New Research Explains Why All Your Relationships Turn Out the Same
Over time, our romances tend to fall into the same patterns, for better or worse
When you’re in the throes of post-breakup misery, your friends and family might try to comfort you by trashing the person who stomped all over your heart: You can do better, they’ll tell you. Your ex is going to regret letting you go. They never deserved you anyway.
It’s nice to hear, and it may even be true. You’ve learned from this relationship, you tell yourself. Next time, you’ll go for someone who’s a better fit.
Choosing a new partner who’s different from the people you usually fall for may help steer your next relationship in a better direction. “If we have a ‘type,’ one way to bring about change is to partner with someone who’s different than who we have been partnering with,” says Matthew Johnson, a family scientist at the University of Alberta. But a new partner isn’t necessarily enough to escape relationship inertia. In all likelihood, you’ll be just as happy — or unhappy — in your next relationship as you were in your last one, according to a recent long-term study from Johnson and his colleagues.
The new study, conducted in Germany, followed more than 500 people as they went from one significant relationship to…
