When a Relationship Is Both Very Good and Very Bad

On a scale from one to seven, where one means “not at all,” and seven means “very much,” how satisfied are you with your current relationship?

This is a standard question that has been used in relationship research for decades. It’s a way of measuring relationship satisfaction, one of the key indicators of the long-term viability of a relationship. If you’re in one, take a moment to think about how you would respond.

For many people, this question is easy. If you’re generally happy with your partner and have no thoughts about leaving, you’ll likely respond with a six or seven. And if you’re truly unhappy with your partner and thinking of breaking up, you’ll probably respond with a one or two.

But what does it mean when people respond in the midrange? What does this kind of relationship look like, and how likely is it to be stable? These are questions explored by Dutch psychologist Francesca Righetti and colleagues in an article they recently published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review. In particular, the researchers argue that people might respond in the midrange for different reasons.

Four Types of Relationships

Most researchers, and the general public as well, think of positive and negative evaluations as opposite ends of a spectrum. They then conceive of each person’s relationship satisfaction as ranging somewhere along this continuum from “very much satisfied” to “not at all satisfied.” But then, how does a person who feels ambivalent about their relationship respond?

The midrange suggests indifference—neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. But there are also people who feel both very satisfied and very dissatisfied with their relationship. Such people may respond in the midrange as a sort of average, while others may select either one or seven, depending on how they feel in the moment. Yet, this tells us nothing about their relationship satisfaction in general.

This observation leads Righetti and colleagues to make a rather radical proposal. Perhaps it’s the case that positive and negative are two separate dimensions, rather than polar ends of a single dimension. In the model they propose, the positive and negative dimensions are marked by “high” and “low” at the ends, and they cross each other, creating four quadrants.

• Mostly positive: Partners in these relationships experience high positive and low negative feelings. These people are clearly happy in their relationship.
• Mostly negative: Partners in these relationships experience high negative and low positive feelings. These people are clearly unhappy in their relationship.
• Indifferent: Partners in these relationships experience low positive but also low negative feelings. People in such relationships are much more like roommates than soulmates.
• Ambivalent: Partners in these relationships experience high positive but also high negative feelings. They’re on a relationship rollercoaster of extreme highs and extreme lows.

While some feeling of ambivalence is common, extreme ambivalence is the mark of a problematic relationship. As Righetti and colleagues point out, people with an anxious attachment style often feel ambivalent toward their partner. And this, of course, affects the partner as well. While their extreme expressions of affection can be alluring, their excessive neediness and insecurity tend to drive their partners away.

Why Indifferent Relationships Fail

According to the model proposed by Righetti and colleagues, only mostly positive relationships are stable. The partners are happy with their mates and are not looking for alternatives. The other three quadrants are unstable, but for different reasons.

People who find themselves in mostly negative relationships will leave if they have an opportunity. Those who stay in such relationships only do so because they perceive significant barriers to exit. Perhaps they can’t afford to separate, or they feel social pressures to stay.

Similarly, people who find themselves in an indifferent relationship will seek a way out if possible. Righetti and colleagues point out that when people perceive their partner as feeling indifferent toward them, they experience this as being just as distressing as when their partners act in a clearly negative fashion. In other words, both “indifferent” and “negative” are seen as “not positive.”

Thus, people in indifferent relationships will eventually leave if the barriers aren’t too great. Righetti and colleagues also note that sometimes, mostly negative relationships pass into an indifferent phase first. That is, the partners are first antagonistic toward each other, and then they stop caring. But eventually, if they can, one of the partners will leave.

Attachment Style and Ambivalent Relationships

Ambivalent relationships are also unstable, according to Righetti and colleagues, but the dynamics are more complicated. If the partners can reduce the negativity, or at least adjust the positive to outweigh the negative, the relationship can transition to mostly positive and become stable. However, if just one of the partners perceives the negative to outweigh the positive, the relationship shifts to mostly negative, and the partner will eventually leave if possible.

Attachment style can play a role in creating ambivalent relationships. For instance, anxiously attached people often feel ambivalent toward their partners, strongly desiring them but also deeply distrusting them. From their partner’s perspective, the intense affections they display are alluring, but the overbearing neediness and suspicion drive them away.

This analysis by Righetti and colleagues reminds me of what’s known as the Anna Karenina principle. Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel of that name begins with the line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Thus, the Anna Karenina principle describes a situation in which there is only one way to succeed but multiple ways to fail, and it has been applied in many areas of research.

Intimate relationships also follow the Anna Karenina principle. Successful relationships are marked by high levels of positive feelings and low levels of negative feelings. Any other combination dooms the relationship to failure, either as a breakup or as a miserable existence together.