What To Look For In The Beginning Of A Relationship To Know If It’ll Last

The beginning of a relationship is often full of passion and excitement, but sometimes those emotions are overshadowed by more rational thoughts. It's not uncommon to worry about how compatible you might be with your new partner, or wonder how long the relationship will last. New research, though, can help answer those questions.

A study published in the journal Developmental Psychology found a way to determine how likely a relationship is to last1, based on individual levels of happiness from the start.

Psychologist and author of the study Christine Finn, Ph.D., evaluated more than 2,000 couples over the course of seven years. Based on her conversations with them, Finn was able to predict which couples would make up the 16% who broke up.

What makes the difference between a long-lasting and a short-lived relationship, though, is the rate of unhappiness, "meaning that a person who starts off unhappy becomes increasingly unhappy," much more quickly.

Despite her findings, Finn said, "No relationship is doomed to fail from the outset." In fact, recognizing weaknesses at the start of a relationship might motivate people to intervene earlier rather than letting unhappiness build.

If there is visible unhappiness, couples could consciously "work on their mutual interests and on cultivating closeness, as well as independence," she said. If the relationship doesn't work out, though, Finn said there is still value in that.