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The desire to have a romantic partner is associated with lower life satisfaction, but more so in older adults

https://www.psypost.org/2023/07/the-desire-to-have-a-romantic-partner-is-associated-with-lower-life-satisfaction-but-more-so-in-older-adults-166078

A study published in Personal Relationships found that among single individuals aged 18 to 75, those who had a stronger desire for a romantic partner generally reported lower life satisfaction. Interestingly, this association was more pronounced in individuals above the age of 49 compared to those below 24, highlighting the impact of age on the relationship between desire for a partner and quality of life. ...

Insight: is it realistic to anyone in observed real life that people more desire to find a romantic partner as they less/really don't enjoy life overall? So, will a person be prone to chasing a lovelife when he doesn't live well and happily?

Furthermore, Unsatisfied life has a negative effect to relationship building and further even marriage and family too (I've read articles and heard memoirs and watched entertainment variously many times, and so I agree. Maybe with diligence, I'll put such article references asap.) So how could a person achieve/suceed lovelife if he's already (in the beginning) unsatisfied with every other aspect of his life wholly while his any latter relationship may apparently fail upon his unsatisfied life? A contradiction or paradox? He might end up into hopeless romantic or just pathetically miserable man/spouse (hopefully not).

Out of topic: I wish there were a (sister) community of meirl, a discussion and seriousness of focusing and analyzing the real life (opposite of meirl community sharing of memes, pics and short texts).

8 comments

joneskind

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Sex is good but have you ever tried overthinking a biological trait?

miega

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I feel like we all have our needs, each of the needs are on a spectrum, so some people want romantic relationship more than others, i.e. some people have very high sex drives and some people have virtualy none. So people who have this need high in their list and it's not fulfilled will be less satisfied with life.

Although it would be interesting to see the bigger picture of their social life, like maybe those less satisfied people in the story are lonelier overall, so it's not specific to romantic relationship, but having less social relationship, because for a lot of people romantic partner fulfills big part of their social needs.

ElectroVagrant

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Although it would be interesting to see the bigger picture of their social life, like maybe those less satisfied people in the story are lonelier overall, so it’s not specific to romantic relationship, but having less social relationship, because for a lot of people romantic partner fulfills big part of their social needs.

Another angle to this that I think would be interesting to evaluate are social pressures to have partners affecting solitary satisfaction, and in certain circumstances, the social tendencies some have of shrinking their social circles once they have a partner (either to other couples only or their partner & family). Both would have interesting effects on solo folks, and especially the latter if they find their friends gradually leaving them to focus on their family lives.

Lols

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i get that even researching shit that is obvious and straightforward is worthwhile just in case were missing something, but 'people whose romantic needs are not satisfied report being unsatisfied' becomes a little tiring when combined with the ridiculous amount of shit we have way too little data on

pinkdrunkenelephants

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I think it's more that they are unhappy because they don't have a spouse, and for that I can't fault them.

moistclump

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Ah good old fashioned causation and correlation.

SweetSitty

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I was single for most of my life, getting married in my mid 30s. There were times when I really wanted a partner and times when it didn't matter so much. When I was happy in my job and had a good social life, I looked at having a partner as sprinkles on a delicious sundae. It might make it better, but I was perfectly fine without it. Once I was married, we had the same perspective about kids. It would be nice, but our happiness was not dependent on it.