Reinventing Date Night for Long Married Couples - fantastic article - 2/12/08

[Smartmarriages]

Get out the ropes......

The New York Times
Science Times 
February 12, 2008
Well
Reinventing Date Night for Long-Married Couples
By TARA PARKER-POPE

Long-married couples often schedule a weekly ³date night² ‹ a regular
evening out with friends or at a favorite restaurant to strengthen their
marital bond.

But brain and behavior researchers say many couples are going about date
night all wrong. Simply spending quality time together is probably not
enough to prevent a relationship from getting stale.

Using laboratory studies, real-world experiments and even brain-scan data,
scientists can now offer long-married couples a simple prescription for
rekindling the romantic love that brought them together in the first place.
The solution? Reinventing date night.

Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts and dining with the same old
friends, couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different
activities that they both enjoy, says Arthur Aron, a professor of social
psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The goal is
to find ways to keep injecting novelty into the relationship. The activity
can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more
unusual or thrilling ‹ like taking an art class or going to an amusement
park.

The theory is based on brain science. New experiences activate the brain¹s
reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the
same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love, a time of
exhilaration and obsessive thoughts about a new partner. (They are also the
brain chemicals involved in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive
disorder.)

Most studies of love and marriage show that the decline of romantic love
over time is inevitable. The butterflies of early romance quickly flutter
away and are replaced by familiar, predictable feelings of long-term
attachment.

But several experiments show that novelty ‹ simply doing new things together
as a couple ‹ may help bring the butterflies back, recreating the chemical
surges of early courtship.

³We don¹t really know what¹s going on in the brain, but as you trigger and
amp up this reward system in the brain that is associated with romantic
love, it¹s reasonable to suggest that it¹s enabling you to feel more
romantic love,² said the anthropologist Helen E. Fisher, of Rutgers, who has
published several studies on the neural basis of romantic love. ³You¹re
altering your brain chemistry.²

Over the past several years, Dr. Aron and his colleagues have tested the
novelty theory in a series of experiments with long-married couples.

In one of the earliest studies, the researchers recruited 53 middle-aged
couples. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers measured the
couples¹ relationship quality and then randomly assigned them to one of
three groups.

One group was instructed to spend 90 minutes a week doing pleasant and
familiar activities, like dining out or going to a movie. Couples in another
group were instructed to spend 90 minutes a week on ³exciting² activities
that appealed to both husband and wife. Those couples did things they didn¹t
typically do ‹ attending concerts or plays, skiing, hiking and dancing. The
third group was not assigned any particular activity.

After 10 weeks, the couples again took tests to gauge the quality of their
relationships. Those who had undertaken the ³exciting² date nights showed a
significantly greater increase in marital satisfaction than the ³pleasant²
date night group.

While the results were compelling, they weren¹t conclusive. The experiment
didn¹t occur in a controlled setting, and numerous variables could have
affected the final results.

More recently, Dr. Aron and colleagues have created laboratory experiments
to test the effects of novelty on marriage. In one set of experiments, some
couples are assigned a mundane task that involves simply walking back and
forth across a room. Other couples, however, take part in a more challenging
exercise ‹ their wrists and ankles are bound together as they crawl back and
forth pushing a ball.

Before and after the exercise, the couples were asked things like, ³How
bored are you with your current relationship?² The couples who took part in
the more challenging and novel activity showed bigger increases in love and
satisfaction scores, while couples performing the mundane task showed no
meaningful changes.

Dr. Aron cautions that novelty alone is probably not enough to save a
marriage in crisis. But for couples who have a reasonably good but slightly
dull relationship, novelty may help reignite old sparks.

And recent brain-scan studies show that romantic love really can last years
into a marriage. Last week, at the Society for Personality and Social
Psychology conference in Albuquerque, researchers presented brain-scan data
on several men and women who had been married for 10 or more years.
Interviews and questionnaires suggested they were still intensely in love
with their partners. Brain scans confirmed it, showing increased brain
activity associated with romantic love when the subjects saw pictures of
their spouses.

It¹s not clear why some couples are able to maintain romantic intensity even
after years together. But the scientists believe regular injections of
novelty and excitement most likely play a role.

³You don¹t have to swing from the chandeliers,² Dr. Fisher said. ³Just go to
a new part of a town, take a drive in the country or better yet, don¹t make
plans, and see what happens to you.²

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