ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2010) — Jealousy really is “blinding,” according to a new study by two University of Delaware psychology professors. They found that women who were made to feel jealous were so distracted by unpleasant emotional images they became unable to spot targets they were trying to find.

The researchers suggest that their results reveal something profound about social relationships and perception: It has long been known that the emotions involved in social relationships affect mental and physical health, but now it appears that social emotions can literally affect what we see.

You can read the rest here.

In 1858, a British epidemiologist named William Farr set out to study what he called the “conjugal condition” of the people of France. He divided the adult population into three distinct categories: the “married,” consisting of husbands and wives; the “celibate,” defined as the bachelors and spinsters who had never married; and finally the “widowed,” those who had experienced the death of a spouse. Using birth, death and marriage records, Farr analyzed the relative mortality rates of the three groups at various ages. The work, a groundbreaking study that helped establish the field of medical statistics, showed that the unmarried died from disease “in undue proportion” to their married counterparts. And the widowed, Farr found, fared worst of all.

There are so many benefits to a healthy relationship, but you can read the rest here.

April 15, 2010 — Despite saving us time, fast food may make us impatient and more likely to seek instant gratification, new research finds.

University of Toronto researchers Chen-Bo Zhong, PhD, and Sanford E. DeVoe, PhD, conducted a trio of experiments before coming to that conclusion in a report published in Psychological Science.

The first experiment found that exposure to fast-food symbols increases reading speed even when there’s no pressure to read fast. In the experiment, they randomly assigned 57 college students to look at the center of a computer screen but ignore the corners. Those in the fast-food group were exposed to fast-food logos, flashed in the corners too quickly for the conscious mind to register the images. Those in the comparison group looked at blank squares in the corners. Next, when they all read a passage, those exposed to the logos had a faster reading speed.

You can read the whole article here.

In full disclosure, both my wife and I use Facebook for our personal lives and our ministry along with my dad.  Facebook has not proven to hurt or negatively impact our marriage, but I could not resist posting this very interesting study done in the United Kingdom:

Facebook is bad for your marriage according to research carried out by an online divorce service in the United Kingdom. Divorce-Online scanned their divorce petition database for the use of the word “Facebook” and found 989 instances of the word in over 5,000 divorce petitions sampled.

This means that just under 20% of all the petitions filed through the company had references to Facebook within the text of the divorce petitions.

Managing Director Mark Keenan said “I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was I was really surprised to see 20% of all the petitions containing references to Facebook. The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to”.

Notes to Editors:

About http://www.Divorce-Online.Co.UK

Founded in 1999, Divorce-Online is the UK leader in online divorce services and solutions that help people obtain an uncontested divorce without the need to visit a solicitor. Divorce-Online.Co.UK has helped over 60,000 couples achieve an amicable divorce.

About the research

Research for Divorce-Online was carried out on 20th December 2009 with a sample size of 5,000 divorce petitions.

So why would Facebook be mentioned in 20% of divorce petitions? My guess is that these couples were abusing the use of Facebook in several different ways:

1. Their spouse may be developing inappropriate friendships with the opposite sex. Or maybe, they are even reconnecting with old flames via Facebook.
2. Their spouse may be simply using Facebook too much.  I’ve heard of people using Facebook for over 6 to 8 hours a day! That would be way too excessive.  I think getting on Facebook for about 30 minutes in a day is decent, maybe pushing the limit, but certainly not abusive.
3. Their spouse is airing out their dirty laundry through status updates.  I’ve certainly heard of people hurt by what their spouse put on Facebook as a status update.  An inability to communicate properly could tempt someone to handle their conflict through a social media as opposed to with their spouse.

What do you think? Why else might Facebook be hurting marriages, and have you been hurt by Facebook in your own marriage?

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via Can Couples Survive Trauma? | Healing Together for Couples.

1. Avoid stimulants and sugar.

Here’s the catch-22: the more stressed you get, the more you crave coffee and doughnuts, pizza and Coke. But the more coffee, Coke, doughnuts, and pizza in your system, the more stressed you get. It’s not your imagination. When you are stressed and have low levels of serotonin, your brain produces cravings for sugar and simple carbohydrates, which primes the beta-endorphin system to want more and more. The same with caffeine. It’s a powerful drug that affects a number of neurochemicals in your brain, which means it produces withdrawal symptoms that can make you very very very very irritable.

2. Compare and despair.

The last thing you should do when you’re stressed–which I always do when I’m stressed–is start looking around at other people’s package (job, family support, balanced brain) and pine for some of that. I grow especially jealous of non-addict friends who can enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or those with moms nearby that offer to take the kids for sleepovers.

via 10 More Stress Busters | World of Psychology.

LET’S say you have what you believe to be a healthy marriage. You’re still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together. The dreams you set out to achieve in your 20s — gazing into each other’s eyes in candlelit city bistros when you were single and skinny — have for the most part come true.

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Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.

Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”

But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.

via Modern Love – Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear – NYTimes.com.

My friend, Jeff Fray, over at the Marriage CoMission, shared the link to this TIME magazine article.  It is a very informative article and will give you a lot of insight in to the latest research surrounding the importance of marriage and some of the recent scandals (Gov. Mark Sanford and others):

In the e-mails exchanged between the governor and his girlfriend, they trip over themselves to praise the other’s virtues. She was “special and unique,” “glorious”; he was a man of emotional generosity who “brought happiness and love to my life.” These two humanitarians were engaged not only in worshipping each other’s high-mindedness but also in destroying another woman’s home, hobbling her children emotionally and setting her up for humiliation of a titanic proportion. The squalor and pain that resulted from the Sanford and Ensign midlife crises make manifest a bleak truth that the late writer Leonard Michaels once observed in his journal: “Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another.”

Read the rest here.

A HEAVY-SET young man slumps in his chair, looking bored and disengaged, as his wife ticks off a list of complaints about him. In particular he had forgotten a plan to go on a picnic, which was typical of his failure to listen to her.

As the wife whined on, the man’s eyes shifted, as if searching for an escape route. But he was trapped in John Gottman’s love lab, behind a one-way mirror, being filmed and recorded as part of a 30-year research project. The study has explored what most of us want to know: what distinguishes happy, lasting marriages from those that disintegrate into bitterness or loneliness.

Just over 10 years ago, Dr Gottman published some startling findings of longitudinal research that made him famous. After watching couples interact for a mere 15 minutes in the love lab, he could predict with about 90 per cent accuracy if they would divorce within six years. This week Dr Gottman and his wife and therapist partner, Julie, were in Sydney to run workshops organised by Relationships Australia. “Look for the repair attempt made by the husband and see if she rejects it,” he tells the audience of 150 relationship counsellors as the miserable couple loomed into focus on a big screen. “Gottman is the guru of marriage research and counselling,” says Anne Hollonds, chief executive of Relationships Australia. “It’s like the Pope coming to Sydney.”

via Wedded abyss: how to avoid a bitter, lonely marriage. – National Comment – Port Lincoln Times .

In response to a recent post on resolving conflicts in a marriage, many of you shared thoughtful – and sometimes opposing – views on an important question: Is it OK to argue with your spouse in front of the kids? And if so, how?

As my friend’s experience shows, children are kind of like little litmus strips, the canaries in the coal mine of marital stress: they absorb the emotional climate around them. Posting here, another mother was similarly alarmed when her three-year-old son, after seeing her and her husband have a minor disagreement, stomped angrily up to his father and chastised him for “being mean to Mama.”

In thoughtful comments, some of you aired the “little pitchers have big ears” view, that parents should avoid fighting in front of the kids. But other commenters said children “need to see examples of healthy disagreements and resolution,” as one poster wrote. An adult child of divorce added: “My parents almost never fought, and they were suddenly divorced. I personally think it’s good for (children) to see glimpses of your struggles, so they understand that marriage really is for better or for worse.”

via When Is It OK To Fight In Front Of The Kids? – The Juggle – WSJ.

Reasons for the negative toll kids take on marriage vary between men and women, but researchers say satisfaction levels start dropping as soon as children are born.

The findings of the study, by Brian Doss, PhD, of Texas A&M University, and University of Denver psychologists Galena Rhoades, PhD, Scott Stanley, PhD, and Howard Markman, PhD, are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

They studied 218 young couples (about 26 years old), 132 of which had their first child in the first eight years of marriage and 86 who had no children. Marital satisfaction declined in both groups, but more suddenly among those who had children.

There was a significant decrease in marital satisfaction for both men and women after the birth of a child. Sudden increases in problem intensity and poor conflict management, and decreases in relationship confidence, were seen in mothers after birth; a sudden decrease in relationship dedication was seen in fathers.

via Kids Can Make a Beautiful Marriage Ugly.

Looking back at old yearbook photos, one might be able to tell a lot more than who had acne or a timeless fashion sense, according to a small but intriguing new study.

Researchers in the April 5 issue of the journal Motivation and Emotion proposed that smiling or frowning facial expressions in children and young adults can predict their marital status later in life.

Researchers in the April 5 issue of the journal Motivation and Emotion proposed that smiling or frowning facial expressions in children and young adults can predict their marital status later in life.

via Can Yearbook Smiles Spell Marriage Bliss? – ABC News.

At least one Iowa judge says he will no longer perform marriages.  District Magistrate Francis Honrath who lives in Larchwood, says it’s in response to the Iowa Supreme Court ruling allowing same sex marriage.

To make your marriage legal here in the state of South Dakota the couple has to come here to the Register of Deeds office to fill out these marriage license forms, you turn these in and in return they’re going to give you a marriage license.  At that point, you can go the judge and he’s going to sign off on it.  In the state of Iowa though, there’s one judge who’s not going to take part in the process.

“It should have gone to a public vote and it never would have passed.  I’ll guarantee you it never would have passed,” said Dick Snyders who opposes same-sex marriage.

via Iowa Judge Says He Will Not Perform Marriages | KSFY.com – Your Source for News, Sports, and Weather – Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57104 | Local News .

You’re the perfect couple, people say—so in sync, you never fight. Or they marvel at how you’re always together 24/7, or how you’ve got a super marriage (the Big Careers, the beautiful house, the great family). O tapped the country’s top relationship experts and asked whether there might be trouble in paradise.

via The Too-Good Marriage – Oprah.com.

Ten years ago, Rita was so disgusted with Tony that she filed for divorce. Then she witnessed the impact her decision had on her daughters, who were devastated.

About that time, she heard of a weekend retreat called Retrouvaille (French for “rediscovery”). She and Tony attended the Christian peer ministry created to save marriages. “We did not know what to expect,” she recently told couples and clergy in Macomb County.

“As the weekend unfolded, the presenting couples shared personal experiences about problems they once had in their marriages and how they were overcome.”

Tony added, “We found we were not alone in having a struggling marriage. We began to see hope. The couples were so honest and caring, it was good for all of us.”

They not only saved their marriage, but were also inspired to become a presenting couple.

“It was an opportunity to continue healing our own marriage, and to help save the marriages of other couples. Our personal struggle involved a great deal of forgiveness and love. We learned that love is a decision, and not a feeling,” Rita asserted.

There were 34,500 divorces in Michigan in 2007, and only 59,000 marriages, a divorce rate of 60 percent — the most divorce-prone state in the Midwest.

read the rest here Faith-inspired sessions could save marriages | detnews.com | The Detroit News.

People with severe and recurrent depression could benefit from a new form of therapy that combines ancient forms of meditation with modern cognitive behaviour therapy, early-stage research by Oxford University psychologists suggests.

The results of a small-scale randomised trial of the approach, called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), in currently depressed patients are published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy.

28 people currently suffering from depression, having also had previous episodes of depression and thoughts of suicide, were randomly assigned into two groups. One received MBCT in addition to treatment as usual, while the other just received treatment as usual. Treatment with MBCT reduced the number of patients with major depression, while it remained the same in the other group.

via Meditation Provides Hope For People With Depression.

Miley Cyrus has joined the fun. In aTwitter conversation with Hilton, she said that “everyone deserves to love and be loved and most importantly smile.”

via Miley Cyrus joins the Miss USA debate over gay marriage — chicagotribune.com.

I guess we depressives are a tad sensitive. On the comment box of my post, “Brain Changes After Depression,” many readers confessed that they take criticism the same way I do–as a life sentence–and appreciated the scientific explanation as to why we might do that. Reader Leslie wrote:

Oh, I can so identify with this. I’ve come close to suicide at times because of my fear response to criticism. I hope it helps you as it helps me to know it’s not because I’m a bad person that I can’t handle criticism – it’s just that my brain is not wired the way those other “healthy” people’s brains are.

Yes, actually, it does help me to know what’s going on in my amygdala, or fear center, when I read the harsh comments that tempt me to go into hiding for awhile. In fact, my therapist and I focused on this topic for much of our hour together today … exploring ways to become more resilient to the nastygrams that arrive in my inbox. For so many years–and still today when I hit a vulnerable patch (like now)–I am utterly crushed by a friend’s or co-worker’s disapproval of me or of something that I’m doing. I can feel the fear and panic spread throughout my body almost as if I’ve swallowed poison. My reaction is that strong and disabling.

via You Really Hate Me? On Taking Criticism (Real or Imaginary) | World of Psychology.

The family unit is society’s fundamental unit—95 percentage of US citizens marry by age 55. A marriage breakdown is one of the most stressful life events possible, yet more than one in three will experience the trauma of divorce. Not surprisingly, the dynamics of relationships are increasingly the focus of ever more research. The University of Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies in particular is constantly shedding new light on the institution of marriage with recent research findings establishing that the quality of the relationship with parents-in-law is directly connected to marital satisfaction, and more recently, that 90 percent of couples experience a decrease in marital satisfaction once their first child is born. A new study from the centre looking at divorce rates before and after cities got Major League Baseball teams is fascinating in its implications. The study showed that cities with major league baseball teams had a 28 percent lower divorce rate than cities that wanted major league baseball teams. Can marital harmony really be this simple?

via Cities with MLB Baseball Teams Have a Lower Divorce Rate! – BusinessWeek.