What makes It Difficult to keep an Intimate Relationship: Clinginess was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by women, bad sex was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by men

What makes It Difficult to keep an Intimate Relationship: Evidence From Greece and China. Menelaos Apostolou and Yan Wang. Evolutionary Psychology, January-March 2021: 1–12. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1474704920987807

h/t David Schmitt What makes It Difficult to keep an Intimate Relationship: Evidence From Greece and China..."Clinginess was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by women, while bad sex was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by men

Abstract: Keeping an intimate relationship is challenging, and there are many factors causing strain. In the current research, we employed a sample of 1,403 participants from China and Greece who were in an intimate relationship, and we classified 78 difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship in 13 factors. Among the most common ones were clinginess, long work hours, and lack of personal time and space. Clinginess was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by women, while bad sex was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by men. Fading away enthusiasm, bad sex, infidelity and children were reported as more important by older participants, while lack of personal time and space, and character issues were reported as more important by younger participants. The factor structure was similar in the Greek and in the Chinese cultural contexts, but there were also differences. In addition, there were significant interactions between the sample and the sex. For instance, for the non-monogamous factor, men gave higher scores than women in both samples, but the difference was much more pronounced in the Greek sample.

Keywords: singlehood, keeping an intimate relationship, mismatch problem, mating

Discussion

Our analysis indicated that there were at least 13 factors that caused strain in keeping an intimate relationship. Among the highest rated ones were clinginess, long work hours, and lack of personal time and space. Women rated clinginess higher than men, while men rated bad sex higher than women. Older participants rated fading away enthusiasm, bad sex, infidelity and children higher, and lack of personal time and space and character issues lower than younger participants. Married people tended to give higher scores to several factors, such as fading away enthusiasm, than people in a relationship. The factor structure was similar in the Greek and in the Chinese cultural contexts, but there were also differences. For instance, the “Character issues” factor was rated higher in the Greek sample, while lack of effort was rated higher in the Chinese sample. There were also significant interactions between the sample and the sex. For instance, for the non-monogamous factor, men gave higher scores than women in both samples, but the difference was much more pronounced in the Greek sample.

Our study was designed with the purpose of identifying the most common sources of relationship strain among people who were actually in a relationship. For a factor to be rated highly, it had to be both frequent and strenuous. If a factor was frequent, but caused little strain, participants would probably tend to disagree that it caused them difficulties in keeping their relationship. Similarly, if a factor was a source of considerable strain, but it was rare, most participants would disagree that it caused them strain to their relationship. Nevertheless, if a factor was both frequent and strenuous, many participants would agree that it caused them strain to their relationship. In effect, at the top of our hierarchy were factors that were both common and strenuous.

Our findings indicate that there are no factors which cause difficulties to most people in keeping an intimate relationship, but most people are affected by one or more. More specifically, we can see that all the factors had a mean score below the middle of the scale, and frequencies close to 20%. However, more than 65% of the participants indicated that at least one factor caused them difficulties, and more than one in five indicated that four or more factors caused them difficulties. We also need to say that our data constitute a snapshot of the difficulties that people faced at the time of the study. Accordingly, although about one in three participants indicated that they did not face any of the difficulties examined here, they may had done so in the past, or may do so in the future.

In our theoretical framework, one main source of relationship strain is the adoption of a non-monogamous mating strategy. As indicated by the “Infidelity” factor, the adoption of such a strategy by one partner, if detected, is likely to trigger negative feelings to the other, which would make the continuation of the relationship difficult. As indicated by the “Not monogamous” factor, the adoption of such a strategy makes also being with one partner difficult. These factors however, were located at the bottom of the hierarchy, suggesting that they were not the most common sources of relationship strain. One reason is that, non-monogamous mating strategies are adopted only by a small proportion of the population. Another reason is that, people, when act on such strategies, take precautions not to be detected (see also Buss, 2000), and if they succeed in doing so, their mating strategy may not cause strain to the relationship. In effect, although infidelity is potentially a source of very strong relationship strain, it is relatively rare, and when it occurs, it is likely to go undetected, which could explain why many participants did not indicate that it caused them difficulty in keeping their intimate relationship.

On the other hand, the partner-monitoring mechanisms constitute a much more common source of relationship strain. In particular, the “Clinginess” was reported to be the most common source of difficulties. The “Character issues,” part of which was jealousy, was also reported as a common source of relationship strain. The “Lack of personal time and space” is the consequence of the functioning of the partner-monitoring mechanisms, and was reported as the third more common difficulty. These findings are expected, because these mechanisms have a preemptive function; that is, they protect people from having their partners to act on a non-monogamous mating strategy, and for doing so, they need to be always “on.” To put it differently, they could not have a preemptive function if they are triggered only when the partner is cheating.

Another reason that factors, such as the “Clinginess” and the “Lack of personal time and space,” top the hierarchy of difficulties is the mismatch problem. Mechanisms that give rise to clinginess have been optimized for a context where people were heavily dependent on their partners, so they had higher tolerance in being closely monitored. Similarly, the “Character issues,” the “Not making compromises,” and the “Violence and addictions” are also likely to reflect the mismatch problem, as traits, such as violent disposition and inflexibility, were more likely to be tolerated in the ancestral than in the modern context. Furthermore, since partners are relatively independent from each other, the contemporary environment requires more mating effort in order to keep an intimate relationship. Yet, mechanisms involved in regulating mating effort have evolved in the ancestral context where less of this effort was required, which could explain, why the “Lack of effort” was a common difficulty in keeping an intimate relationship in the contemporary context.

Long work hours was the most common relationship-resources depleting factor, ranking second in the hierarchy of difficulties. This finding probably reflects the reality that job demands in contemporary societies are high, requiring many hours to be devoted to work, which are deducted from the relationship. Children constitute another relationship-resources depleting factor, which was located near the bottom of the hierarchy. This rank is probably due to the fact that our sample was relatively young, so most participants did not have children. We would expect financial difficulties to arise as a separate factor, which was not the case. Similarly, Apostolou and Wang (2020) did not find financial difficulties as a separate factor causing difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship. One possibility is that participants considered financial difficulties to arise from other factors, such as having children, as Apostolou and Wang (2020) have found, or from the character of the partner, as indicated in the current study.

The “Fading away enthusiasm” and the “Bad sex” factors, have most probably multiple explanations. In particular, the adoption of a non-monogamous mating strategy may involve reduction in enthusiasm and sexual satisfaction with the current partner that would motivate people to seek other partners. Furthermore, in the ancestral context where people were heavily dependent on their partners, the levels of enthusiasm and sexual pleasure received from a long-term partner required for keeping an intimate relationship, were most probably lower than in the modern context where people are less dependent on their partners. Thus, mechanisms responsible for generating enthusiasm and for regulating sexual behavior, may not work optimally in the modern environment. In addition, relationship-resources depleting factors, may also be at play here. For instance, working long hours may lead to physical exhaustion, which in turn, would negatively affect the quality of sex.

Our original prediction that men would face more difficulties in keeping their relationship was partially supported. In particular, for the pooled sample, men scored higher than women, but the result was significant only if Bonferroni correction was not applied. On the other hand, our prediction that women would face more difficulties in keeping a relationship arising from the infidelities of their partners was not supported. One possibility is that men are more likely to adopt a cheating mating strategy than women, but they are more efficient in hiding it. Future research could enable a better understanding of the difficulties that infidelity causes in keeping an intimate relationship.

Age was also significant for several factors. The largest effects were for the “Children” and the “Bad sex” factors, with older participants giving higher scores than younger ones. With respect to the former, this effect is predominantly explained by older participants being more likely to have children than younger ones. With respect to the latter, quality and quantity of sexual contact may deteriorate as people spend more time in their relationship, with age acting as a proxy of time spent in it. Another reason is that libido declines as people get older (Travison et al., 2006), which has a negative impact on the quality and quantity of sex they have with their partners.

We also found that married participants tended to give higher scores to a number of factors than people in a relationship. The most likely explanation is that, when they first enter in a relationship, people are overwhelmed by emotions, such as romantic love, which lead them to overlook or tolerate factors that negatively affect the relationship. As years go by, these emotions reside and these factors become more taxing for the relationship. Thus, the more time people spend in a relationship, the higher the strain arising from different factors becomes. Most likely, participants who were married have spent more time in a relationship than participants who were not married, so marital status acted as a proxy of time being in a relationship. Future studies could disentangle marital status from time being in a relationship effects by measuring both variables.

Consistent with our original prediction, the factor structure was similar in the Chinese and in the Greek cultural contexts. There were differences however, between the two cultural settings. In particular, Chinese participants reported the lack of mating effort to be a more common source of relationship strain, than Greek participants. One possible reason is a wider use of dating applications among young people in China, which could lead them to believe that they can easily substitute their current partner, so they do not spend considerable effort in keeping their relationship (Ding, 2020; Ya & Zhang, 2020). In addition, Greek participants indicated that character issues were a more common source of relationship strain than Chinese participants have indicated. One explanation is that, the Greek culture is more individualistic than the Chinese one (in Hofstede’s index for individualism Greece scored 35 and China 20 see https://clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/individualism), so traits, such as being selfish, are more pronounced in the former than in the latter.

Furthermore, there were significant interactions between the sample and the sex. More specifically, the sex difference in the “Not monogamous” factor was less pronounced in the Chinese sample. One likely explanation is that, in the Chinese cultural context, men outnumber women (Liang & Ni, 2018), which turns finding a partner more difficult for them. Such a difficulty may suppress an innate desire for variety in partners, something which is not the case in the Greek context where the sex ratio is balanced. The difference in the sex ratio may also explain why in the pooled sample the sex-difference for the “Not monogamous” factor did not pass the Bonferroni-adjusted significance level. There was a higher number of Chinese than Greek male participants, and if the sex ratio imbalance influenced the former in suppressing their desire for partner variety, then the pooled sex difference would be relatively small. In addition, the sex ratio effect, possibly explains the significant interaction between the sex and the sample for the “Not making compromises” factor. In particular, by being in scarce supply, women in China can be selective, and can afford to make fewer compromises than women in Greece.

One limitation of the present work is that it is far from sufficient for understanding the difficulties that people face in keeping an intimate relationship, and it should thus, be considered as one of the first steps toward this direction. In the same vein, given the complexity of the phenomenon, there are probably more difficulties that people face in keeping an intimate relationship that have been accounted by the present study. For instance, men are expected to earn more than women (Hogue et al., 2010); thus, a situation where a husband earning less than the wife may generate considerable strain to the relationship. Future research needs to identify and account for additional sources of relationship strain.

Moving on, we paid particular attention in developing a theoretical framework that would account for the observed difficulties. Still, this framework may need further development, which could involve incorporating arguments from other schools of thought. Further limitations include that our findings were based on self-report data, and participants may not have had a good understanding or may have been unwilling to be honest about what caused them difficulties in keeping their relationship. In addition, we employed non-probability samples, so our results may not readily generalize to the population. That is, it is possible that the recruited individuals were different from those who opted not to participate in ways that affect the generalizability of the results. Moreover, for the Greek-speaking respondents, the survey link was also forwarded by email to students and colleagues, so there is the possibility that some of those who answered the survey were in a relationship with each other, and thus, their answers were to some degree correlated. We do not think that this limitation had a considerable effect on our findings, because the bulk of the participants were recruited through promoting the link in social media.

Furthermore, our theoretical framework predicted cross-cultural consistency but also variation in the causes of relationship strain. Evidence from more than two different cultures is required for adequately testing these predictions, and future research needs to extend our work by replicating it in different cultural settings. In addition, the current study did not examine how likely each of the identified difficulties would be in leading to the termination of the relationship. Future studies could address this limitation by asking how each of the identified difficulties have actually caused people to terminate an intimate relationship.

In conclusion, we identified thirteen factors causing relationship strain. We have also found that these factors were similar in the Chinese and in the Greek cultural contexts, but there were important differences. Considerable more research is required, however, in order to understand this fascinating and complex phenomenon.