Like A Ship Loves An Anchor?

Today’s article may seem a little bit of a downer to start with, but don’t worry, it picks up again too. Simply put, we’ve written before about many of the good parts of relationships, e.g:

Only One Kind Of Relationship Promotes Longevity This Much!

…but what if that’s not what we have?

Note: if you have a very happy, secure, fulfilling, joyous relationship, then, great! Or if you’re single and happy, then, also great! Hopefully you will still find today’s feature of use if you find yourself advising a friend or family member one day. So without further ado, let’s get to it…

You may be familiar with the “sunk cost fallacy”; if not: it’s what happens when a person or group has already invested into a given thing, such that even though the thing is not going at all the way they hoped, they now want to continue trying to make that thing work, lest their previous investment be lost. But the truth is: if it’s not going to work, then the initial investment is already lost, and pouring out extra won’t help—it’ll just lose more.

That “investment” in a given thing could be money, time, energy, or (often the case) a combination of the above.

In the field of romance, the “sunk cost fallacy” keeps a lot of bad relationships going for longer than perhaps they should, and looking back (perhaps after a short adjustment period), the newly-single person says “why did I let that go on?” and vows to not make the same mistake again.

But that prompts the question: how can we know when it’s right to “keep working on it, because relationships do involve work”, as perfectly reasonable relationship advice often goes, and when it’s right to call it quits?

Should I stay or should I go?

Some questions for you (or perhaps a friend you might find yourself advising) to consider:

• What qualities do you consider the most important for a partner to have—and does your partner have them?
• If you described the worst of your relationship to a close friend, would that friend feel bad for you?
• Do you miss your partner when they’re away, or are you glad of the break? When they return, are they still glad to see you?
• If you weren’t already in this relationship, would you seek to enter it now? (This takes away sunk cost and allows a more neutral assessment)
• Do you feel completely safe with your partner (emotionally as well as physically), or must you tread carefully to avoid conflict?
• If your partner decided tomorrow that they didn’t want to be with you anymore and left, would that be just a heartbreak, or an exciting beginning of a new chapter in your life?
• What things would you generally consider dealbreakers in a relationship—and has your partner done any of them?

The last one can be surprising, by the way. We often see or hear of other people’s adverse relationship situations and think “I would never allow…” yet when we are in a relationship and in love, there’s a good chance that we might indeed allow—or rather, excuse, overlook, and forgive.

And, patience and forgiveness certainly aren’t inherently bad traits to have—it’s just good to deploy them consciously, and not merely be a doormat.

Either way, reflect (or advise your friend/family member to reflect, as applicable) on the “score” from the above questions.

• If the score is good, then maybe it really is just a rough patch, and the tools we link at the top and bottom of this article might help.
• If the score is bad, the relationship is bad, and no amount of historic love or miles clocked up together will change that. Sometimes it’s not even anyone’s fault; sometimes a relationship just ran its course, and now it’s time to accept that and turn to a new chapter.

“At my age…”

As we get older, it’s easy for that sunk cost fallacy to loom large. Inertia is heavy, the mutual entanglement of lives is far-reaching, and we might not feel we have the same energy for dating that we did when we were younger.

And there may sometimes be a statistical argument for “sticking it out” at least for a while, depending on where we are in the relationship, per this study (with 165,039 participants aged 20–76), which found:

❝Results on mean levels indicated that relationship satisfaction decreased from age 20 to 40, reached a low point at age 40, then increased until age 65, and plateaued in late adulthood.

As regards the metric of relationship duration, relationship satisfaction decreased during the first 10 years of the relationship, reached a low point at 10 years, increased until 20 years, and then decreased again.❞

~ Dr. Janina Bühler et al.

Source: Development of Relationship Satisfaction Across the Life Span: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

And yet, when it comes to prospects for a new relationship…

• If our remaining life is growing shorter, then it’s definitely too short to spend in an unhappy relationship
• Maybe we really won’t find romance again… And maybe that’s ok, if w’re comfortable making our peace with that and finding joy in the rest of life _{^{(this widowed writer (hi, it’s me) plans to remain single now by preference, and her life is very full of purpose and beauty and joy and yes, even love—for family, friends, etc, plus the memory of my wonderful late beloved)}}
• Nevertheless, the simple fact is: many people do find what they go on to describe as their best relationship yet, late in life ← this study is with a small sample size, but in this case, even anecdotal evidence seems sufficient to make the claim reasonable; probably you personally know someone who has done so. If they can, so can you, if you so wish.
• Adding on to that last point… Later life relationships can also offer numerous significant advantages unique to such (albeit some different challenges too—but with the right person, those challenges are just a fun thing to tackle together). See for example:

An exploratory investigation into dating among later‐life women

And about those later-life relationships that do work? They look like this:

“We’ve Got This”: Middle-Aged and Older (ages 40–87) Couples’ Satisfying Relationships and We-Talk Promote Better Physiological, Relational, and Emotional Responses to Conflict

this one looks like the title says it all, but it really doesn’t, and it’s very much worth at least reading the abstract, if not the entire paper—because it talks a lot about the characteristics that make for happy or unhappy relationships, and the effect that those things have on people. It really is very good, and quite an easy read.

See again: Healthy Relationship, Healthy Life

Take care!

Always look on the bright side for life

❝I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist!❞

~ every pessimist ever

To believe self-reports, the world is divided between optimists and realists. But how does your outlook measure up, really?

Below, we’ve included a link to a test, and like most free online tests, this is offered “as-is” with the usual caveats about not being a clinical diagnostic tool, this one actually has a fair amount of scientific weight behind it:

❝Empirical testing has indicated the validity of the Optimism Pessimism Instrument as published in the scientific journal Current Psychology: Research and Reviews.

The IDRlabs Optimism/Pessimism Test (IDR-OPT) was developed by IDRlabs. The IDR-OPT is based on the Optimism/Pessimism Instrument (OPI) developed by Dr. William Dember, Dr. Stephanie Martin, Dr. Mary Hummer, Dr. Steven Howe, and Dr. Richard Melton, at the University of Cincinnati.❞

Take This Short (1–2 mins) Test

How did you score? And what could you do to improve on that score?

We said before that we’d do a main feature on this sometime, and today’s the day! Fits with the theme of Easter too, as for those who observe, this is a time for a celebration of hope, new beginnings, and life stepping out of the shadows.

On which note, before we go any further, let’s look at a very big “why” of optimism…

There have been many studies done regards optimism and health, and they generally come to the same conclusion: optimism is simply good for the health.

Here’s an example. It’s a longitudinal study, and it followed 121,700 women (what a sample size!) for eight years. It controlled for all kinds of other lifestyle factors (especially smoking, drinking, diet, and exercise habits, as well as pre-existing medical conditions), so this wasn’t a case of “people who are healthy are more optimistic as a result. And, in the researchers’ own words…

❝We found strong and statistically significant associations of increasing levels of optimism with decreasing risks of mortality, including mortality due each major cause of death, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and infection.

Importantly, findings were maintained after close control for potential confounding factors, including sociodemographic characteristics and depression❞

Read: Optimism and Cause-Specific Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study

So that’s the why. Now for the how…

Positive thinking is not what you think it is

A lot of people think of “think positive thoughts” as a very wishy-washy platitude, but positive thinking isn’t about ignoring what’s wrong, or burying every negative emotion.

Rather, it is taking advantage of the basic CBT, DBT, and, for that matter, NLP principles:

• Our feelings are driven by our thoughts
• Our thoughts can be changed by how we frame things

This is a lot like the idea that “there’s not such thing as bad weather; only the wrong clothes”. Clearly written by someone who’s never been in a hurricane, but by and large, the principle stands true.

For example…

• Most problems can be reframed as opportunities
• Replace “I have to…” with “I get to…”
• Will the task be arduous? It’ll be all the better looking back on it.
• Did you fail abjectly? Be proud that you lived true to your values anyway.

A lot of this is about focusing on what you can control. If you live your life by your values (first figure out what they are, if you haven’t already), then that will become a reassuring thing that you can always count on, no matter what.

Practice positive self-talk (eliminate the negative)

We often learn, usually as children, to be self deprecatory so as to not appear immodest. While modesty certainly has its place, we don’t have to trash ourselves to do that!

There are various approaches to this, for example:

• Replacing a self-criticism (whether it was true or not) with a neutral or positive statement that you know is true. “I suck at xyz” is just putting yourself down, “Xyz is a challenge for me” asks the question, how will you rise to it?
• Replacing a self-criticism with irony. It doesn’t matter how dripping with sarcasm your inner voice is, the words will still be better. “Glamorous as ever!” after accidentally putting mascara in your eye. “So elegant and graceful!” after walking into furniture. And so on.

Practice radical acceptance

This evokes the “optimistic nihilism” approach to life. It’s perhaps not best in all scenarios, but if you’re consciously and rationally pretty sure something is going to be terrible (and/or know it’s completely outside of your control), acknowledging that possibility (or even, likelihood) cheerfully. Borrowing from the last tip, this can be done with as much irony as you find necessary. For example:

Facing a surgery the recovery from which you know categorically will be very painful: with a big smile “Yep, I am going to be in a lot of pain, so that’s going to be fun!” (fun fact: psychological misery will not make the physical pain any less painful, so you might as well see the funny side) ← see link for additional benefits laughter can add to health-related quality of life)

Plan for the future with love

You know the whole “planting trees in whose shade you’ll never sit”, thing, but: actually for yourself too. Plan (and act!) now, out of love and compassion for your future self.

Simple example: preparing (or semi-preparing, if appropriate) breakfast for yourself the night before, when you know in the morning you’ll be tired, hungry, and/or pressed for time. You’ll wake up, remember that you did that, and…

Tip: at moments like that, take a moment to think “Thanks, past me”. (Or call yourself by your name, whatever works for you. For example I, your writer here, might say to myself “Thanks, past Nastja!”)

This helps to build a habit of gratitude for your past self and love for your future self.

This goes for little things like the above, but it also goes for things whereby there’s much longer-term delayed gratification, such as:

• Healthy lifestyle changes (usually these see slow, cumulative progress)
• Good financial strategies (usually these see slow, cumulative progress)
• Long educational courses (usually these see slow, cumulative progress)

Basically: pay it forward to your future self, and thank yourself later!

Some quick ideas of systems and apps that go hard on the “long slow cumulative progress” approach that you can look back on with pride:

• Noom—nutritional program with a psychology-based approach to help you attain and maintain your goals, long term
• You Need A Budget—we’ve recommended it before and we’ll recommend it again. This is so good. If you click through, you can see a short explanation of what makes it so different to other budgeting apps.
• Duolingo—the famously persistence-motivational language learning app