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.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider