THINGS THAT COUPLES DO AFTER A LONG TIME TOGETHER

(May 2015) According to Joshua Wolf Shenk, the author of “Powers of Two,” when a couple is together for a long time, a different kind of thought process develops – a shared mind, so to speak – that allows couples to come up with more creative solutions to problems than they’d ever think up on their own. Here are some of the signs psychologists have observed that they say characterize such a shared mind.
1. You and your partner develop your own private language. Private language can include everything from inside jokes to nicknames. The more often couples used secret words and phrases, the happier they tended to say they were.
2. You stop self-censoring. When we’re with others, most of us “self-monitor.” That is, we try to please the people around us by adapting our behavior to suit theirs. But when we’re with an intimate partner, we instead don’t have to self-censor before we speak.
3. You start to sound alike. In addition to having their own private vocabulary, long term couples eventually “start to match each other in the basic rhythms and syntactical structures of their speech.
4. You start to look alike. Long-married couples use the same muscles so often that, over time, they start to mirror each other.
5. You have a bunch of inside jokes that no one else thinks are funny.
* That’s some good sciencin’ there, boy.
* “You stop self-censoring.” How many of you thought that meant you can let a fart rip any time, anywhere?
* He skipped the whole part of “coming up with creative solutions to problems.” ‘Cause once you’re together long enough, the standard solution is “Ah, screw it.”
* Oh, if you’re one of these couples, please don’t use your cutsey private words around the rest of us because it just makes us sick.
* I knew a couple that cooed so much, I thought they had pigeons in the house.
* At least with baby talk the baby doesn’t say anything stupid.
* I have never met one of these relationship geniuses who isn’t divorced. Have you noticed that?
* Clearly, this guy Joshua thinks this merging into one is wonderful. So why does it sound like a bad science fiction movie?
* “I want to grow old with you. Resistance is futile.”
PHONE TOPIC: Love Handles – what strange names do you and your spouse call each other?