5 Things That Tend To Happen To Couples Who Have Been Together For A Long Time

Apr 07, 2016 by apost team

Tight relationships can inspire a completely different way of thinking and acting, something that is known as a "shared mind". Being with somebody for a long time not only changes the way you see the world, it also changes you. What is even more important is that tight relationships can lead to a completely different way of thinking and acting, something Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of "Powers of Two", refers to as having a "shared mind".

So, how do you and your significant other add up? Check out the following signs psychologists have observed in couples that have been together for a long time, which they say point to having a so-called shared mind:

1. The two of you come up with your own personal language.

Have you ever gotten a text from your significant other that means absolutely nothing by itself, but is still important in a way that you can’t really explain?  

This so-called "insider" language is one of the first signs that shows that you and your significant other are in sync, writes Shenk. Based on a study from Robert Hooper, professor of communication at the University of Texas, secret communication achieves two things: It helps to deepen your bond — romantic as well as platonic — and creates a unique, shared identity.

Personal language can consist of everything from inside jokes to nicknames, says psychologist Carol Bruess from the Ohio State University in a study of couples who are in a romantic relationship. Bruess' research conveys a connection between how often partners use these personal words and how happy they are with their relationship. Bruess discovered that the more couples used secret words and sentences, the happier they tended to say they were.

2. You no longer self-censure.

The way the majority of us speaks to strangers, acquaintances and in some cases even close friends is considerably different from how we talk when we're alone with our partner.

When we are among others, the majority of us "self-monitors", which means we try to please the people around us by adjusting our behavior to better suit theirs.

But when we are with our intimate partner, we depart from this behavioral pattern and "talk fluidly and naturally" instead, writes Shenk. In other words, we stop constantly checking ourselves before we open our mouths to speak. We're more straightforward and open.

Many of the couples Shenk talks to in his book have exactly such a relationship. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman from the University of California at Berkeley, for example, tells Shenk: "Like most people, I am somewhat cautious about exposing tentative thoughts to others". But after having spent a few years working with his research partner, cognitive psychologist Amos Tversky, "this caution was completely absent."

3. You begin to look alike.

In his prominent 1987 study, psychologist Robert Zajonc discovered that there's a very obvious reason for why married couples begin to look alike after a while. They use the same muscles so often that, over time, they start to copy each other.

This coordination of movement does not happen by accident, says Shenk. Instead, it "reflects what psychologists call a "shared coordinative structure", which includes how we adjust our gaze and body movement and the little habits and peculiarities of how we speak.

4. You begin to sound alike.

Aside from having their own personal vocabulary, long-term couples sooner or later "start to match each other in the basic rhythms and syntactical structures of their speech," writes Shenk.

Part of this is the result of a phenomenon that psychologists like to call "emotional contagion". Basically this means that when two people spend a lot of time together, they start to match each other's speech patterns. We begin mimicking everything from the other person's accent to the amount and length of pauses they put between words and phrases.

Evidence exists to suggest that these modified speech patterns can even serve as an indicator of how long a couple might stay together.

Among other things, a 2010 study of language used among couples that read their text messages, for example, discovered that when two people "sounded" alike — based on the word and language structure they used in their text messages — they were also more likely to still be dating three months later.

5. You have a ton of inside jokes that only you two think are funny.

Research shows that couples are more likely to copy each other's body language — which leads to them looking alike — because they're drawing from a fountain of knowledge that only they have access to. This so-called "insider info" — a collection of your shared experiences and memories — influences your gestures and posture and the words and sentences you use with each other.

A 2007 study, for example, discovered that people were more likely to mirror each other's gaze if they both received the same background information before their conversation began.

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