My blog articles dealing with Ambiguity

If you want to read the articles I've written here that deal with the now common and extensive ambiguity in dating and searching, just click here. You will get them all lined up nicely.

How Could Wedding Size Make a Difference?

By Scott M. Stanley & Galena K. Rhoades

In our recent report for the National Marriage Project (Before “I Do”: What do Premarital Experiences have to do with Marital Quality Among Today’s Young Adults?), we focused on how relationship history before marriage relates to marital quality. We examined the history of relationships that came before the relationship with the eventual spouse and premarital experiences with the eventual spouse. For example, having more sexual partners, having cohabited with partners other than the spouse, or having children from prior relationships were all associated, on average, with lower marital quality later on. Further, those who had child with their eventual spouse before marriage, reported that their relationship began by hooking up, or who said they slid into living with their eventual spouse (if they cohabited premaritally at all), also reported lower marital quality.

While there is no end to controversy about the implications of such findings, these findings were really not controversial themselves. There is a history of similar findings as well as strong reasons why such variables will be related to marital outcomes—including selection but also the consequential impacts of the actual behaviors.[i]

Wedding Guests: Does the Number Matter?

In the Before I Do report, we presented an analysis that was, to our knowledge, totally new in this field. In our national, longitudinal sample, we had asked those who got married how many people attended their wedding. We didn’t ask this on a lark. We asked because of a strong theory for why those having more attendees at their weddings might have an edge in marriage.

Those who reported having more guests at their wedding reported, on average, higher levels of marital quality—even when we controlled for factors such as education, religiosity, race, and income. While we controlled for individual income, we didn’t have measures of other possibly important variables to control for such as the cost of the weddings, parental wealth and contributions to the wedding, or a straightforward indicator of the size of the couples’ social network. So, caveat emptor. (If you want to read more on the technical issue of included and unmeasured variables, see one of the follow-up pieces we wrote that was posted here at the Institute for Family Studies.)

Here’s some of what we said about this finding in our report. This section describes the strong theory that may explain, at least in part, the association between wedding attendance and marital quality.

There is some reason to believe that having more witnesses at a wedding may actually strengthen marital quality. According to the work of psychologist Charles Kiesler (1971), commitment is strengthened when it is publicly declared because individuals strive to maintain consistency between what they say and what they do.

We try to keep our present attitudes and behaviors in line with our past conduct. The desire for consistency is likely enhanced by public expressions of intention. Social scientist Paul Rosenblatt applied this idea specifically to marriage (Rosenblatt, 1977). He theorized that, early in a marriage, marital stability and commitment would be positively associated with the ceremonial effort and public nature of a couple’s wedding. Rosenblatt specifically suggested that holding a big wedding with many witnesses would lead to a stronger desire—or even need—to follow through on the commitment.

Our findings suggest that he may have been right. Nevertheless, it is also important to keep in mind that because these questions about weddings have received so little attention in prior studies and because only a small percentage of respondents reported not having a wedding, these findings should be tested in other samples.

This is why we asked the question in the first place. Despite the strength of this idea (and its overlap with clear findings in the study of cognitive dissonance), one of the best alternative explanations was that the cost of a wedding might better explain marital outcomes than the number of guests. After all, couples with more economic resources tend to have many advantages in life and marriage. But we did not have the cost of the wedding in our national data set, so we could not analyze it.

Wedding Guests and Wedding Costs

Thanks to a social psychologist Samantha Joel, who is, like us, is interested in relationship decision making, we came across a study that looks at the number of guests people had at their wedding but also other variables such as the cost of weddings. Economists Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon of Emory University examined how expenses related to getting married (the cost of weddings and engagement rings) and a host of other variables—including the number of guests—were associated with the likelihood of divorce.  They examined a different outcome than we did, divorce not marital quality, but you can see the overlap.

Some of what Francis and Mialon found is complex. Overall, while controlling for a host of variables, they found that spending more money on rings and weddings was not associated with more stable marriages. In fact, those who spent the most on their weddings ($20,000 or more) were, on average, at greater risk for divorce. The economists speculate about why this could be, and they further examine factors such as the stress a large debt from an expensive wedding might place on a marriage.

Here’s the part we zeroed in on. In a variety of analyses (some without controls and some with a large number of control variables—including wedding costs), Francis and Mialon found that higher wedding attendance was associated with lower odds of divorce. Although the findings related to costs of weddings and rings had shown complicated patterns, the pattern related to number of guests was always in the same direction and always clear.

We think this one line from Francis and Mialon’s paper best exemplifies their overall findings: “Thus, the evidence suggests that the types of weddings associated with lower likelihood of divorce are those that are relatively inexpensive but are high in attendance.”

Within a few months’ time, the field has gone from no findings (that we know of) related to the wedding attendance to two reports showing consistent results. There are surely many possible explanations, including some we will to try to investigate further in the future, but this second study seems to rule out one explanation we were most concerned about when interpreting our own finding—the cost of the wedding.

Can I get a Witness?  

Some couples planning a life together do not want a wedding or may want one that is very modest with just close friends and family attending. Personal preferences matter a lot in all of this. Surely, what we are talking about here is just one small part of the overall puzzle of how a couple might build a life together. Many other things matter and matter more, but let’s say you are open to some tips on the size and scope of your wedding. Here are some thoughts.

First, don’t break the bank when getting married. Many young adults have debts already, and may do more harm by taking on further debt with an expensive wedding. It is unfortunate that the image so many now have is of lavish, costly weddings. This wild expectation puts weddings out of reach for those with fewer means and adds greater burdens to parents, brides, and grooms for those with more.

Second, it may be worth finding ways to prioritize the network of friends of family you have, and inviting them to be guests at your wedding. The benefits of having more witnesses at your wedding may come from both the psychological consequences of making a very public declaration of commitment (which should increase follow through) and from having more friends and family who see your relationship as something to rally around, root for, and support.

Third, for couples who do not have a strong network of friends or family, think about how you might build one. We don’t mean trying to do this just in time for your wedding. We mean doing this over time for your marriage. When it’s possible (and we know it is not always realistic), building a friendship with another couple or getting involved in some community group together might be just the thing to start building a network of support and connection around your marriage.

If you like the idea of a big, expensive wedding, can well afford it, and it won’t cause a lot of additional stress, sure. Knock yourself out. But the power of the thing is far more likely to lie in the connections and the commitment than in the lavishness of the spectacle. Building social capital trumps burning economic capital. Prioritize your social network, not the duck canapés.



[This piece was first posted on the blog of the Institute for Family Studies in December, 2014.]

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[i] We wrote a couple follow-up pieces on those subjects for those interested more in what social scientists argue about, here and here. The latter piece discussed particularly challenging issues about how social scientists approach and interpret their analyses.  

Jane Austen Understood Deception and Discovery in Modern Love

Jane Austen’s most beloved novels hinge on a female character misunderstanding which man is the best man until time and circumstances reveal the truth. The resolution always comes from the discovery of character and compatibility—in time.  

Painting by Georg Friedrich Kersting

Austen’s stories are exemplars of “decisions under risk and uncertainty.” That term describes the age-old practice of analyses to limit risk to a reasonable calculation. While some people do this for a living (e.g., insurance actuaries), we all make such calculations in life and love.  

Throughout all her novels, discovery of the nature of others is the theme, and not just among her lead characters. Austen understood that, while we never have perfect information, informed decisions increase the odds of improved outcomes. She also understood deception. Sometimes, one party withholds information that would be valuable to the other. But even more, she was a master in describing how self-deception limits our access to relevant information. “How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!”[i] Indeed.

In Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, Austen’s heroines discover the truth about the men in their lives as more perfect information replaces biased observations. For some, the best decisions come just in time. Lesser characters become victims of poor timing or poor judgment, or both. Still others make do by accepting that there are better men around but that there are no better men available to them. In Pride and Prejudice, these are the story lines for Elizabeth, Lydia, and Charlotte—who make excellent, poor, and good-enough matches, respectively.

Austen provides a near fairy-tale ending for some of her heroines. Nevertheless, she writes lucidly of timeless truths about love, character, and commitment. I believe her understanding is nearly modern, aside from the necessary differences in social context (e.g., entailments) and the dramatic shifts, since then, in the stages of relationships where these dynamics unfold.  

I believe Pride and Prejudice is Austen’s best story, but it’s not my favorite book. I like Sense and Sensibility best because, in it, Austen reveals most clearly the confusion of intention that captivates me as a reader—and a researcher. She understood the dangers of ambiguity in love long before it became what we now see as a dominant aspect of romantic and sexual relationships in life before marriage.[ii]

Sense and Sensibility

If you do not know the story, here’s enough background to understand the points I make here. You can watch the movie later, but the really good stuff is in the book.

Elinor Dashwood is the lead character. She falls in love with Edward Ferrars, brother of the deliciously evil Fanny. Fanny’s husband, John, inherited the Dashwood estate and turned out his father’s second wife and her three daughters by that second marriage. That would include Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret. John is weak and Fanny is cruel. Elinor has sense and wisdom, but she is emotionally reserved. She loves Edward, and Edward is a good man to love. This information about Edward is apparent enough from start to finish. It is signaled at every turn. Unlike the case of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, it only needs confirmation, not discovery.

Marianne is Elinor’s younger sister. She is emotional and a nearly hopeless romantic. Marianne is the sensibility to Elinor’s good sense. Here, sensibility means emotion and captivity to sensation. While we might imagine the title as creatively working a double entendre, that notion relies on our modern definitions. The terms were clearly understood in Austen’s day as I have described them just now.[iii]

Marianne is enraptured by passionate love. Whereas Elinor is head with heart, Marianne is all heart, and therefore at greater risk of being deceived in love. While Elinor and Marianne are separate characters, their characters are also devices for Austen to portray the dangers of different strategies in finding a mate. Elinor’s risk is based in being reserved to the point of loneliness, even in her relationship with her sister, Marianne. Marianne’s risk lies in being blinded by passion, making it hard to see the reality of a man capable of affection but not commitment: Willoughby.

John Willoughby is dashing, gallant (at first blush), and romantic. He enters Marianne’s life as Marianne has fallen and twisted her ankle while walking through the countryside. Willoughby arrives in the need of the moment, checks her ankle to see if it is broken, and carries Marianne away—down the hill to the cottage where the Dashwood women now live. He is revealed as a lover of poetry and passion, attracting Marianne’s heart in the way Marianne believes men like Edward Ferrars never could. Marianne is carried away, body and soul.

Marianne is misled by Willoughby, who though seemingly truly enamored with her, is drawn away. Over time, Willoughby is revealed as a cad incapable of commitment. At one point, Elinor directly questions Marianne’s incautious and rapid embrace of confidence in Willoughby. Marianne fires back:

            “You are mistaken, Elinor,” said she warmly, “in supposing I know very little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, but I am much better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the world, except yourself and mama.  It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;--it is disposition alone.  Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.” 

Alas, seven days are not enough. Seven days are enough time to be overtaken by the rush of infatuation but not long enough to know the nature of another. Both lasting love and heartbreak will often feel exactly the same at the start. Thus, decisions around love are decisions under risk and uncertainty. Some risks are greater than others.

Signals and Signs

The nature of Marianne and Willoughby’s relationship becomes the subject of an argument between Elinor and their mother, Mrs. Dashwood. They are both concerned about Marianne after Willoughby abruptly departs and Marianne is crushed. I find this conversation to be a master class on the nature of ambiguity in romantic and sexual relationships in modern times. The essence of the argument lies in Elinor being convinced that something is awry while her mother—Marianne’s mother, too, of course—defends Willoughby, seeing him as a victim of circumstances beyond his control.

As I and others have noted, the nature of constraints changes the degree to which behavior accurately signals intention,[iv] and Mrs. Dashwood is placing her bet here as she strains to believe the best about Willoughby. She feels his commitment to Marianne is genuine but that he is constrained by his family’s desires. Elinor sees something more in the less that was before her, though she also wants to believe the better interpretation of Willoughby. A central question hinges on whether or not Marianne and Willoughby had become secretly engaged. If so, it would have fit with the strength of what they had all been seeing before Willoughby abruptly left. This is not the only instance of actual or suspected secret engagement in this and in other works by Austen. She understood that secret commitment may not be lasting and mutual.    

Mrs. Dashwood:  But you really do admit the justice of what I have said in his defence?--I am happy--and he is acquitted.

Elinor:  Not entirely.  It may be proper to conceal their engagement (if they ARE engaged) from Mrs. Smith--and if that is the case, it must be highly expedient for Willoughby to be but little in Devonshire at present. But this is no excuse for their concealing it from us.

Mrs. Dashwood: Concealing it from us! My dear child, do you accuse Willoughby and Marianne of concealment? This is strange indeed, when your eyes have been reproaching them every day for incautiousness.

Elinor: I want no proof of their affection…but of their engagement I do.

[Moments later in the dialogue.]

Mrs. Dashwood: Have we not perfectly understood each other? Has not my consent been daily asked by his looks, his manner, his attentive and affectionate respect?  My Elinor, is it possible to doubt their engagement?  How could such a thought occur to you?

Elinor: I confess, replied Elinor, that every circumstance except ONE is in favour of their engagement; but that ONE is the total silence of both on the subject, and with me it almost outweighs every other.

As it should. Commitment is declarative, and engagement is one of the most powerful signals of commitment. It was in Jane Austen’s time and it is now. Valid signals of commitment are powerful because they contain useful information that reduces uncertainty in the face of risk. Austen understood that evidence of attraction does not provide much information about commitment. Nor, for example in modern times, does cohabitation, itself, provide much information about it. By contrast, engagement or mutually declared plans for marriage says a lot about commitment.[v]

While Willoughby’s affections for Marianne are evident to all, Marianne’s broken heart leads her to understand that his love was “every day implied, but never professedly declared.” Jane Austen knew that affection may signify an attachment but romantic attachment, much less mere attraction, is not commitment.[vi] She knew that commitment declares itself. The more public the declaration, the more reliable the information.

Resolution

Austen describes a beautiful transformation in Elinor and Marianne’s relationship that is fueled by their broken hearts. In life, Pain will teach if Suffering will learn. Sensibility moves toward better sense, and Sense becomes more sensible. While a happy ending is not had by everyone in this story, Sense and Sensibility come into balance and both find committed love.

Here’s some modern advice. Seven days are not enough to see what needs seeing. Take it slow. And consider with care what you believe signifies commitment in a prospective mate. Affection has a look but commitment has a voice. 

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[i] Jane Austen, 1818, Persuasion.

[ii] Ambiguity is one of my favorite themes, and in our age, reigns.

[iii] For more on the meaning of Sense and Sensibility, see here.

[iv] “Marriage and Positive Child Outcomes: Commitment, Signaling, and Sequence,” September 18, 2014.

[v] For more on this, see these examples of what I have written on this subject: “Decoding Commitment: When Sally Met Harry,” October 18, 20; First Comes Love, Then Comes…What?,” September 15, 2010; But also, I believe that cohabitation may, in fact, be informative about commitment in some contexts: “Marriage and Cohabitation: Another Take, Building on the Discussion of Selection,” September 9, 2011.

[vi] Interested in a more academic treatise on what I argue here? See Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., and Whitton, S. W. (2010). Commitment: Functions, formation, and the securing of romantic attachment. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 2, 243-257. 

Sunk Costs and Sunken Hopes

Megan McArdle, the popular writer on economics, wrote eloquently and with brutal honesty this Valentine’s Day about the problem of sunk costs in dating and cohabiting relationships: Happy Valentine's Day! Now Cut Your Losses. She describes everything I often write about here and elsewhere, and that my colleague Galena Rhoades and I emphasize in our research on cohabitation and dating. Quoting McArdle:

I'm talking to you, 30-something woman who has been dating the same guy for a couple of years (or more), maybe already moved in together and started picking out that furniture. The one who is ready for those babies, or at least a joint tax return, and would like to get the matter settled as soon as possible. The one who is anxious that her partner doesn't seem as eager as she is but is afraid to deliver an ultimatum for fear the answer will be "OK, bye."

Here's the thing, though: The guy who leaves you because you deliver an ultimatum is probably also the guy who is going to leave you a couple of years later, having wasted more of your prime dating years on his dithering.

That is right on. McArdle, being an economist, recognizes this situation as the problem as a form of the sunk cost fallacy. Humans are prone to hanging onto something because of what is already invested. We seem optimized to avoid losses. Thus, people tend to hang onto some investments where the loss is already irrecoverable. In business parlance, one is throwing good money after bad. This happens a lot because people tend to believe, even want to believe, that their past behavior was rationale: “If I've already put this much into this relationship, it's got to have been smart and it's got to pay off!” Sunk costs are too often not sunken treasure when it comes to waiting for commitment--that's the fallacy as applied here.

In many relationships where one partner is more committed than the other, and waiting for the other to step up, those investments may be already lost. As McArdle so eloquently describes, waiting too often means taking even bigger losses when the day of reckoning finally comes.

Galena Rhoades and I believe that cohabitation plays a large role in this because of the way it increases inertia to stay together, often well ahead of the development of mutually high and clear dedication to be together. (Anything that makes it substantially harder to break up before it's really clear that two people have a future together can play this role: babies, deep one-sided attachment, and so forth.) For example, we have shown in many studies* that those who cohabit before clear, mutual plans to marry (as in marriage or engagement) do not tend to fair as well in marriage. Nothing here means people are doomed or anything. We're talking about relative odds of achieving the best possible outcome in life.

As you can see above, McArdle identifies the problem of waiting to marry someone who never will get there--and she notes how it's often associated with cohabitation. While she's focused on those for whom marriage is not coming with a given partner, we have also noted the problem of the constraints being great enough that some people marry someone they otherwise would have left--before marriage.  None of these paths are ideal.

What I like so much about McArdle's piece is that it's personal. She's describing her own life and what it took to accept the fact that her past partner was not ever going to marry her. She got up, moved out, and moved on. Life is much better now. See her story. It’s really all about what we call asymmetrical commitment in dating and cohabiting relationships. It is noteworthy that, in one of our studies, we found that asymmetrical commitment before marriage is far more likely among those couples who cohabited before rather than after being either married or at least engaged, and that these substantial asymmetries continued right on into marriage. It matters how clear things are before you do something that makes it harder to break up.

In the report we did last year for the National Marriage Project, Galena Rhoades and I presented analyses from our national data set on premarital factors that are associated with marital quality. We found that when one partner perceived his or her commitment as being stronger than the other partner’s before marriage, he or she later reported lower marital quality than those who did not perceive such a difference in commitment. It was one of the strongest premarital predictors of eventual marital quality that we studied. (see the Before "I  Do" report, pages 12 & 22.)

You may wonder how people get stuck so easily in the wrong place. It's not rocket science. The video our team released last week explains this in about as clear of terms as possible (Relationship DUI). It will take 4 minutes of your time to watch it, and it will make sense. It's really quite simple but it describes what people too often do not see until they see it all too clearly.  

If you are looking for lasting love for life in marriage, be careful about things that make it harder to break up before you’ve actually made your choice--and that choice needs to be mutual.


* If you want a narrative summary of our studies and papers related to these themes, with citations and abstracts, see this document.

Disclosure: I am a partner in the company that publishes the online intervention, ePREP, that is linked as a resource. at the end of the Relationship DUI video. 

The Soft Break-Up: Psychology Today piece on ambiguous break-ups

I wrote awhile ago on what I called "The Soft Break-Up." I gave that term to the fact that even break-ups are ambiguous now--along with so much else in unmarried romantic and sexual relationships. Matt Huston at Psychology Today interviewed both me and Galena Rhoades, and wrote a terrific piece on this theme.

It's right here for the reading

Dating: The Soft Break Up

Losses that Motivate Avoiding “The Talk”

[This is the second of two posts on DTRs, wherein I have re-written one of my favorite posts from 2009.]

In my last post, I looked at the question of why people might avoid talking about the relationship; you know, avoid the DTR or having “The Talk.” I discussed several reasons people generally avoid having The Talk, including it being too soon or a couple lacking the ability to have such a talk skillfully. The third reason I raised for avoidance pertains to differences in commitment between partners. I am going to focus on that last point, examining what may go through the person’s mind who does not want his or her partner to start in on The Talk.

Let’s assume a couple who have the names “A” and “B.” I know those are not very imaginative names, but both sets of parents were apparently exhausted and lacked creativity when A and B were born. What are you gonna do? Despite the odd names, A and B found each other (they were in the same line at the Department of Motor Vehicles) and have been involved (a nice ambiguous term) for over a year.

Partner A is more committed to the future than partner B, and A has been thinking a lot about where things are going. In this example, I’m really focusing on a later stage of DTR than merely discovering if each considers what’s happening a relationship. Partner A is the one who wants a future and, naturally, A wants to know what B is thinking about that.

Clarifying the relationship has become increasingly important to partner A because A realizes that time is going by. A has plans for committed, life-long love. Partner A wants to settle down in marriage and needs to know if this is in the cards with B. Like most people who are “in the market” for life-long love, partner A will be less inclined to spend a lot of time with someone if A learns there is no future. So, it’s really time to start finding out. This is not pushing for clarity too soon. But the time is now.

Even though partner A really wants to get things clear, partner A could still be pretty wary of starting the DTR process. Partner A might avoid this talk because A has a hunch that partner B either sees no future or is not ready to be tied to anything that sounds like a plan. But let’s focus in more on partner B.

Before I do that, note that this scenario is common and depicts a painful reality about commitment: The person who is most committed has the least power. This is an extension of a principle framed decades ago, when Sociologist Willard Waller (1938) wrote about the Principle of Least Interest. Waller noted that, in any relationship (romantic, family, business deal, car buying, etc.) the person with the least interest has the most power. While I can think of some nuanced situations where this is not exactly true, this notion is completely true in the relationship between partners A and B. Since B is less committed, B can more easily walk away and move on from the present relationship. In an important way, A’s desire to push the matter, now, is an attempt to either bring balance to the force or, at least, figure out, unflinchingly, if that balance won’t be happening between A and B.

Since partner A loves partner B, and knows he or she wants a future with partner B, pushing the matter is scary. People tend to avoid scary things until they can’t put them off any longer. At some point, in this type of situation, the cost of not knowing exceeds the cost of finding out the answer you don’t want to hear. For many people, I fear way too much time goes by between when this line is crossed and when the big picture DTR actually happens.

The reasons why partner B might avoid The Talk seem more complex, in my view, but they all boil down to calculations over types of loss. Partner B likes the status quo. Whatever the relationship is right now, partner B is happy not to rock the boat, and having The Talk will rock the boat, so B does not want to mess with anything. 

What types of loss can The Talk represent to B? At least three I can think of and describe.

One: If partner B is quite a bit less committed, and senses or knows this, partner B will understand that having a clarifying talk will likely mean breaking off the relationship. B avoids The Talk because of a desire to hang onto the present arrangement even when B sees little likelihood of a long-term future.  

Two: If partner B is somewhat less committed than A, but a future is at least possible, The Talk will lead to a type of ongoing negotiation. One talk will lead to other talks because one isn’t going to do for making things clear or settling what’s happening. Partner A will see some possibility of getting resolution, so A will keep pressing. Like the famous line from the climax of the first Star Wars movie: “Stay on target. Stay on target.” One should fear getting that close to the Death Star but partner A will keep driving in the hopes of wiping out the fear. Partner B doesn’t want this process to start because, like I said, B likes the status quo, even if an equal commitment might be possible in the future. That’s the future and this is today, and all this talking about serious stuff just ain’t fun.

Three:  Partner B might avoid The Talk because the end result will be that B has to up his or her commitment. This is sort of like playing poker. Both partners have their cards (their commitment cards and their cards related to how good their alternatives are). Partner A is throwing all in, and partner B is being called to pony up or fold. Partner B has to match the bet of partner A if A pressed hard enough. 

To put it briefly, partner B avoids The Talk because it can lead to one of several types of loss:  

Loss of the relationship due to break up.

Loss of peace in the relationship due to ongoing negotiation.

Loss of freedom due to having to match the bet of A or leave the game. 

If partner A really decides it’s time to push, and you are counting, that’s three “dues” and it’s time to pay them.

Why People Avoid the Talk (DTR)

[Dear readers, Years ago I had written a couple of pieces on DTRs that I had re-posted earlier this year. This is a substantial update on the first of those two pieces.]  

As you probably know, DTR means Define The Relationship. The Urban Dictionary defines the DTR this way:  “When two people discuss their mutual understanding of a romantic relationship (casual dating, serious boyfriend, etc).”

Doing the DTR is often referred to as having "the talk." I believe "DTR" has joined our vocabulary precisely because of the increased ambiguity in modern day romantic relationships. I write about ambiguity often because I think it's important. For example, I recently wrote about the confusion people often feel about dating. 

DTRs exist as a process in order to bring some clarity to what’s going on between two people.

The way most people use the term seems to be a bit more specific than the global definition in the Urban Dictionary. People commonly think about the DTR talk as something that occurs on the cusp between being regularly involved and being “official” about being in a relationship together. For some, the aim of the DTR is to move the relationship from hanging out to “dating” in terms of what two partners are willing to tell others. The process, when it advances the relationship, seems somewhat like crossing the border between one country and another, where you have to produce documents about who you are and where you are headed. Indeed, for many couples, the talk will determine customs moving forward.  (Does that make the one pursuing the talk a customs official?)

People were not so aware of this idea 30 or 40 years ago. Sure, people talked and clarified things, but there was less of a recognized need for a specific type of talk back then. There was, however, the idea of going steady, among various other markers of an upgrade in mutual understanding of what was happening. Oftentimes, today, having the talk leads to the same result as starting to go steady did in the past. But as you can see by the Urban Dictionary definition, a DTR talk can lead to any sort of improved understanding between two people, whereas going steady meant a specific increase in commitment and exclusiveness. Technically, while not what the person pushing for the talk usually wants, a DTR talk could lead to increased understanding that there is not much in the way of a serious, mutual commitment between two partners. I’ll come back to that below and in the next post I write.

Here are some reasons for avoiding the talk.

Reason number 1: It’s just too soon to have the talk.

If one brings up the talk too soon, they are likely to come across as needy or even desperate in the eyes of the other. A lot of people chase others off. Some people never do this, some do it a time or two and learn not to keep doing it, and others feel impelled by a need for security to push too often too soon and tend to live more painful lives as a result. People in the latter group tend to give way too much too soon, and too often, to people they are attracted to in life. That’s a form of the terrible “toos” I suppose.    

Some people avoid making things clear because they fear clarity might force the end of a relationship they otherwise want to keep, at least for the time being. After all, especially in earlier stages of relationships, some ambiguity can help two people keep seeing each other while they are figuring out how compatible they are for a possible future. Beyond earlier stages, ambiguity can keep fragile relationships alive that would otherwise not survive clarity. That’s exactly what some people want, of course. The risk, though, is spending ever more time in a fragile relationship that might keep one from finding a better match. It also must be true that, for some people, the fragile relationship they have now is as good as they could have at this time. Their real choice may be between the present relationship and no relationship. Particularly before defining a strong, mutual commitment, everyone’s relationship dynamics take place in a broader context of what their alternatives are to the present relationship.

Overall, some people push for the talk too soon and some don’t push soon enough. Both carry risks. It’s complicated.

Reason number 2: Having at DTR talk takes some guts and skill. Many people do not have the combination and may therefore avoid the talk until circumstances really force the need.

It’s hard enough for couples in relatively healthy and committed relationships to talk effectively about emotional or sensitive issues. These days, many people are not well equipped to have an effective DTR. This is where I can see some advantages to the older convention of going steady. It didn’t take any big discussion to get to the point; one merely had to ask the other if she (or he) wanted to go steady.

Bill:     “Alice, I’ve been thinking. Would you go steady with me?”

Alice:  “Bill, I’m not prepared for that. I don’t want to do that right now.”

Ouch. That hurts but Bill now knows where he stands, and it was not a very complicated conversation. The talk could go on to define what not going steady really meant, of course, but if there was agreement to go steady, all the needed information about expectations were built into the term by common cultural understanding. There was no need for a high level of skill to ask or answer the question. Ask and answered. Move on. Now, people need to have enough skill to build an understanding from the information coming from talks designed to DTR. I’m sure Bill does not feel any better than someone today does when they do not get what they were hoping from in a DTR moment. But the process was efficient.

Reason number 3. I think the most interesting reason people avoid DTRing is that there are issues about commitment in one or both partners. By commitment, I mean having a willingness to commit to the future and have some identity as a couple.   

When it comes to commitment, either partner A and B are nearly equally committed or they are not. At earlier stages of relationships, an imbalance is common since one partner often becomes more committed sooner than the other. However, when this imbalance goes on and on, it can become a serious problem. When it never ends, the more committed partner is a candidate for a mention in a new edition of the book, He’s Just Not That Into You.  (Or She’s Just Not) That book is humorous and brutal and a bit coarse, but it deals directly with ongoing commitment imbalances and how people put up with a lot to hang onto a little.  

The commitment complication provides one of the greatest reasons someone might avoid raising the issue even if it seems long past time to clarify things. When there could be a possible imbalance in commitment, the one raising the question is risking outright rejection, so may avoid asking for the clarity that he or she deeply desires.

One of the biggest problems with ambiguity is that serious differences in commitment levels can be missed. The more committed person may be perfectly aware that he or she is more committed, but, in many other cases, the intense attraction felt for the partner can make it hard to register what really is a substantial vulnerability in the relationship.That's the biggest risk in avoiding clarity, indefinitely. 

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Motivated Ambiguity: "Is this a date or not?"

Motivated Ambiguity

There is a recent article in USA Today about ambiguity in dating relationships, entitled, “Is it a date? Or hanging out?” The article is about the ways in which people are confused these days about when and if they are on a date, compared to just hanging out or just being together. While the piece is focused on what I’d consider the earlier stages of relationships, I think ambiguity has become rampant throughout all stages of romantic involvement except when there is a strong, clear commitment such as in marriage. Ambiguity reigns.

I think ambiguity in dating has grown tremendously in the past couple of decades and I think this ambiguity is motivated. Ambiguity has a deep anchor in the desires and fears of individuals living in our modern age. Why would ambiguity be desired even when it can be so frustrating? Glad you asked.  

Ambiguity has grown because it is perceived to be safer than clarity in a world where lasting love is considered risky, unlikely, and unobtainable. People see little stability in love and commitment, whether in their parents or in others. This adds to the sense that love is risky. That leads to a sense that being vague can prevent painful loss.

One driver of ambiguity is that it offers emotional safety—perceived, not real, that is. If you are clearer to yourself and to others about what you really want most, it can hurt more when you do not get what you long for. People become more attached and committed to longings that have been acknowledged and expressed.

Don’t get me wrong. People want security in love, at least eventually. Adults benefit from security in love and children thrive when secure in the love of their parents. This brings me to what I think is the second driver of the growth in ambiguity: attachment insecurity. I cannot prove this but I believe that there is more attachment insecurity than there used to be because there is an increase in family instability. I’ve written about this trend and its consequences before, so I will just give you a link to where you can read my latest piece on how family instability contributes to an ever greater number of people with attachment issues (click here). 

My colleagues and I have written on ambiguity and attachment.  Here’s a section from a chapter by me, Galena Rhoades, and Frank Fincham (2011):

There is a robust literature demonstrating the myriad of ways in which such attachment insecurities last into adulthood and impair romantic relationship development and security (e.g., Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). In just one potential mechanism of effect, the development of insecure-avoidant characteristics seems increasingly likely for those growing up in the U.S. This possibility alone could propel an increase in preference for ambiguity in the romantic relationships of emerging adults. If it is not totally clear when a relationship begins or how serious it really is, it may be believed that it will hurt less when it ends. Hence, those with high levels of attachment insecurity based in family history may feel comforted by ambiguity when the alternative is clarity that heightens a sense of insecurity about stability.

There are two dominant forms of attachment problems in romantic relationships: anxious attachment styles and avoidant attachment styles. Consider the allure of the ambiguous dating scene for these styles of romantic being.

Again, from Stanley, Rhoades, and Fincham: 

Of course, such ambiguity may not be comforting or preferred among those who are anxious in their attachment style, but they may well learn not to rock the boat and push too hard for clarity when doing so threatens what stability of relationship they currently enjoy.

In other words, those who are anxious about attachment may be motivated to accept ambiguity. Some ambiguity is appropriate, initially, when two people are just getting to know each other. But ambiguity about whether there is even something like a date happening probably takes this too far.

Just as there is something in ambiguity for the anxiously attached, there is something for the avoidant types among us. In another paper, Galena Rhoades, Sarah Whitton and I wrote about ambiguity and the development of commitment (2010):

In contrast to anxiously attached individuals, those who have avoidant attachment styles will resist increasing the level of commitment because of their desire to limit closeness and obligation. Their individual needs for avoidance will inhibit felt anxiety about romantic attachment and the development of commitment on the dyadic level. When these two different, insecure attachment styles are combined in one relationship, it is easy to see how the dyadic commitment processes that may provide security for one of the partners could increase anxiety for the other.

While these thoughts are focused on dynamics later in relationships, just wind this same thinking back to the dating or hanging out stage and you see the type of forces underlying the phenomena the USA Today piece is focused on.

We live in a world of anxious love, longing, and avoidance. Early on in relationships, this may be merely annoying. Overtime, I believe it becomes positively dangerous. One of the greatest risks in romance is when one person invests significant emotional energy in another only to find that there is permanent ambiguity anchored in the unwillingness or inability of the other to commit. Unclarity late in the process starts with unclarity early on.

If you are looking for love you have not yet found, and you want off the ambiguous path, I have some simple advice. Communicate.  I don’t mean asking if this new person will spend their life with you within a week or two of meeting. But communication is a serious antidote to ambiguity and ambiguity has serious emotional risks for all the appearance of emotional safety. If you chase someone off by asking for a little clarity, I’d be inclined to think the odds of that relationship having a happy and healthy future were not so great from the start.    

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References

Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Fincham, F. D. (2011). Understanding romantic relationships among emerging adults: The significant roles of cohabitation and ambiguity. In F. D. Fincham & M. Cui (Eds.), Romantic relationships in emerging adulthood (pp. 234-251). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Whitton, S. W. (2010).Commitment: Functions, formation, and the securing of romantic attachment. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 2,243-257. DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00060.x

The Soft Break-Up

When you really love someone and they break up with you, it’s going to hurt. That can be pretty hard. That’s one kind of hard break-up; hard in the emotional sense. In another way, however, it’s getting more difficult for break-ups to be hard. By this I mean less about emotional pain and more about the clarity with which a relationship stops. There have always been messy, lingering break-ups, but break-ups used to be more likely to come with clear and definitive ends. Hard stops. Full stops.

I cannot give you a number but I believe that more and more break-ups are soft. Why? Technology is a big part of the answer.

If you are young . . ..  Hold up a moment. For our purposes today, I want to define young as being under the age of 35. (I apologize to those of you who are 35 and older for choosing that particular cut off.) Anyway, if you are young, you have grown up in a time of rapidly escalating use of online connection, text messages, and social media. When it comes to electronic ways of being connected, 15 years ago was the Dark Ages.

If you are young per my definition above, this next point may seem unimaginable to you.  Seriously involved couples used to break up and severe all, or almost all, contact. Imagine that, if you can. That’s a hard break-up—a full stop to the relationship. Sure, sometimes when a couple shared a major social group like church or school or small towns, the two ex-partners would continue to “see” each other around. After all, you couldn’t make the other person quit the group just because you were no longer together. But other than such cases, break-ups were hard not soft. Relationships truly ended, relatively clearly. Sure, some people got back together, but fewer than do now. And lots of people have occasionally checked on an ex, especially if they still shared some social network that made it possible to do so (non-electronic, I mean). But mostly, relationships ended and, when they did, that was that. Hard stop.

Electronic connections have staying power. You might “unfriend” someone on Facebook that you had been seeing or were seriously involved with in the past, but you may also just not bother to get this done. It takes some effort. It also used to be vastly more unacceptable to keep any contact with someone you used to date once you were in a new relationship. It’s hard to say which change lead the other, but I suspect the mass of ways to stay connected electronically preceded the social change for it becoming marginally more acceptable to keep tabs and contacts with someone you used to be involved with romantically. People have always been curious about what others they used to date were doing “now.” But it was vastly harder to keep tabs. That’s partly why some people are so interested in High School reunions. That was a chance to see what’s become of Susie or Sam or Billy Joe. (The other social change I’ll not address much here, but one that adds to all the complexity of this topic, is the growth in the sheer number of partners that many people have been involved with by the time they settle down.)

To recap, the default for breaking up used to be fairly rapid disconnection from an ex, along with a relative absence of ongoing access to information about the life of this past love. There were many exceptions, of course. Still, the default was hard break-ups. The default is shifting now toward soft break-ups.

Hard break-ups are useful. They are especially useful to committed couples. New, serious relationships are going to be harder to sustain while people are busily connected to, and still monitoring, their exes. After all, it’s a pretty rare couple that can cope well with one or both partners staying connected with exes through electronic media. Exes may no longer be so ex but that does not completely alter the dynamics of jealousy.

Because the default for breaking up is now soft rather than hard, people have to put more effort in cutting off connections when a relationship ends. There is otherwise a lot of inertia in favor of the connections continuing because we live in a world of links. Letting things slide is letting all the connections continue. It requires decisions and action steps to make a break-up more total.

Does all this matter? Obviously, I think it does. A fundamental aspect of commitment relates to how a person manages attraction to, and connection with, alternative partners. I don’t know what vows are most in vogue right now, but “forsaking all others” is a classic marital vow (at least in wedding services from a Western tradition). That line represents the fact that committing to one partner means choosing to give up other partners one could have had.

Real commitments always involve making a choice to give up other choices. That’s the essence of commitment. If you are in a relationship with potential for a real, lasting future, consider the advantages of making some hard break-ups with your past. You have to decide to do this because of the aforementioned inertia of the otherwise ongoing, electronic connections. You might also have to talk with your partner and work out a plan together for how you will cut some old ties.

As is so often the case, technology brings a vast number of options but this also makes choices more important (and more difficult). Friends are great to have, but a gallery of past loves is a pretty complicated audience for a new stage of life.

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Rings, Signals, Sex, and Babies

[There is an updated version of this post at my Psychology Today blog, here.]

Plain gold ring on his finger he wore

It was where everyone could see

He belonged to someone, but not me

On his hand was a plain gold ring

            Lyrics to “Plain Gold Ring”

by George Stone (performed by Nina Simone, recently, by Kimbra)

I’ll come back to these lyrics by the end of this post. 

Last time, I left you with a question:  Should Tyra keep the engagement ring she got from Sam?

My answer is, “yes.”  Tyra clearly feels like she lost something of value to her with Sam breaking off the long engagement—time wasted on her biological clock. In this particular case, the value of the engagement ring is in line with how they came to be commonly used in the US over the past decades:  A promise by a male to a female of following through on the intention to marry. The reason that I feel like the economics writer I noted last time (O’Brian) was wrong about it no longer makes much sense for a female to keep a ring if an engagement ends is that there is one thing that has not changed—biology. Women are the ones who get pregnant.  Yes, there was that one exception and maybe a few others, but . . . ..  Women are also the ones who bear children (goes with the whole pregnant thing).  Lastly, with a growing number of exceptions, women are still far more likely to be the ones who spend the most time on child care. 

Biology affects societal and cultural trends and customs.  This aspect of biology makes women, on average, more vulnerable than men to things going wrong in dating, mating, marriage, and family development. This is why it has been widely recognized that, ON AVERAGE (meaning, there are many exceptions), it’s more critical for females to properly decode the commitment levels of men, early on, than vice versa.  Some aspects of advances for women in careers and earnings counter this, but there is still not way to wipe out the fundamental differences that begin with who can and who cannot have a baby.

While the use of customs to clarify commitment seems to me to be waning, there is a perfectly good rationale for the existence of societal customs that require romantic partners, male or female, to produce clear signals of commitment as a relationship progresses. Further, it’s most crucial that those who stand to lose more if things go South protect themselves by getting the clearest evidence of commitment that’s possible and appropriate for a relationship stage from their partners. Sacrifices made by one for another are one of the clearer kinds of signals one can get about commitment. However, these run more risk of being misinterpreted. Another would be societally sanctioned emblems of public commitment: for example, the engagement ring, Facebook status designations and so forth.

Back to the sexism of biology for a moment: I think there could be a further biological bias in the mix here that makes it harder for the one who is most committed to see accurately how committed a partner is.  Women (and, no doubt some men) have more active oxytocin systems than their partners, and this propels sacrificing behaviors that may be, unfortunately, not shared.  To make a good thing worse, oxytocin can boost trust, but that does not mean it’s boosting trust according to facts.

Looking for lasting love? Here is some advice related to these themes. 

1.  If you can become pregnant, it’s especially important for you to look for, and wait for, clear evidence of a mutual commitment to the future before allowing yourself to get too deeply drawn in.  That’s why there has, historically, been some protection in marriage compared to things like cohabiting (especially without engagement); there is no doubt about what is meant to be signaled with public declarations such as engagement and marriage.  To be the most protective, that evidence of your partner’s commitment should be seen clearly by you and others. (Which also means that a person might have to be more careful when public signals are hard to come by.)

Some of you may be thinking, “hey Scott, what do you mean by ‘if you can become pregnant?’” 

Simply this: Is it biologically possible for you to become pregnant?  You may or not be intending to have sex and/or you may be using birth control.  Birth control methods have failure rates.  So do intentions not to have sex.   

2.  Whether or not you can become pregnant, do you attach strongly to people, quickly? If that’s you, you also are at greater risk from not looking for cues about commitment. Your own desire for connection, along with the power of oxytocin, can make you misread the signals about how committed a partner is to you.  Lots of people find out, painfully, that they were “over-giving” to a partner who was never going to become more seriously committed.  Kinda of gives “over-share” a whole new definition.

3.  Think about the markers that you think should give you valid evidence about the commitment level of a partner in a relationship that is progressing. What do you think you need to see? Give some serious weight to what you might look for that is public.  Public displays of commitment beat the snot out of private, ambiguous messages and hints about commitment.  DTRs are nice, but it takes a lot of skill and guts to do them right.  So, it’s good to have clear ideas about what else to look at to decode commitment. 

The haunting lyrics from Plain Gold Ring, posted at the outset here, get what I’m going after as the most protective.  It is an example of an emblem of commitment that is so unambiguous that partners and outsiders know exactly where things stand.   

4.  If you have a friend or two that seems really wise and knows you well, share what you are thinking and see if they can knock some holes in your ideas about correctly decoding commitment.  Love is blind but does not have to be. 

Here are some links to older posts of mine that are directly related to these themes: 

Decoding commitment

http://slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com/2010/10/decoding-commitment-when-sally-met.html

Is Roulette what You are Playing?

http://slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com/2009/08/hand-held-hand-played.html

Having the Talk:  DTR I

http://slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com/2009/05/dtr-dance-avoiding-talk-i-wrote-in.html

Having the Talk:  DTR II

http://slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com/2009/05/dtr-part-ii.html

Oxytocin and Commitment 

http://slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com/2010/03/relationship-development-and-oxytocin.html

Kimbra (amazing new singer coming out of New Zealand) has a wonderful YouTube of Plain Gold Ring, if you are interested.  Here

Rings True

[There is an update version of this post at my Psychology Today blog, here.]  

              If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Beyonce, Single Ladies

Is Beyonce’s famous line sexist or what? What does it mean to put a ring on it? What if you put a ring on it and then wanted the ring off it? That's my focus here, but I'll  come back to other aspects soon.

Do you ever wonder about how certain cultural rituals developed? While marriage is a worldwide phenomenon, the customs around it vary tremendously by culture and era.  If I had another professional life to live, I could enjoy being an anthropologist studying marriage and family. Let’s talk today about engagement rings and a recent story in the news about their history.

While engagement ring customs are not universal, there are universal aspects of marriage customs that govern various factors related to marriage such as courtship, rules about betrothal, and rules about how and if a marriage can end. The customs vary but they often have a lot to do with assuring true intention to follow-through and provisions for the security of a union that is the basis, often, for a family as well as the joining of two families (the latter still being considered very important in many parts of the world).  

Especially in an era where marriages are founded around the principles of intimacy and deeper connection, a central role that commitment plays is to secure romantic attachment. When there is intense attachment to another but unclear commitment, it makes most people anxious about the potential loss of the partner. When commitment is clear and working well between two partners, it promotes safety in the connection and the future of the relationship. People relax and invest when there is safety and clarity in commitment.

Therefore, some customs around romantic relationships represent emblems of commitment and they serve the function of signaling security in commitment.  Enter the ritual of engagement rings.

Matthew O’Brien at the Atlantic writes about business and economics, and recently wrote a piece about engagement rings that a friend noted I’d be interested in. So right. The piece is entitled, “The Strange (and Formerly Sexist) Economics of Engagement Rings.”  It’s an excellent little piece. O’Brien notes the degree to which this custom took hold was propelled in our culture by a marketing campaign by N. W. Ayers on behalf of DeBeer’.  This is fascinating, though it makes me feel about as warm and fuzzy as knowing that greeting card companies started some commemorative days I am emotionally attached to and celebrate. By the way, did I tell you when World Commitment-Related-Blog Day is? It’s coming up, but I have not set the exact date. I have to design a line of digital cards, first, that you can send to friends through my site here, for a fee, of course.  If you’d rather just keep your schedule free from another day where something is celebrated, just send me 5 bucks and forget the card. US funds are preferred.  Old diamond rings, no longer being used, are acceptable as well.

O’Brien points out that there used to be laws about the breach of a promise to marry (similar to how their used to be laws about the breach of promises made in marriage).  These laws allowed women to sue men for failing to follow through on marriage plans. Apparently, since even many decades ago, it was not uncommon for a couple to have sex before marriage, and virginity was highly prized when one became married, males could be forced to compensate females for reducing their value by having sex with them but failing to follow through on the promised marriage (which often became the pretext for the sex happening in the first place).  Note the logic here. Women were more likely to give something of value to men in the context of the male promising commitment to the future.

You may have noticed that times have changed in a few respects here. O’Brien cites work by a legal scholar Margaret Brinig that supports the idea that the engagement ring (expensive engagement rings—with Diamonds, thanks to DeBeers’) became an actual custom performing the same function as the breach of promise laws once those laws started to disappear. So, the legal obligation was replaced in some parts of society with an economic promise of forfeiture should a male promised to a woman not fulfill the promise to marry. Hence began the custom that a woman keeps the ring if the man bails. These days, you’ll see plenty of debates in advice columns about if and when a ring should be returned based on how a marriage has been called off.  O’Brien seems to think this debate is over, but I’m not so sure it is. He considers it somewhat obvious that the woman would give the ring back to a man who did not follow-through on a promise to marry.

All of this raises some interesting questions.  Let’s deal with a few here and then I’ll continue in the next post.

Q:  Why don’t women, historically, give something expensive to the man in case she changes her mind? Is this sexist in the pejorative sense of sexist-bad? Is this sexist in some rationale sense, whether one wants to think it good or bad, related to differences in men and women?  (I’ll come back to this in another post, but have fun thinking about it.)

Q: In the following vignette, should Tyra give the ring back to Sam?

Sam and Tyra started dating when they met at age 26. They got engaged at age 27, and he gave her a really nice ring.  Now they are 32. So, the engagement has gone on for 5 years.  I think this is a new trend, by the way, long engagements. For some, endless engagements reflect a desire to tell others they, as a couple, are more committed than average but it’s not as much a plan to marry as a way to signal this higher level of commitment to others—“we’re off the market but we may never really walk the aisle.”

Anyway, Sam and Tyra are now 32, have been cohabiting for 4 years, and they are still engaged.  Sam starts to fall for a woman at work, and the gravitational pull toward this new woman just grows and grows.  After some anguish and a lot of effort to work through untangling their lives, he achieves enough escape velocity to move on.  (See recent, prior notes on inertia!)

Tyra is feeling VERY burned. Of course, the burning could have happened just as easily either direction, but in this case, Tyra felt that the engagement and the cohabiting were sure signs they were going to get married. She plans to keep the ring and she wishes it were bigger still.  In his article, O’Brien suggest that women would/should generally give rings back in this day an age because are increasingly likely to be the ones with the good jobs, and therefore, do not really need the collateral of the ring. While not stated, I would imagine he and many others these days would also not consider Tyra to have given anything more away than Sam has by them having sex and no longer being virgins. It is an interesting question to consider, though, if she was risking more, even in this, and how that is the case.  Again, maybe something I'll get into in the next post.

At any rate, Tyra doesn’t feel like Sam owes her for her no longer being a virgin. She feels that was pretty mutual and not something to blame him about. And while she's deeply hurt about him leaving her for another woman, that's not the biggest reason she feels he owes here, either. She feels Sam owes her for wasting time on her biological clock. You might say she is "ticked" off. Tyra wants children and Tyra wants a nuclear family to raise those children in. Tyra has read a great deal about the biological clock and knows well what her odds are and how they have already changed, and what time might be left on the ticking biological clock. Tyra does believe she has lost something of value because she’s lost some of her window on one of her most deeply held life goals.

Does Tyra keep the ring? Should they have talked about the meaning of the ring in the first place, and what happens if what if happens?

Next up, a post on sexism and commitment and babies.  Should be fun.  I promise you, and if I have your number, I’ll give you a ring when I post it.

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Decoding Commitment: When Sally met Harry

Commitment can be thought of in many ways. As I’ve mentioned before, a basic breakdown can be made between commitment that means dedication to something and commitment that means constraints to follow through with something. They are linked. Today’s dedication becomes tomorrow’s constraint. You decide something today—as in really decide to commit yourself to it—and things you do today (and tomorrow) because of that decision-based dedication will increase your constraint to continue on that path. This does not mean that commitments cannot be broken. They are broken everyday. Where would the news industry be without broken promises and commitments? Next time, when you watch the news or television talk shows, think about how many of the stories you are watching involve some type of failed commitment or broken trust. Onward.

Without a decision being forced by someone or something, it’s hard to say a commitment has happened. Even when a commitment has happened within an individual, it may not be as obvious to others. Sometimes that does not matter much and sometimes it matters a lot because you want to know how committed another person is—to you, for example. This is especially true in romance where there can be a desire for a future in one person that is not reciprocated; and even if the desire is there, when it’s unclear that it’s there, it can be pretty unpleasant for the more clearly committed partner. As I noted in my earlier postings about men and women, and my theory of average differences in how commitment develops, I think it’s pretty critical for people in developing romantic relationships to accurately assess or decode the commitment level of their partners. Not super early on, but certainly as things develop. If you agree that it’s important to be able to correctly read the commitment level in another, what signals commitment these days? I mean, what signals commitment in a romantic relationship that might have long-term potential (like in marriage)? Does cohabitation? Does having a baby? (Note, that 40 years ago, I’d not have had much reason to list having a baby as a potential signal about commitment before a couple is married. Things have been changing, as you no doubt know.)

Check back to my last post for a moment. I wrote about all sorts of things that are associated with a dating or cohabiting couples remaining together a year after we asked them to answer questions about their relationships. In that study that will come out in print soon, by Galena Rhoades, myself, and Howard, Markman, things like having a cell phone plan or a gym membership or a shared lease were more associated with staying together than having a baby together. I speculated that the reason for this is that some of these things that seem so small compared to having a baby seem to have a defining feature that having a baby does not require: they are decisions you have to make, on some level, together. Since decisions are fundamental to commitments, there is some type of commitment reflected in those small investments. Hence, the irony. These relatively minor decisions seem to reflect more about commitment than the major transition of having a child together. One of my favorite lines is coming up just about now: You can have transitions without decisions and those transitions won’t necessarily reflect commitment. I said “won’t necessarily” because they might reflect commitment and they might not. My point is that transitions without decisions don’t tell you much about commitment.

So, you cannot slide into a shared cell phone contract but you can slide into having a baby. We live in a crazy world. Does that mean you could trust that a person is growing in commitment to you if they will join you in a cell phone plan? It may be. Of course, the child would benefit from having two parents who decided to build a family together as a matter of commitment. The cell phone plan is made to expire, parenthood is not.

Think with me about a common romantic scenario. Let’s suppose Harry met Sally; I’m not sure when they met, but they met. Sally loves Harry and Harry loves Sally. That part is easy enough. They are young and in love. However, as things continue, Sally is clear in her mind that she wants a future with Harry; Harry isn’t so sure. Sally wants the commitment nailed down. Harry is not actively looking around, but he’s not sure he’s found what he’s looking for—his soul mate. Sally has a pretty critical job to do. If she doesn’t do it well, she’s at risk of becoming a character in the second edition of the book “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Sally needs to decode, over time, how committed Harry can be to her. Her job would have been easier 40 years ago but it’s not 40 years ago. I’ll write about that another time.

What things can Sally look for in Harry to figure out how committed, or potentially committed, he is to her? I’d argue that many things could inform Sally about Harry’s commitment potential. I’d also argue (and will) that there are two very common transitions that are experienced by couples that are not informative about commitment. Of course, I already mentioned them. One is cohabitation. Two is having a baby before marriage. Yes, these are huge relationship transitions. However, in the context of our current culture, I don’t think either contains much information about commitment. (There is a possible exception here when you are talking about people in disadvantaged communities. Some things do work differently in some segments of our society for a wide range of complex reasons having to do with both economics and perceptions of marriage—especially the perceived probability of success in marriage.)

Chew on two things between now and next time. Do you think cohabitation contains information about commitment (at least, in American culture at this point?). Why or why not? What provides information about commitment? What can Sally look for in order to decode Harry’s commitment potential? What made it easier to clarify or decode commitment in growing relationships in the past?

I’ll get back to you on these things.

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DTR Part II

In my last post, I left off with the question of why people might avoid the DTR Talk. If you have not read that post yet, I encourage you to read it before going on with this one.

To reset the scene, I’m assuming some things about a relationship with person A and person B. I’m assuming that partner A is either more committed to the future than B or is, at least, thinking a lot more about the issue. Hence, person A is the one who wants to know now or soon where person B is at on the whole matter of a future. This is not something that usually (or should) happen early in the relationship. It’s something that becomes more and more of an issue over time. That’s because most people want to marry eventually. Most adults who are “in the market” for life-long love (the aspiration) are going to be less inclined to spend a lot of time with someone if they know that this someone does not see a future together.

So person A wants to know what person B is thinking and intending. While it’s easy to think of person A as a female and person B as a male, there are doubtless many situations that go any which way. The key is that one person, A, is more ready than the other, B.

Questions and Ideas of Answers

Why might person A avoid having The Talk? Person A might avoid having The Talk because person A has a hunch that person B either sees no future or that person B would run from the relationship if person A pushes it.

By the way, this relates to a painful reality about commitment: The person who is most committed has the least power. This is true, at least at this stage of a relationship, where the future is not nailed down.

Since person A loves person B, and knows he/she wants a future with person B, pushing the matter is scary. People tend to avoid scary things until they can’t put them off any longer.

The reasons why person B might avoid the talk seem more complex, in my view, but they all boil down to a sense of potential loss. Essentially, what I’m defining is a situation where person B likes the status quo. Whatever the relationship is right now, person B is happy not to rock the boat. It’s working, at least for now, so why mess with anything?

The Talk can bring person B the loss of something in one of at least three ways.

1. If person B is quite a bit less committed than person A, The TALK can lead to a break up. Person B’s answers can lead to person A to realize that what she or he wants is never going to happen. B avoids The Talk because of a desire to hang onto the present arrangement.

2. If person B is somewhat less committed than A but a future is at least possible, the talk leads to ongoing negotiation. One Talk will lead to other Talks because A sees the possibility of getting somewhere and will keep pressing it. B might not want to be in what starts to seem like a series of Talks because B does not like negotiating about change B really does not want, yet. The status quo is groovy for B and it’s not fun for either A or B to keep talking about something so difficult, tricky, and important.

3. Person B might avoid The Talk because the end result will be that B has to up the commitment. It’s sort of like playing poker. Both have their cards (their commitment cards and their attractiveness cards). Person A is throwing all in, and person B is being called to pony up or fold. Person B has to match the bet of person A and lay em down.

To put it briefly (something you may have figured out I don’t do easily!), person B avoids The Talk because it can lead to one of several types of loss:

Loss of the relationship due to break up.
Loss of peace in the relationship due to ongoing negotiation.
Loss of freedom due to having to match the bet of A or leave the game.

If you are counting, that’s three “dues” and it’s time to pay them.

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