Satisfied with Your Relationship? 11,196 Couples Reveal the Most Important Characteristics

If you ask most singles on dating apps , most are looking for a relationship that they can be satisfied with. It doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as they are happy. Because that is the most important aspect of a relationship for most people.

In the search for the person who fits that picture, they focus mainly on the qualities of the potential relationship candidates. Loyalty, reliability, honesty and let’s not forget attractiveness. But new research among 11,196 couples suggests that satisfaction with a relationship can be found elsewhere.

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Large-scale relationship research

It’s taken 20 years of relationship science to get to this point, but scientists now say that something far more important than your own personality or that of your partner is important. When it comes to happy relationships, it’s the characteristics of the relationship itself that determine its success—the life you build with that person. That’s the conclusion scientists draw from an analysis of 11,196 couples from 43 studies.

How satisfied you are with your relationship is actually 45 percent dependent on the characteristics of the relationship itself at the beginning. Your own personality accounts for 19 percent of the differences in satisfaction, and a partner’s personality plays an even smaller role at 5 percent. Over time, these estimates become smaller, but the ratio remains the same: relationship characteristics are more important to the relationship than individual characteristics.

Samantha Joel, study author and director of the Relationships Decision Lab at Western University, says her research makes one thing clear: “It suggests that the person we choose is not nearly as important as the relationship we build,” she tells Inverse . The study was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

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All necessary ingredients

For the study, all the ingredients that occur in love relationships were broken down. These were divided into two categories: individual characteristics (of a partner) and relationship characteristics.

Individual characteristics include things like income, life satisfaction, and age. Relationship characteristics include things like affection and sexual satisfaction. These are present in every relationship and have a different impact.

Joel and her colleagues then analyzed data from 43 separate studies and 11,196 couples who were interviewed at least twice. The time between the first and last interview ranged from two months to four years, depending on the study.

The results of this major project were analyzed by machine learning – an artificial intelligence technique that learns from data – to predict which characteristics are important for a successful relationship. These are the results, i.e., the characteristics most associated with relationship satisfaction.

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The five most important individual characteristics:

1. Life satisfaction (satisfaction with life)
2. Negative affect (feeling sad or irritable)
3. Depression or feelings of hopelessness (feeling sad or not feeling like doing anything)
4. Fear of commitment (worrying about relationships)
5. Avoiding attachment (preferring not to get too attached)

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The Five Most Powerful Relationship Characteristics:

1. Partner Involvement (Partner Satisfaction)
2. Appreciation (feeling happy with your partner)
3. Sexual satisfaction (getting sexual needs met)
4. Partner satisfaction (how happy your partner is with the relationship)
5. Conflict (quarrels and disagreements)

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“Those individual characteristics are important because they influence how you approach the relationship in the first place,” Joel explains. “But they matter much less compared to characteristics of the relationship itself. The dynamic you build with someone – the shared norms, the inside jokes, the shared experiences – is worth so much more than the individual people that make up that relationship.”

“It really seems like having a great relationship is less about finding the perfect partner or changing your current partner, and more about building that relationship itself – creating the conditions that allow the relationship to flourish ,” says Joel.

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