "truth, honesty, allegiance, and submission" throughout Western history. 

"Just as a dog will expose its throat to show submission or surrender to the victor," they write, "humans use their palms to show that they are unarmed and therefore not a threat." 

If their voice goes up or down, they're likely interested

Whether you know it or not, your vocal range shows your interest.

"Once a conversation begins, besotted women slip into sing-songy voices,"Psychology Today reports, "while men drop theirs an octave." 

Siblings share one of the closest bonds there is, but many still find it difficult to peacefully coexist.

We talked to an expert on the topic: Jeanne Safer, Ph.D. She's a psychoanalyst and author with a special interest in sibling relationships. Safer offers a few insights that will contribute to a healthy sibling relationship.

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Love and work — who knew the two were so intimately connected? Based on research by Bloomberg Business, it turns out that your job could help you predict who you'll end up marrying.

By scanning US Census Bureau data covering 3.5 million households, Bloomberg compiled this interactive chart that shows how people are pairing up by profession.

Here are the most common matchups for 29 jobs:

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SEE ALSO: People with these jobs are most likely to marry someone in a totally different profession

Elementary- and middle-school teachers

Female elementary-school teachers are most likely to marry male or female elementary- and middle-school teachers.

Male elementary-school teachers are most likely to marry female elementary- and middle-school teachers or male education administrators.

Financial analysts

Female financial analysts are most likely to marry male financial managers or female retail salespeople.

Male financial analysts are most likely to marry female elementary- and middle-school teachers or male operations research analysts.

Flight attendants

Female flight attendants are most likely to marry male managers or female flight attendants.

Male flight attendants are most likely to marry female flight attendants or male elementary- and middle-school teachers.

If you're in your early 20s and think you might be part of the growing group of people taking a new interest in marriage, the 37% Rule is for you.

According to journalist Brian Christian and cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths, coauthors of "Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions," that rule could help you save time looking for a spouse.

The 37% Rule basically says that when you need to screen a range of options in a limited amount of time — be they candidates for a job, new apartments, or potential romantic partners — the best time to make a decision is when you've looked at 37% of those options.

At that point in a selection process, you'll have gathered enough information to make an informed decision, but you won't have wasted too much time looking at more options than necessary. At the 37% mark, you've maximized your chance of selecting the best of the bunch.

A common thought experiment to demonstrate this theory — developed by non-PC math guys in the 1960s — is called "The Secretary Problem."

In the hypothetical, you can only screen secretaries once. If you reject a candidate, you can't go back and hire them later (since they might have accepted another job). The question is: How deep into the pool of applicants do you go to maximize your chance of finding the best one?

If you interview just three applicants, the authors explain, your best bet is making a decision based on the strength of the second candidate. If she's better than the first, you hire her. If she's not, you wait. If you have five applicants, you wait until the third to start judging.

So if you're looking for love between the ages of 18 and 40, the optimal age to start seriously considering your future husband or wife is just past your 26th birthday (37% into the 22-year span). Before then, you'll probably miss out on higher-quality partners, but after that, good options could start to become unavailable, decreasing your chances of finding "the one."

In mathematics lingo, searching for a potential mate is known as an "optimal stopping problem." Over 1,000 possibilities, Christian and Griffiths explain, you should pull the trigger on someone 36.81% of the way through. The bigger the pool of options, the closer to exactly 37% you can get.

Research about successful marriages seems to support the age sweet spot of 26.

Last July, the University of Utah sociologist Nicholas H. Wolfinger discovered that the best ages to get married in order to avoid divorce are between 28 and 32. The range doesn't align exactly — 28 years old is closer to a 45% Rule — but partners usually decide on each other a while before their actual wedding. Wolfinger's analysis also revealed that a couple's chances of breaking up increased by 5% each year after age 32.

If you commit to settling down around 26, in other words, you're on the right track.

The 37% Rule isn't perfect. Since it borrows from the cold logic of math, it assumes that people have a reasonable understanding of what they want in a partner by 26, but doesn't account for the fact that what we look for in our partners may change dramatically between 18 and 40.

What the 37% Rule does tell us is that 26 is the age when our dating decisions are most trustworthy— it's the point at which we can stop looking and start taking those big leaps of faith.

SEE ALSO: 14 things that are harder to get into than Stanford

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Now that most communication is accomplished through virtual channels, it is easy to lose sight of our face-to-face relationships.

UCLA clinical professor of psychiatry Dr. Dan Siegel gives his five tips for keeping it real in the virtual-driven world in which we now live. 

Follow BI Video: On Twitter 

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There's the sort of couple that draws admiring glances from other couples — one partner is a head honcho at some big-name company and the other is a head honcho at another big-name company, and together they have three kids who all look to be healthy and not wanting for parental attention.

What's their secret? the rest of us wonder.

There's no one answer, of course. But the overarching theme behind all those varied secrets may be that, before the couple got married or got serious in their relationship, they talked about their individual professional ambitions.

According to Joann Lublin, author of the new book "Earning It" and management news editor at The Wall Street Journal, communicating about your respective career plans is crucial to any successful partnership. That might sound overly simple — but it's all too easy for couples to leave that issue to fate, or to wait until a specific problem comes up to tackle it.

For "Earning It," Lublin interviewed dozens of high-powered women about the personal and professional obstacles they overcame on the path to success. But perhaps the most interesting parts of "Earning It" are those in which Lublin shares her own experiences being married to a fellow journalist, and the resulting frustrations.

Lublin met her now-husband, Mike, while they were working for the college newspaper at Northwestern University, she told Business Insider. Both planned to pursue careers as professional journalists — something they correctly anticipated would be difficult to manage.

Before they got married, in 1972, they signed a "marriage contract." In the book, Lublin explains that the couple hired a lawyer to draw up a contract in which they agreed that they would alternate who took the lead in any relocation for a job.

And indeed, there would be many joint relocations — from San Francisco, back to Evanston, Illinois, to Washington DC, and to London, for example. At one point, Lublin writes, she realized she had disrupted the pattern of alternating career moves by initiating a move twice in a row. Her husband burst out: "I am tired of being the suitcase to your career moves!"

Lublin writes: “My husband's subsequent outburst of frustration made me recognize that each partner in a career couple must occasionally act as baggage and weigh down the other person's career. The professional price exacted by such trade-offs was preferable to divorce."

Lublin told me that a marriage contract isn't necessary for a successful marriage — and as evidenced above, it's not the cure-all for marital discord. But communicating about your professional priorities is key.

"Whether it's formal or informal, it's an issue you need to talk about and you need to talk about early in the relationship," she said. That's especially true if you're planning to have kids (Lublin and her husband have two).

That way, you have a better chance of avoiding what Lublin calls the "blame game." In other words, one partner might get angry at the other because they've canceled multiple business trips to stay home with the kids while the other partner travels out of town.

"That doesn't really help human kindness or, much less, marital bliss," she said.

Since publishing the book, Lublin said she's had multiple conversations on this topic, especially with ambitious young women who are wondering how they're going to make their marriage to an equally ambitious person work.

She said: "You've got to have this conversation at the outset of your becoming a serious relationship and/or getting married. You have to talk about the fact that you both care deeply about your careers, and at least in principle, agree about how you're going to manage it."

SEE ALSO: 15 relationship facts everybody should know before getting married

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The INSIDER Summary:

• Millennials are walking down the aisle later than most generations.
• Many prefer hanging out to dating, renting to buying and living together to marriage. 

Truth be told, I like the idea of marriage. I don't believe it's a necessity for my life to be complete or whole, but at the same time, it's something I always saw for myself. You've likely heard that Millennials are walking down the aisle later, and maybe you've seen it within your friends, but that's not the only marriage trend among our generation. According to a new study, they aren't just getting married later in life,Millennials are choosing to stay unmarried in growing rates, too.

“Millennials aren’t big on tradition,” relationship expert and author April Masini tells Bustle. “They prefer hanging out to dating, renting to buying and living together to marriage. It’s not that they don’t want a commitment — they do. They are having meaningful relationships and there have been studies that show they’re actually having less sex at their age than prior generations — so it’s not they want freedom to sleep around. They just don’t want to get married.”

Allen Downey, a professor of computer science at Olin College, took data from the National Survey of Family Growth and analyzed the age that men and women first got married by decade of birth. Downey then analyzed projections for Millennials.

He found that women who were born in the 1980s and 1990s are on track to stay unmarried at rates much higher than previous generations. In fact, the marriage rate for women currently in their early 30s is close to zero. By the time women born in the 40s reached the age of 23, only 25 percent of them remained unmarried. Now, the fraction of unmarried women born in the 90s is 81 percent. So what's the reason?

Why Millennials Aren't Getting Married

“The paradigms are shifting and the old model requiring marriage vows to validate one's relationship doesn't appeal,” psychologist, relationship expert and author of The Ultimate Guide to a Multi-Orgasmic Life Antonia Hall, tells Bustle. “Many Millennials were raised with rising divorce rates and broken homes, so they're far less likely to buy into marriage as the only or best form of relationship for themselves. Add to that the increase in educational costs and debt, and Millennials feel less financially secure, which makes entering into what's considered a binding contract with their significant other far less appealing. With everything from hookup culture to poly lifestyles and open relationships, there's an emerging expansion of views on what partnerships can look like. This has led to a desire to exploring more than the outdated 'one method for all' that is marriage."

Despite the fact Millennials aren’t getting married, a survey on relationships from online legal marketplace Avvo found that 42 percent of people believe that marriage is a life goal. Interestingly enough, 82 percent of Millennials actually disagree that marriage is an “outdated institution.” But that’s not all.

Is Marriage Still Important Today?

It really depends on you. Another recent survey of about 1,000 14 to 35-year-olds conducted by ACUVUE Brand Contact Lenses found that 52 percent of Millennials “strongly agree” that marriage is important to them, and 73 percent think having a happily family is also important.

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Part of being in a relationship is learning to deal with not just your own fears and bad habits and neuroses, but also someone else's. (Romantic, no?)

In some cases, that could mean being in a relationship with someone who's constantly worried about running out of money, and who therefore freaks out when you spend the occasional $5 on a latte.

The solution to this kind of problem isn't exactly simple — but it's not impossible either. Business Insider spoke to Don Cloud, president and founder of Cloud Financial Inc., and he shared his experience advising a couple who was working through exactly this issue.

In this case, the husband was a retired member of the military and the wife was the primary earner. The husband hated whenever his wife spent money — and while the couple had had many arguments about this issue, they'd never had a real conversation about it.

When Cloud initiated such a conversation, it became clear that the husband was worried that, should he pass away, his wife wouldn't have enough income and/or retirement savings to support her.

Cloud went over with the couple his analysis of their financial situation and showed the husband that they had sufficient funds to retire in less than two years, even earlier than the wife was planning to stop working. Right then, the husband visibly relaxed, Cloud said.

In other words, Cloud had helped the couple both communicate and map out their long-term goals (in this case, retirement). Those two processes are part of five key steps that Cloud advocates for couples facing similar issues.

Here's the full five-step plan. (You can use the same plan if you're the one worried about your partner overspending.)

1. Share your beliefs about money

"You can't resolve anything if there's no communication between the couple," Cloud said. Which is why the first thing to do is to start asking questions.

"Find out exactly what it is that your significant other believes about money. Some people believe it should be used as a resource for happiness, while others believe it should be used some for needs, some for fun, and some put back for a rainy day."

Next, share your own feelings and beliefs. Whatever you do, Cloud said, don't be accusatory.

Armed with knowledge of each other's beliefs and feelings, which are driving your financial behavior, you'll be in a better position to reach a compromise.

2. Create a budget

"Oftentimes we can find money literally leaking through the cracks of our households just by making a budget," Cloud said. Together, the couple can curb any frivolous expenditures.

This step typically helps the "saver" partner feel more comfortable because now the couple is starting to save more, Cloud said.

3. Regulate your spending

This step involves cutting back on those unnecessary expenditures — not necessarily eliminating them entirely. Maybe that means dining out one night less per week or reducing the amount you spend on a particular hobby.

Knowing that you're within a budget when you make these purchases "makes people feel better about it when they do spend the money," Cloud said.

4. Track your long-term financial goals

After steps 1-3, Cloud said, usually some excess income begins to build up. Now it's time to allocate that income to a specific goal, like retirement (as in the example above) or college savings.

5. Monitor your spending

As your income and priorities evolve, tweak your budget accordingly. It's important to continue communicating with your partner to make sure you're always on the same page.

SEE ALSO: Here's a financial adviser's best advice on what to do if you live with someone who loves to spend money

Join the conversation about this story »

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No one likes to feel like a mooch.

Which is why asking someone to do you a favor— proofread your résumé, walk your dog, loan you $20 because you forgot this was a cash-only restaurant — can be so stressful.

But if you're stressing because you feel like the person helping you out will find you annoying and like you less, don't. There's a psychological phenomenon commonly known as the "Ben Franklin Effect" that explains why people wind up liking you more when they do you a favor.

David McRaney, author of the book "You Are Not So Smart," explains how the phenomenon got its name on YouAreNotSoSmart.com. Supposedly, Benjamin Franklin had a hater — someone he considered a "gentleman of fortune and education" who would probably become influential in government.

In order to recruit the hater to his side, Franklin decided to ask the man if he could borrow one of the books from his library. The man was flattered and lent it; Franklin returned it one week later with a thank-you note.

The next time they saw each other, the man was exceedingly friendly to Franklin and Franklin said they stayed friends until the man died.

When psychologists tested the Ben Franklin effect in 1969, they found the effect really did hold water. For the small study, volunteers participated in a study in which they could win money.

One-third of the volunteers were then approached by a secretary who said that the psychology department had paid for the study and funds were running out, and asked the volunteer to return the payment. One-third were approached by the experimenter and told that he himself had paid for the study and funds were running out, and asked the volunteer to return the payment. The final third were allowed to keep their money.

Results showed that volunteers liked the experimenter most when they'd done him the favor of returning his money, and least when they'd gotten to keep their money.

In other words, the researchers concluded, doing someone a favor makes us like that person more. The researchers suspected that the Ben Franklin effect works because of "cognitive dissonance": We find it difficult to reconcile the fact that we did someone a favor and we hate them, so we assume that we like them.

More recently, another psychologist conducted a similar, small study on the Ben Franklin effect in the United States and Japan.

Participants in both countries ended up liking another person who was presumably working on the same task more when he asked for help completing a project than when he didn't. Interestingly, however, they didn't like that person more when the experimenter asked them to help that person.

The psychologist behind this study, Yu Niiya of Hosei University in Tokyo, therefore suggests that the Ben Franklin effect isn't a result of cognitive dissonance. Instead, she says it happens because the person being asked for help can sense that the person asking for help wants to get chummy with them and in turn reciprocates the liking.

Regardless of the specific mechanism behind the Ben Franklin Effect, the bottom line is that you shouldn't freak out every time you ask someone to lend a hand. In fact, you can deploy your requests for help strategically, a la Franklin, to win over detractors.

SEE ALSO: 11 mind-blowing psychology findings that explain the baffling choices you make every day

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When you say "I do," it's a vow to share everything with your partner: Your fears, your dreams, your home, and even your money.

Deciding how to combine your finances with your partner's includes myriad practical aspects — Should we get a joint bank account? How much should we save for retirement?— but much of the money conversation comes down to a non-monetary factor: communication. Successful married couples make it a priority to talk about their finances and stay on the same page.

In the same vein, the No. 1 thing successful couples never do is hide their money habits from each other.

"Don't hide anything from your partner when it comes to your finances," says Pamela Capalad, CFP and founder of Brunch and Budget. "This includes secret stashes or big debt or a low credit score or a major tax liability. They will find out one way or another."

Successful marriages start with couples putting everything on the table.

"They're transparent, they're open, they're honest,"Michael McNulty, a Ph.D. at The Chicago Relationship Center and Master Trainer with The Gottman Institute, told Business Insider. "There's an ongoing dialogue, people know what's coming in, what's going out. There's a strong sense of trust."

As soon as they get married — or ideally, before — couples should show their entire hand to their partner. That means coming clean about their salaries, credit card debt, student loans, credit score, and anything else that might affect their financial future as a couple.

"They should sit down and have a very open and honest discussion about their money and what they have," Pam Horack, CFP and "Your Financial Mom" at Pathfinder Planning LLC, told Business Insider.

From there, it's imperative to keep the dialogue open so that both spouses feel comfortable talking about finances and bringing up related issues at any time.

This trust and openness becomes especially important when one party messes up. If one partner forgets to pay a bill or overspends on a silly purchase, they should be able to tell their spouse without fear of retaliation or judgement. No matter how big or small the transgression, the prospect of coming clean should never induce fear.

"If people can't trust each other around money, more than likely, they can't trust each other about a lot of things," McNulty explains. "Money is such a basic thing in a relationship, both partners depend upon it to survive. Trust is so very important, so couples that hide things from each other around money don't do well."

Understanding how your partner developed their philosophy toward money is also crucial in finding common ground and developing compromises that work for both of you. Was money tight when they were growing up? Had they been deceived about money in a prior relationship? Has handling money been an issue for them in the past?

"If you get those stories back and forth, often it's easier for partners to understand one another," McNulty says.

Talking about money is hard, and getting to a point of complete openness will likely require difficult conversations, but it's worthwhile to prevent financial issues from stretching into other areas of the relationship.

"There is a lot of embarrassment and shame when it comes to sharing your money situation," Capalad says. "It can represent mistakes you've made in the past, decisions you regret, and take a big toll on your self worth. These are all feelings you should be able to share with your spouse and work through together."

SEE ALSO: 12 things successful married couples do with their money

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NOW WATCH: A financial expert reveals the biggest money mistake a couple can make

Here's the thing about relationships.

Sometimes they're candlelit date nights, walks through grassy meadows, and feeding each other cake at your wedding.

But sometimes they're doing the dishes, comforting a screaming baby, and fighting over whose turn it is to do the dishes or comfort the screaming baby.

Which is to say: While sometimes your love and passion for each other is obvious, sometimes it's really, really not.

So how do you know if your relationship is terrific — or heading south?

Psychologists have spent years studying the traits that are fundamental to successful long-term relationships and have come up with a few key ideas. We rounded up some of their most surprising insights below.

A word of caution: If you notice that your relationship doesn't meet all these criteria, that does not necessarily mean you should end things with your partner. Consider this list a general set of guidelines that can help you start evaluating whether your current relationship is bringing you satisfaction and happiness.

SEE ALSO: 15 relationship facts everybody should know before getting married

You think about your partner often when you're not together.

In 2007, researchers randomly dialed nearly 300 married people and asked them a series of questions about their relationships and how in love they felt.

Results showed that certain relationship characteristics were linked to stronger feelings of love. One especially interesting finding: The more often people reported thinking about their partner when they were apart, the more in love they felt.

The same study included a follow-up experiment with nearly 400 married New Yorkers, which found that difficulty concentrating on other things while you're thinking about your partner is also linked to strong feelings of love — especially for men.

You respond positively to each other's good news.

Business Insider's Lauren Friedman reported that one litmus test of a happy relationship is how enthusiastically each partner responds to the other's good news.

A Psychology Today blog post breaks down four ways a man could respond after his partner tells him about a promotion at work:

• An active-constructive response from him would be enthusiastic support: "That's great, honey! I knew you could do it, you've been working so hard."
• A passive-constructive response would be understated support — a warm smile and a simple "That's good news."
• An active-destructive response would be a statement that demeaned the event: "Does this mean you are going to be gone working even longer hours now? Are you sure you can handle it?"
• Finally, a passive-destructive response would virtually ignore the good news: "Oh, really? Well you won't believe what happened to me on the drive home today!"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the response that's most closely linked to relationship satisfaction is the active-constructive response.

You spend some time apart, with your own friends.

Over the past few decades, we've started placing increasing demands on our spouses. As Business Insider's Jessica Orwig reported, no longer do we expect them to be financial partners, protectors, and companions — now we also want them to provide personal fulfillment.

The psychologist who produced some of these findings, Eli Finkel, suggests that if you want to be happy in your marriage, it's best not to look to your partner for all your existential needs. Finkel recommends finding yourself in hobbies, friends, and work.

Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and author of "Anatomy of Love," says heartbreak has physiological effects on our minds and bodies. There's a scientific reason it hurts so much.

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It's a lot of couples' worst nightmare: Someone succumbs to temptation and strays.

Maybe it's an emotional affair — they fall in love with a coworker — or maybe it's a sexual affair — a one-night stand after a few drinks.

Psychologists have spent years studying the science of infidelity, including what makes someone inclined to cheat, how your partner is likely to react after you cheat, and how to bounce back from cheating.

Below, we've rounded up some recent findings and how they might help you maintain a strong relationship.

SEE ALSO: 15 relationship facts everybody should know before getting married

Men and women react differently to flirting outside their relationship

A 2008 study found that, after flirting with an attractive person of the opposite sex, men were less tolerant of their partner's transgressions — while women were more so.

It's possible that men don't feel threatened by temptation and women do, or that men do feel threatened but their response isn't to protect the relationship.

The 2008 study also found that men could be taught to use "if-then" strategies to protect their relationship from tempting alternatives.

In other words: "When an attractive woman approaches me, I will do [whatever] to protect my relationship." In fact, after developing their if-then strategy, men were just as likely as women to protect their partnership, as measured through a virtual-reality game.

If you're economically dependent on your spouse, you're more likely to cheat on them

Recent research suggests that a person who is economically dependent on their spouse is more likely to be unfaithful— and that's especially true for a man who relies financially on a woman.

Interestingly, when women are the breadwinners, they're less likely to cheat. When men are the breadwinners — specifically, when they earn more than 70% of the total household income — they're more likely to cheat.

We think everyone is cheating — except our partner

Relationships are bound to disintegrate — but not yours, of course!

In a recent study, university students reported that the average person of the opposite sex has about a 42% chance of cheating on their partner.

But when it came to their own partners, participants estimated that there was about a 5% chance that their partner had already cheated on them and about an 8% chance that they would cheat on them in the future.

As it turns out, 9% of participants said they'd really strayed.

Sometimes relationships end for a good reason. People grow apart, and both parties are happier on their own, or with other people.

But sometimes, relationships end because one or both partners made an avoidable, but incredibly destructive mistake.

Psychological literature is rife with examples of behaviors that can hurt a romantic relationship. We rounded up seven of the most common.

Don't get paranoid. If you recognize one or more of these patterns in your relationship, you can now take steps to remedy the problem instead of staying mired in conflict.

Read on and learn how to stop a breakup in its tracks.

SEE ALSO: 15 relationship facts everybody should know before getting married

Distancing yourself from your partner

Recent research found there's a deadly combination of characteristics that predict relationship dissatisfaction: sensitivity to rejection and the tendency to cut your partner off emotionally.

People who are really worried about getting hurt might distance themselves from their partners, which ends up making the relationship less satisfying in the long run. In other words, they effectively create what they fear.

If this sounds like you, try telling your partner about your fears. You might be surprised to learn that they share some of those concerns, and you can work through them together.

Hiding your finances

Nearly two in five Americans in one poll said they've lied to their partner about money (financial infidelity), which can lead to fights, distrust, and in some cases divorce.

The problem is that money isn't just about numbers— it can symbolize power and love. So insecurity about what your partner's doing with his or her money means insecurity about the relationship in general.

Before you decide to combine (or even partially combine) finances with your partner, it helps to have a conversation about budgeting and your financial histories, and to come up with guidelines for making big individual purchases.

Forming a 'fantasy bond'

Psychologist Robert Firestone coined the term "fantasy bond," which describes the illusion of connection with your partner.

You replace genuine feelings of love and passion with the idea of being a couple, or a unit. Emotional closeness is often replaced by adherence to routines.

The real danger, according to Firestone's daughter, the psychologist Lisa Firestone, is that you start to lose your individuality in your attempt to find safety in the relationship.

If you feel like you've entered into a fantasy bond, Robert Firestone says it helps to explore your fears of individuation and separation from your partner and work toward developing a more honest communication style.

You're more likely to find a narcissist in the C-suite than on the street, research suggests. 

That's because the traits that make narcissists so difficult to hang out with or date — including a constant need for validation, a willingness to control people, and a ruthlessness in getting their needs met — happen to make them super effective at rising up the ranks.  

To help you figure out if you are, or perhaps your boss is, a narcissist, we combed through PsychologyToday.com and the psychology literature looking for patterns of narcissistic behavior. We also spoke with Joseph Burgo, Ph.D., a psychologist and the author of "The Narcissist You Know."

Here are common signs of narcissism.

1. You are a bad sport

Burgo says some narcissists are bullies — and one of their most troublesome traits is their tendency to be a sore loser and a sore winner.

For example, when they lose in a sports match, they might try to humiliate the referee. When they win, they might gloat excessively or act abusive to the losing party.

2. You constantly feel underappreciated

The kind of people that Burgo calls "grandiose" narcissists always hold a grievance against the world.

They typically feel entitled to something better and think they're not getting the recognition they deserve from others.

3. If you're not grandiose, then you're introverted, hypersensitive, defensive, and anxious

Psychologists talk about the "two faces of narcissism." On one end there's the hyper-aggressive, super-loud type. But there's a softer form of narcissism, too. It's called "covert narcissism," which is denoted by introversion, hypersensitivity, defensiveness, and anxiety.

"Both shades of narcissism shared a common core of conceit, arrogance, and the tendency to give in to one's own needs and disregard others," psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman reports in Scientific American.

4. You think everyone else is stupid

Many narcissists are know-it-alls, and have a hard time getting along with coworkers and friends because they refuse to believe they could possibly be wrong about anything.

Burgo has observed that these narcissists walk around with a marked sense of superiority to others and have a "my way or the highway" approach to decision-making.

5. You really like to swear at people

Psychologists Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strube from Washington University in St. Louis found in a study that subjects who scored higher in narcissism are argumentative and curse more than their modest counterparts.

They also tend to use more sexually explicit language.

6. You are self-righteous

Narcissists often believe their views are inherently superior to other people's perspectives. But what they truly value is the attention they receive for holding those views.

For example, Burgo said, a narcissist might believe he has a closer connection to God — but it's more important to him that other people acknowledge this connection and admire his deep sense of spirituality.

7. You feel justified in being mean to people

"Vindictive" narcissists generally know vengeful or antisocial behavior isn't acceptable. But they feel okay about acting that way because they constantly feel they've been wronged, Burgo said.

What's more, they often take offense where it's not intended, meaning they're constantly hearing people say, "That's not what I meant!"

8. You enjoy leading others and telling them what to do

Writing in Psychology Today, Kaufman says narcissists typically enjoy leadership positions since they are able to dominate others and fulfill their need for constant positive reinforcement.

9. You are an entertainer

"A narcissist monk would not be good, but to be Kanye West and a narcissist is fantastic,"said University of Western Sydney psychologist Peter Jonason, an expert on social psychology. 

10. You hate having to feel emotions

The "very fact of having a feeling in the presence of another person suggests you can be touched emotionally by friends, family, partners, and even the occasional tragedy or failure," Harvard Medical School psychologist Craig Malkin writes in The Huffington Post.

That's why narcissists avoid emotional displays.

Feeling an emotion "challenges their sense of perfect autonomy," he continues. "To admit to a feeling of any kind suggests they can be affected by someone or something outside of them."

As a result, narcissists tend to change the topic of conversation when feelings come up — especially their own. 

11. You are likely young and male

After 34,653 face-to-face interviews, psychologist Frederick Stinson found that men tend to be more narcissistic than women across their lifespans.

Narcissism is believed to peak during adolescence and decline with age.

12. You are regarded as attractive and dress better than other people

Narcissists are generally rated as more stylish and physically attractive, according to a study conducted by Simine Vazire, a psychologist at Washington University.

13. Instead of listening, you just wait to speak

Anita Vangelisti, a psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin found that "conversational narcissism" typically involves keeping the conversation centered on yourself, making exaggerated gestures, talking loudly, boasting, and showing disinterest by "glazing over" when others speak.

14. You are a serial romantic

Burgo also identifies a group of narcissists he calls "seductive."

These people fall in and out of love quickly and easily, often with people they don't know very well. They think their partner is absolutely perfect — a complement to their own perfection — until reality sets in, they realize their partner is flawed, and they end the relationship.

15. You cheat in relationships

Psychologists Joshua Foster at the University of South Alabama and W. Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia found that narcissists are more likely to cheat once they think their partners are committed.

They also seem to get a thrill out of convincing others to engage in promiscuous sexual acts that they normally do not participate in.

16. People dump you after you've been dating for about four months

Through his research, Campbell found that the four-month mark — the apparent satisfaction peak in any dating relationship — is typically how long it takes for someone dating a narcissist to see their true colors.

17. You put some people on pedestals

Malkin says the logic goes like this: "If I find someone perfect to be close to, maybe some of their perfection will rub off on me, and I'll become perfect by association."

With that ideal in mind, narcissists cozy up to people they find perfect — be it a colleague or a crush — and then get really disappointed when that person isn't as impeccable as they imagined.

Because for a narcissist, everything has to be perfect.

18. You like to put other people down

Narcissistic people intentionally put down others in order to maintain a high positive image of themselves.

"Seeking admiration is like a drug for narcissists,"said Mitja D. Back, a psychologist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. "In the long run it becomes difficult because others won't applaud them, so they always have to search for new acquaintances from whom they get the next fix."

This also explains why narcissists typically maintain only weak relationships.

19. Your parents ignored and adored you

According to Sigmund Freud, a combination of parental rejection and excessive admiration is more strongly linked to adult narcissism than if one childhood experience consistently existed without the other.

The inconsistency and whiplash of the parent's attitude towards their children will eventually cause for a "deep craving for admiration" and lead the narcissistic to lead a life searching for fleeting ego boosts.

20. You choose your friends to look cool or take advantage of people

Narcissistic men and women have different ways of choosing friends. 

Women choose male friends with high social status so they can feel a sense of worthiness. Guys choose bros who can "wingman" for them when they're trying to pick up girls.

21. You always have to be in control

Just as narcissists hate to talk about their feelings, "they can't stand to be at the mercy of other people's preferences,"Malkin says. "It reminds them that they aren't invulnerable or completely independent — that, in fact, they might have to ask for what they want — and even worse, people may not feel like meeting the request." 

This is why they can be controlling without getting angry. In the case of romantic relationships, narcissists control people with disapproving glances, calls to change plans, and chronic lateness. This allows narcissists to undermine other people's ability to make choices. By doing that, narcissists maintain their sense of total autonomy — which they so desperately need. 

22. You're willing to tolerate narcissistic traits in others

2016 research led by Ulrike Maaß at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany found that best friends tended to display similar levels of narcissism. The greatest similarity was found between male friends high in narcissism.

The authors suggest that one of many possible reasons for this phenomenon is that narcissists are "less repelled" by narcissistic personality traits in others because they generally like themselves.

This is an update of an article originally written by Vivian Giang, with additional contributions by Drake Baer.

SEE ALSO: 4 reasons narcissists can be highly effective leaders

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