Double Dating Benefits Marriage Greatly, According To New Research
Double-dating could be one of the secrets to a long and happy marriage, according to a recent study.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Social Work have found that maintaining healthy friendships with other couples can help to solidify a couple's sense of themselves as a unit and can even increase partners' attraction to one another.
Researchers reviewed findings from a series of studies on couple friendships conducted between 2008 and 2010 and compiled the results in a new book, "Two Plus Two: Couples and Their Couple Friendships".
The studies examined the overall impact of couple-to-couple friendships. Participants were asked questions such as, "How do you define couple friendships?," "How important are they to you as a couple?" and "How do these friendships work or operate?"
HuffPost Weddings spoke to "Two Plus Two" editors Geoffrey L. Greif, a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland and Kathleen Holtz Deal, an associate professor at the school to learn more about how couple friendships can enrich a marriage.
HP: How does having couple friends benefit your marriage?
KHD: We found that there was a number of benefits to having couple friends. One of them is people actually use their couple friends as a model to emulate and a model to say, "Let's never do that." In both ways, they would have conversations a lot of times afterwards like, "I like the way they do that," or "It's great that they're so supportive like that," or "Let's never fight like that couple does." Modeling is important. Another benefit of having couple friends is that you get to see your partner at their best (hopefully) when you're with other people. Some aspects of our personalities may come out when we're working with more people or people we're not normally involved with. If you have the opportunity to see your partner being really thoughtful towards other people, that can make you feel warmer toward them and make you feel connected with them.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Social Work have found that maintaining healthy friendships with other couples can help to solidify a couple's sense of themselves as a unit and can even increase partners' attraction to one another.
Researchers reviewed findings from a series of studies on couple friendships conducted between 2008 and 2010 and compiled the results in a new book, "Two Plus Two: Couples and Their Couple Friendships".
The studies examined the overall impact of couple-to-couple friendships. Participants were asked questions such as, "How do you define couple friendships?," "How important are they to you as a couple?" and "How do these friendships work or operate?"
HuffPost Weddings spoke to "Two Plus Two" editors Geoffrey L. Greif, a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland and Kathleen Holtz Deal, an associate professor at the school to learn more about how couple friendships can enrich a marriage.
HP: How does having couple friends benefit your marriage?
KHD: We found that there was a number of benefits to having couple friends. One of them is people actually use their couple friends as a model to emulate and a model to say, "Let's never do that." In both ways, they would have conversations a lot of times afterwards like, "I like the way they do that," or "It's great that they're so supportive like that," or "Let's never fight like that couple does." Modeling is important. Another benefit of having couple friends is that you get to see your partner at their best (hopefully) when you're with other people. Some aspects of our personalities may come out when we're working with more people or people we're not normally involved with. If you have the opportunity to see your partner being really thoughtful towards other people, that can make you feel warmer toward them and make you feel connected with them.
