What not to do in a relationship is something most of us only learn after making a few painful relationship mistakes. Sometimes it is the little things, like being unkind, dismissing feelings, or losing trust, that create the biggest distance over time.
If you are looking for honest relationship advice, how to build a strong relationship, and practical tips for a happy marriage, knowing what to avoid can make all the difference.
The best advice for a happy marriage is often simple: protect the love you already have.
KEY POINTS
- Much of the work in evolutionary psychology focuses on intimate relationships.
- As such, the field of evolutionary psychology has much wisdom that can inform our relationships.
- These five tips follow directly from research in the field.
Without question, humans are fascinated by romantic relationships and love. A disproportionate number of popular songs pertain to love (see Hobbs & Gallup, 2011).
Art often pertains to love and relationships (Miller, 2000), as does literature (Grant & Kruger, 2021).
From an evolutionary perspective, this all makes quite a bit of sense. After all, intimate relationships ultimately (and typically) are connected with mating and reproduction.
Related: What Is the Noticing Theory? This Might Change How You See People
And from an evolutionary perspective, that’s pretty much Darwin’s Bottom Line (see Geher, 2014).
Given the evolutionary centrality of intimate relationships, then, it makes sense that much of the work in this field focuses on understanding relationships.
And when you take an evolutionary approach to the study of relationships, you tend to get some pretty deeply seated responses.
And, naturally, this work has implications for our own relationships as we navigate life.
From this backdrop, here are five relationship “don’ts,” that follow from an evolutionary perspective.
What Not to Do in a Relationship: 5 Costly Mistakes Most People Make
1. Don’t be unkind.
Sure, this one might sound a bit kindergarten-ish. But there’s a reason that this is such a basic lesson for humans across the globe.
In research on characteristics desired in romantic partners, across dozens of cultures around the world, Buss and his colleagues (1990) found that, across genders, there is a huge preference for kindness in a long-term partner.
From an evolutionary perspective, this makes solid sense. A kind partner will make you feel supported. You can guess that they will be kind to your children.
They will likely develop a positive reputation within a community, as kindness is valued at that level as well.
The opposite of kindness—perhaps cruelty—seems to have quite the opposite effect. Simply put, kindness is, generally speaking, way more attractive than is cruelty.
2. Never underestimate the emotional experience of love.
Based on years of research, Fisher (1993) and others have found that love is a real thing—not simply some social construction. It can even be seen in brain activity.
Love helps to keep a partnership together—creating a context that is helpful for living together, raising offspring, navigating one’s social world, and more.
Further, love is a highly emotional experience. If you are not feeling love in a relationship, you might be wise to ask yourself if that relationship is right for you.
Many young adults choose long-term relationship partners by essentially checking boxes. If a strong experience of mutual love is not one of those boxes, there is a good chance that none of the other boxes even matter.
3. Cheat on your partner at your own risk.
Research on infidelity supports intuitive notions that this kind of activity may well be a deal-breaker when it comes to relationships (see Buss et al., 1992).
While temptations for infidelity may emerge across the time of one’s relationship, the field of evolutionary psychology is pretty clear on this one: If you truly want to maintain your relationship for the distance, cheat at your own risk.
4. Don’t dismiss your partner’s emotions.
No two people see, feel, and experience the world in exactly the same way. Understanding one’s partner at all levels is essential for strong and healthy communication within a relationship.
Listening carefully to a partner’s feelings is particularly important. Feelings often exist at a subconscious level and, as such, they sometimes require special effort to understand within a relationship.
Taking time to make this kind of effort—to truly work to listen to your partner’s feelings—can surely go a long way toward facilitating positive relationship outcomes (Eisenberg et al., 2024).
5. Showing distrust of your partner can be problematic.
People often talk about the importance of trust within relationships, and there is a good evolutionary reason for this fact (see De Jesus et al., 2021).
A relationship devoid of trust is one in which betrayal, resentment, anger, infidelity, and more may develop.
Want to keep the love in your relationship alive? You’d be wise to keep trust in the relationship for the ride. After all, love and trust often go hand-in-hand. We evolved that way.
Related: 4 Communication Problems Behind Most Arguments and Hurt Feelings
Bottom Line
At the end of the day, many of us want loving and successful intimate relationships. The experience of love is a cross-cultural reality (see Fisher, 1993). And finding true love is something that should be absolutely treasured.
Our relationship psychology evolved over thousands of generations (see Buss, 2017). And the elements of this psychology ultimately were selected by nature to help facilitate survival and reproductive success.
As an added bonus, when it comes to being in a loving-and-successful relationship, happiness often comes along for the ride.
From this evolutionary angle, following (to the best of one’s ability) the five pieces of advice here can go a long way toward cultivating healthy, trusting, loving relationships.
References:
Buss, D. M. (2017). The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating (Revised edition). New York: Basic Books.
Buss, D. M., Larsen, R. J., Westen, D., & Semmelroth, J. (1992). Sex differences in jealousy: evolution, physiology, and psychology. Psychological Science, 3(4), 251–255.
Buss, D. M., Abbott, M., Angleitner, A., Biaggio, A., Blanco-Villasenor, A., BruchonSchweitzer, M [& 45 additional authors]. (1990). International preferences in selecting mates: A study of 37 societies. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 21, 5-47.
De’Jesús, A. R., Cristo, M., Ruel, M., Kruchowy, D., Geher, G., Nolan, K., Santos, A., Wojszynski, C., Alijaj, N., DeBonis, A., Elyukin, N., Huppert, S., Maurer, E., Spackman, B. C., Villegas, A., Widrick, K., & Zezula, V. (2021). Betrayal, Outrage, Guilt, and Forgiveness: The Four Horsemen of the Human Social-Emotional Experience. The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium, 9(1), 1-13.
Eisenberg, E., Lombard, J., & Geher, G. (2024). Assessing the construct validity of emotional intelligence using evolutionary psychology. Personality and Individual Differences. Volume 227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112714
Fisher, H. (1993). Anatomy of Love - A Natural History of Mating and Why We Stray. New York: Ballantine Books.
Geher, G. (2014). Evolutionary Psychology 101. New York: Springer.
Grant, A., & Kruger, D.J. (2021). 'Such an alternative as this had not occurred to her': The transformation of Jane Austen’s Emma as understood from an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 17, 43-60.
Hobbs, D. R., & Gallup, G. G. (2011). Songs as a Medium for Embedded Reproductive Messages. Evolutionary Psychology, 9(3), 390-416. https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491100900309
Miller G. F. (2000). The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, London, Heineman.
Written by Glenn Geher Ph.D.
Originally Appeared on Psychology Today
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