Instant Messages Give Clues To Relationship Health

A recent study conducted on a group of 70 young couples who had been dating at least a year and a half analyzed instant messages and their relation to relationship satisfaction and longevity. The instant messages were collected over a period of 10 days.

They found that the more a woman used the word, “I”, the happier and more secure she felt in her relationship. The reason?  Researchers believe that the more comfortable a woman feels within her relationship, the more she is able to talk about herself.

The “I”-laden instant messages could indicate women were talking about themselves and were comfortable doing so with their partners, Slatcher said.

“Women tend to be more emotionally expressive in general and tend to be more disclosing in general,” Slatcher told LiveScience. “So this finding suggests that beyond women wanting to disclose more and disclosing more in their everyday life, that when they do disclose more in their relationships, they’re happier in those relationships.”

He added, “An alternative explanation might be that you are not so enmeshed in your relationship that you have lost yourself completely,” Slatcher said.

Why study the instant messages?

“Instant messages are a great way to get at how people communicate in the real world,” said lead study researcher Richard Slatcher of UCLA.

Further findings included:

For women, the more they used so-called positive negations, such as “not happy,” the less satisfied they and their partners were in the relationship.

The more men used positive sarcasm, such as “oh great,” the less satisfied they were in their relationships and the more likely that relationship would split.

For both men and women, the use of negative emotions, such as “angry,” wasn’t related to their relationship satisfaction or stability.