When Nothing Bad Happens but You’re Still Unhappy: Boredom in Romantic Relationships

written by Greg Strong, Frank Fincham & Arthur Aron
edited by Suzanne van Gils

Alleviating relationship boredom

Now that we have an idea of what relationship boredom means and what is potentially associated with it, we suggest some possible remedies for eliminating or reducing boredom in romantic relationships. Because boredom is essentially a lack of emotion and motivation, the simplest solution for relieving boredom should be to increase emotion and motivation—just do something fun! Indeed, Aron, Aron, Norman, McKenna, and Heyman (2001; see also Lewandowski & Aron, 2004) had couples do exactly that, engage in novel and exciting activities with each other, and found that, sure enough, for couples who had reported feeling bored, shared participation in the activities increased their feelings of relationship quality. Graham (2008) showed evidence that this is effective even when couples are sharing non-leisure, routine day-to-day activities such as cooking and childcare. Graham suggests this may be occurring through the experience of "flow" as described earlier; in essence, that couples may become absorbed in routine activities and associate their positive feelings of flow with their relationship and partner. In other words, simply becoming engaged and interested in every-day activities with your partner may help alleviate feelings of relationship boredom.

These suggestions mostly imply that positive emotions arise during the shared activities; that doing things together, even routine things, feels good. Strong and Aron (2006) even make an argument that positive emotions serve as a necessary mediating link between sharing novel and challenging activities together and subsequent increased relationship quality. However, we are starting research investigating the possibility that activities that produce negative emotions, so long as those emotions are not caused by the partner, may also actually increase relationship satisfaction. For instance, imagine a couple trapped on a sinking ship. If they survive the experience together, it may draw them closer to each other. That is a dramatic example, but the argument is that making it through an unpleasant experience together may help a couple form new bonds.

Increasing approach motivation should also help to reduce boredom. Couples who have an agenda, a plan for moving ahead, should experience less boredom than those who drift along without goals or expectations. Planning a novel and challenging activity together combines the ideas, giving couples a goal to look forward to and an activity with which to grow closer to each other. Perhaps the greatest advice to keep boredom away is to never stop dating your partner; even after marriage, children, retirement, and a lifetime of experiences together, keep planning on new places to go and new activities to share, even if it all occurs in your own home.