Are You Biologically Designed for Lasting Relationships?
Anastasia Makhanova, Ph.D., Social Psychologist shed light on people’s ability to get into a lasting relationship that embodied the three aspects of a healthy one: Gratitude, Trust, and Forgiveness. It just may be your CD38 gene and not primarily you! Anastasia’s research showed that the CD38 gene has these codings that set you up for lasting relationships: The combinations of CC, AC, AA might be the culprits!!! Apparently the best coding is CC and fosters Gratitude, Trust, and Forgiveness.
Who knew that it’s not totally our fault if we keep trying but can’t seem to get it right the first couple times we marry. 50% of first marriages end in divorce, 60% of second marriages, and 70% of third marriages fail. Think of the marriage Kings and Queens and their attempts at the perfect union: Larry King (7 marriages); Elizabeth Taylor (8 marriages); Kim Kardashian (3 marriages); and Jennifer Lopez (lost count between Sean Puffy Combs, Marc Anthony, her former choreographer and a few other non-celeb boyfriends, and A-Rod).
Let’s stop beating ourselves up and get to a DNA clinic stat!
I asked Anastasia if we’re kind of screwed if we are AA, and have a 50% chance of hanging onto a relationship if we’re AC. But if we’re CC does this guarantee the greatest chance of having a lasting relationship? Anastasia was careful, as a researcher, to give us hope that our DNA is a starting point, but that all relationships take work.
Okay, Anastasia is a diplomat and a good researcher, but I’m an Amicable Expert, a realist, who needs to be clear about how to define a problem, when to make ourselves responsible for our issues, and how to correct the choices of the past for a better future. I think if we were knowledgable about our biological and genetic make-up, perhaps that would set us up with a better roadmap to success, and long-lasting relationships?
Knowledge is Power.
If we understood more about our genetic make-up in so far as our emotional scheme was designed, this information could help people understand their relationship behavior. Maybe the divorce rate could be positively affected if people understand going into the marriage what they have to work on as a result of knowing their chromosome/genetic make-up?
Maybe Relationship Counselors should know about this finding in order to know how their clients are biologically designed in order to know how to counsel them?
Gratitude, Forgiveness and Trust
- It’s important that both partners have Gratitude as part of their emotional make-up.
- Trust is the ‘happiness’ influencer.
- No relationship can survive without Forgiveness.
I’m feeling better already. How about you?
