Romantic Relationships

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Joshua Ackerman, Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management writes in the Scholarly Journal, Let’s Get Serious: Communicating Commitment in Romantic Relationships, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, that some commonly thought notations about expressing or communicating love may be incorrect.

Statements of I love you have helped men survive in wars; patients live past a deadly diagnosis and have made entire kingdoms fall. In today’s time those words can be a signal to the start of a romantic relationship, and can indicat a desire to shift from casual friendship and involvement to intimacy.

In the journal with information provided from various studies that were performed he shows that most people believe that females are more likely to express love first in relationships, but it is males who more often verbally express love. It further shows that males feel happier hearing such confessions. Reported in the journal, men think about saying it one and a half months before women do. He states that the reason is simple, because they are not facing the same kind of evolutionary costs or traits. He states that men face a higher cost from missing out on a romantic opportunity. Males want sex because it’s a necessary step to spreading their name and heritage. Females, as the power-holders in sexual relationships, need time to assess the quality of their potential mate.”

The Journal also states that males and females reactions to confessions of love differ dramatically depending on whether the couple has had sex, further explaining that reactions should or could be more or less dramatic depending on what the person wants or needs from the relationship. “A pre sex confession may signal interest in advancing a re...

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...themselves to start of family without a husband or lover.

In my personal relationship with my wife I feel that I thought about expressing my love prior to her thinking. Ultimately I did express my love to her with the three simple words of I love you. I thought for the longest time that I was the exception to the rule as in society everyone hears about the woman that falls for the man and he just cannot see the forest for the trees. This journal showed new light into the fact that males in general may have deeper thought and understanding into the concept of love than previously thought.
It also has helped me to understand that the use of normal publications, newspapers, magazines is not enough to make an informed decision on something so important. One needs to back their discussions with factual information, not something that is designed to sell to the masses.

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