Reply #15: There was a piece on NPR this summer

[Tyrone Slothrop]

About these psychologists who were able to very accurately forecast whether or not a given couple would stay together or break up (and when this would happen - even accurately projecting breakups 5-10 years down the line) based on monitoring and filming and analyzing them during a 10/15 minute interview session/conversation.

They discovered that all couples argue about almost exactly the same things. However, the couples that stayed together argued in a different way or manner than the ones that did not.

The biggest signifier that a couple weren't going to last was contempt.

They found that when the people responded to the things one another said with an edge of contempt, their relationship was almost inevitably doomed.

I listened to this story with my girlfriend at the time thinking about the fact that we often responded to one another with contempt and we were fine. We broke up a few weeks ago.

This is my advice to you. Try not to respond with contempt.