Give a gift subscription. Below is a piece on mating psychology I wrote for Onn Health. It is aimed primarily at heterosexual men, yet the insights offered here are broadly applicable to everyone.
The two most powerful predictors of happiness and life satisfaction are working in the right profession and finding the right spouse. You can commit a lot of blunders in your life, but if you manage to get two things right, you will maximize your chance of long-term wellbeing. Our choice of job and our choice of spouse are central to our happiness because they are where we spend most of our lives—at work and with our families.
Therefore, we should devote a good deal of time concentrating on how to make the best possible decision for these two sources of potential happiness. Indeed, making the wrong choice can lead to potential misery. Interestingly, much of modern advice prioritizes education and career, often relegating relationships to a secondary concern or valuing them primarily for their potential to enhance career ambitions.
Relationships, though, are critical for our health and wellbeing. Studies have found that the effect of poor relationship quality on mortality is as strong as the effects of better-known risk factors, such as smoking and alcohol use, and even stronger than other important factors, such as sedentariness and obesity.
For those who are focused on their careers, choosing the right partner can fuel occupational success. For instance, people with conscientious romantic partners tend to report higher job satisfaction and income, and are more likely to be promoted.
