5 Ways Romantic Partners Become Alike Over Time
A lot of things can change when you fall in love with someone. Even more so after you get married and live together for a number of years. According to…
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Ministreli/ShutterstockA lot of things can change when you fall in love with someone. Even more so after you get married and live together for a number of years. According to Your Tango, there have been various studies indicating that people in relationships start to become more like each other over time.
From the way couples look to the way they communicate, here are five ways people can change when they’re in long-term relationships:
- They start to adopt the same mannerisms - Couples start to mirror each other picking up each other’s gestures and postures.
- They create their own language - This can include everything from inside jokes to nicknames. One study finds that the more often couples use those secret words and phrases, the happier they tend to say they are.
- They start to sound like each other - Couples may eventually start to match the basic rhythms and patterns of their speech, right down to mimicking the length of pauses between words. When their text messages are more alike in terms of words and language structure, they’re more likely to be dating three months later.
- They start eating the same amount of food - Men typically eat more because they are just physically bigger. When they date a woman, she often picks up his habits and starts eating as much as the man.
- They learn cultural traits from each other - People who marry "up" or "down" tend to teach the other certain things from their own background. Read more about that HERE.
Have you noticed anything like this in your own marriage or dating relationship? For me and my wife of 21 years, it has to do with clothing. Every so often, when Sara and I get ready to go out, we end up wearing identical color combinations. I don't know if it's a subconscious thing or just a frequent coincidence, but we'll walk out the door and notice that we're both wearing, for example, a white shirt and blue pants. When that happens, one of us goes back in the house and changes so that we don't look like twins. And it happens more than you might think.
