The relationship is a journey strewn with pitfalls and maintaining a healthy and positive relationship with your partner can sometimes become a real headache. Over time, the magic of the beginnings can gradually give way to the routine and stress of everyday life. Stress is a natural human response to certain challenges or threats that everyone faces in their lives. While it’s a fairly common phenomenon, no one manages stress in the same way and some may be more prone to anxiety than others.
In a romantic relationship, how to support your partner during stressful situations, so that he feels supported and listened to? This is what we were looking for a study from Binghamton University (United States) published on February 5, 2024 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Its goal ? Determine whether better communication skills to provide social support to your significant other would be effective in reducing cortisol levelshormone associated with stress reactions.
To do this, the scientists conducted two 10-minute sessions with 191 heterosexual couples to assess how the participants perceived positive or negative support. For example, positive support can come through good communication and an attempt to understand the other’s feelings, while a more negative attitude will lead to rejecting the partner’s help. The researchers also collected saliva samples from the couples to assess their cortisol levels.
Stress: what is the impact of expressing support to your partner on cortisol levels?
At the end of the study, scientists noted that partners who demonstrate positive social support skills help their significant other feel more understood, which helps lower their levels of cortisol, compared to more negative attitudes. “We found that wives who received more negative support felt less understood, validated and cared for by their partner, which had a “stress amplifier” effect, that is, cortisol increased in the ‘interaction“, Richard Mattson, one of the authors of this work, said in a press release.
“Couples felt more understood, validated, and cared for when their partners demonstrated positive supportive skills and less when they demonstrated negative supportive skills“, he explains.
Support in the face of stress as a couple: the daily involvement of the partner would be important
Furthermore, the researchers found that levels of biological stress before the interaction appeared to predict how couples would act and perceive their interactions. They also noted the importance of the overall perception of one’s partner’s support, that is to say the way in which one’s involvement is felt in the long term, and not just during one-off interactions. According to scientists, this factor of duration of positive social support can play a big role in feeling understood and valued.
“How each partner perceived the interaction was strongly associated with the level of support and receptivity they felt they received more generally., detailed Hayley Fivecoat, another author of this work. She added that “he eIt is possible that the perception of a partner’s support is built over time and multiple interactions, and that the broader picture shapes how particular behaviors – good or bad – may be perceived in the moment. But according to scientists, we should not neglect the need for several types of supportive behaviors depending on different situations.
The study researchers believe that these findings may help to understand how couples can adapt and support each other in stressful situations, which could offer valuable avenues for strengthening relationships and general well-being. Nevertheless, they emphasize the need for further research into different strategies for assessing supportive behavior and how it is communicated. Indeed, they think in particular that the way of saying things to their partner could be more impactful than the content of their speech.
Sources:
- Social support and perceived partner responsiveness have complex associations with salivary cortisol in married couples – February 5, 2024
- Your unsupportive partner is physically stressing you out, new Binghamton research reveals – Binghamton University – 04/04/2024