These 3 Questions Can Predict If Your Long-Term Relationship Will Last

Science and love don’t often go hand in hand, but scientist Dr John Gottman reckons he’s found a scientific test to predict how long your long-term relationship or marriage will last.

In fact, he says it takes only five minutes of listening to a couple interact with each other to suss out how many years they’ll stay together.

Impressive, right? But since most of us won’t be grabbing couch time with Dr Gottman any time soon, he’s devised these three tests to help you determine if you and your SO will be together until you’re old and grey.

The Test

1. Are you noticing these behaviours?

Criticism
Defensiveness
Contempt for your partner
Stonewalling

According to Dr Gottman these are all destructive behaviours, and couples displaying a combo of all four tend to divorce 5.6 years into their marriage.

2. Are you feeling detached?

Another big warning sign? Feeling sad, angry, detached or disengaged. In fact, Dr Gottman warns that if your beau isn’t filling you full of happiness and excitement on the regular, it could lead to a split an average of 16.2 years into the relationship. We guess those butterflies in your tummy matter after all, eh?

3. How often are you responding to each other’s ‘bids’ for connection?

A bid for connection, put simply, is when you reach out to your partner to fulfill an emotional need. And it’s whether your partner ‘turns towards’ you during this bid, that determines how long your relationship lasts. In other words, when you reach out to your beau, are they acknowledging you or pulling away? Dr Gottman says couples who ‘turn towards’ each other an average of 87% of the time or more, are more likely to go the distance.

• Dating
• love
• Marriage
• Relationships
• Sex