Couples

Is your partner a doctor? A Libertarian? Obsessed with tattoos? If so, a series of surveys from married dating site Ashley Madison says they may be more likely to cheat.

As the world’s foremost experts in affairs, with more than 39 million users in 53 countries, the folks at Ashley Madison know a thing or two about infidelity. Several studies conducted by the company this year reveal the secrets of America’s cheaters, including who’s most likely to be unfaithful, what they’re attracted to when they do it, and which partners are most likely to forgive an adulterous indiscretion.

One survey determined the professions that are most likely to stray. The most common jobs for cheating women are in the medical field (nurses/doctors). “A combination of long hours of potential stress mixed with a natural reaction to stress just might be the reason these women in the medical profession seek out an affair,” reports Ashley Madison.

The temptation to swear off dating gets stronger with every Ashley Madison hack, celebrity breakup, and creep exposed on Tinder - but according to new research from eHarmony, Americans are far from ready to throw in the towel and become cynical single curmudgeons.

The report, titled "The Happiness Index: Love and Relationships in America", reveals that 64% of Americans are “very happy” in their romantic relationships and just 19% say they're unhappy to some degree. eHarmony commissioned the report and it was conducted by Harris Interactive. 2,084 online interviews were conducted for the survey.

"At eHarmony, we talk a lot about happiness in relationships and how to keep them going strong," says Grant Langston, chief executive officer for eHarmony, in a statement. "We wanted to put society to the test and get a sense of how couples are living and loving in America today. Perhaps the most surprising finding is that gender and age dynamics in relationships are evolving, debunking misconceptions long held about both men and Millennials."

Online dating has been accused of ruining romance, fueling hook-up culture, spreading STDs, promoting superficiality, undermining marriage, eroding traditional values, and that’s just a scratch in the surface of the critiques levied against modern matchmaking.

But for all the complaining we’ve done - and likely will continue to do - about online dating, it’s not all doom and gloom. Recent research suggests the rise of digital dating services could be behind stronger marriages, more connections between people from different social circles, and an increase in interracial partnerships.

Economists Josue Ortega at the University of Essex and Philipp Hergovich at the University of Vienna in Austria set out to examine how today’s tech-savvy singles are changing society.

Spring cleaning isn’t just for your home. According to Facebook data analysts, the season is also prime time for daters to “clear the clutter” in their love lives - in other words, it’s breakup season.

In a paper from 2014, Lars Backstrom of Facebook and Jon Kleinberg of Cornell University analyzed user data from Facebook in search of insight into modern love lives. Amongst other things, they found that:

• About half of all Facebook relationships that have survived three months are likely to survive to four years or longer
• Heterosexual couples are generally around the same age, even as they get older
• Same-sex couples display the stereotypical age gap as they grow older, leveling off at about 4.5 years difference after age 38
• How much interest couples have in each other is a better predictor of love than having a lot of friends in common

She smokes. He doesn’t tip waiters. She’s obsessed with her phone. He gets wasted every weekend. Are these things merely irritating, or are they harbingers of a total relationship meltdown up ahead?

According to research by scientists at Western Sydney University, Indiana University, the University of Florida, Singapore Management University, and Rutgers University, dealbreakers have more power in long-term relationships than in short-term relationships. Women have more dealbreakers than men, but both men and women who consider themselves to be highly desirable have more dealbreakers than the average person.

Overall, daters tend to weigh dealbreakers more heavily than dealmakers - meaning negative attributes overshadow good ones, no matter how good they are.

In other words, you’d better clean up your act. If you want to put your best foot forward in a relationship, it’s essential to recognize your own bad habits and work to improve them.

It’s not your imagination: the longer a couple stays together, the more similar they become in both looks and actions.

“As human beings, we’re instinctively drawn to people who remind us of ourselves,” wrote Lizette Borreli for Medical Daily. The question is, why are we inclined to such a unique brand of narcissism?

“We are drawn to those we have the most in common with, and we tend to have the most successful long-term relationships with those we are most similar to,” Dr. Wyatt Fisher, a licensed psychologist, said in the same article.