The New York Times highlights an opportunity to improve your relationship: embrace the positive events in your partner’s life.
Benedict Carey writes (excerpt):
But the way that partners respond to each other’s triumphs may be even more important for the health of a relationship, suggests a paper appearing in the current issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study found that the way a person responds to a partner’s good fortune — with excitement or passive approval, shared pride or indifference — is the most crucial factor in tightening a couple’s bond, or undermining it.
“When something good happens to your partner, it’s a terrific opportunity to strengthen the relationship — that’s what this study really says,” said Art Aron, a social psychologist at Stony Brook University in New York, who was not part of the study. “It fits with this whole thrust in the field, focusing on how to make things better rather than trying to avoid making them worse.”