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For a good marriage, travel the same way to work: Shared commute creates …

July 24, 2012 by  
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By
Robin Yapp


PUBLISHED:

19:33 EST, 22 July 2012


|

UPDATED:

13:46 EST, 23 July 2012

Shared dreams and ambitions can help make a successful relationship.

But it seems the rather less romantic link of a shared commute can also help.

Married couples are happier if they travel to work in the same direction, says a study. Experts believe it makes couples feel they share wider goals in life.

Researchers say couples who share the journey to work - or even travel separately in the same direction - tend to be happier (picture posed by models)

Researchers say couples who share the journey to work – or even travel separately in the same direction – tend to be happier (picture posed by models)

They say the findings suggest newlyweds should consider choosing a home that requires them both to commute in one direction, rather than one located at the midway point between their two work places.

‘Couples’ marital satisfaction can depend on whether they commute to work in the same or different directions,’ said lead researcher Irene Huang, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

‘Physically moving in a particular goal-relevant direction (e.g. commuting to work) might become associated with more general goal-related concepts.’

The researchers say physical actions are metaphorically linked to wider beliefs and this is exemplified by the use of phrases such as ‘going our separate ways’ to describe couples who separate due to differences in their goals.

They quote the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, who said: ‘Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but looking in the same direction together.’

The study quotes The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The study quotes The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, involved two surveys of married working adults, with participants asked how happy they were with their marriage and how satisfied they were with their spouse on a scale of one to nine.

The first survey involved 280 adults in the US, who were aged 33 on average and had been married for an average of eight years.

Huang and her colleagues found a clear correlation between commuting in the same direction and higher marital satisfaction. They also found that this link existed independent of other factors such as number of years married, number of children, income level and differences in actual time spent commuting.

Furthermore, the link did not depend on whether or not couples sometimes left home for work together, meaning it was not due to having the chance to talk together while commuting.

The second survey involved 139 married adults in Hong Kong, who were 42 years old on average and had been married for an average of 13 years.

It showed a similar correlation to the US results, which also held independent of other relevant factors.

A further study involving 80 strangers arranged into pairs showed that they also rated each other more positively if they walked in the same direction to carry out a task. The experts say this proves the influence of moving on the same direction on ‘interpersonal attraction’ and means the results on marriage could not be simply down to couples who travel the same way to work being more likely to meet for drinks or dinner afterwards.

Huang said choosing a home that is midway between two work places might be a mistake because ‘mere similarity in the direction of commuting to work increases marital satisfaction’.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
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What decade are we in then? I’ve been with my partner for 6 years and NEVER ONCE have our shifts coincided. We hardly see each other! When we are off work together we’re normally too depressed with bills to do anything other than drink indoors….! MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH!!

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works for me and my other half. we work at the same place (but not the same area so we dont see each other once we get to work) so on the way to and from work we get all our gripes about work and colleagues out of the way, so we are ready for the day and when we get home we can relax without having to waste time at home with listening to each others gripes.

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What a stupid article. I work in London, the wife in Northampton – and she drops our daughter off at nursery too….how the hell are we supposed to travel together?
Better to have shared goals that we both work to achieve than to stalk each other!

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What if you work in different directions?

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Thank god my husband doesn’t follow me to work, we’d be even more skint than we already are, I’m a housewife! We’d probably be entitled to benefits galore though, still not preferably he makes the house so untidy!

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For goodness sake! Someone got paid to “discover” this fantastic revelation!

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When I had to drop my partner off at work on the way to my work and pick him up after work it used to drive me crazy. We would have petty arguments as he was never ready on time on a night so I’d be sat there fuming for 10/15 mins and then bite his head off! When he used to make his own way there we were much happier. This article is rubbish!

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I drop my wife off at the shops on my way to work. She works hard spending all my wages !!

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My husband is a long distance lorry driver, he goes to work Mondays and comes home Fridays, Our sons would have to have therapy if i followed him. PASS

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My other half works nights so no thanks think I’ll pass!

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