Warning signs your lover is bored:

1. Passionless kisses
2. Frequent sighing
3. Moved, left no forwarding address.

— Matt Groening, Love is Hell

When one considers feelings and emotions in close, romantic relationships, many thoughts may come to mind: love, caring, understanding, and happiness, to name a few. Of course, romantic relationships are not always so rosy. When considering the dark side of relationships, plenty of negative feelings also arise: jealousy, arguing, and resentment, for example. However, this is not the whole picture. What is often left out or forgotten are the stretches of indifference or lethargy. Practically everyone who has been in a relationship, particularly long-lasting relationships, has experienced these slow, unemotional, un-arousing spells. We refer to these periods as relationship boredom.

Many people have experienced boredom in their relationships, even in relationships that are otherwise very good and satisfying, without breaking up with their partner. Other couples may have never experienced relationship boredom, even after many years together. Some people feel bored with some relationships but not with others, even when the relationships themselves are relatively similar. So what is going on here? Romantic relationships are supposed to be fun, passionate, loving, and exciting—not boring! Are certain relationships doomed to boredom? Are certain people intrinsically bored or boring? What causes boredom in romantic relationships, and perhaps more importantly, what might prevent or alleviate boredom in romantic relationships? We will first briefly examine romantic relationships; what they are and what they mean to people. Then we examine boredom more closely, what it means generally and specific to relationships. A discussion follows of constructs related to boredom and how they are associated with romantic relationships. Finally, we conclude with some potential remedies for relationship boredom, based on our observations of the underlying structure and possible causes of relationship boredom.

Romantic relationships

Romantic relationships are typically very important to people (Berscheid, 1999). They are cited as one of the greatest sources of overall life satisfaction and emotional well-being (Berscheid, & Reis, 1998) and often top the list of people’s life goals (Emmons, 1999). Many, if not most, adults have experienced, or are currently in, a romantic relationship. In many cases (particularly in western culture), an established, romantic relationship is defined by the degree of partners’ commitment to each other, resistance to alternatives, investment in the relationship, and overall satisfaction. Established relationships are something that people do not typical treat flippantly without suffering unpleasant consequences for doing so.

Although romantic relationships are important, it is well known that people’s satisfaction in these relationships declines over time (Bradbury, Fincham, & Beach, 2000). This decline is not completely understood; however, boredom may potentially play a role. Among couples who attend marital or couple’s therapy, many cite boredom as a primary reason for their dissatisfaction (McKenna, 1989; Reissman, Aron, & Bergen, 1993). Further, in a longitudinal study of married couples, Tsapelas, Aron, and Orbach (in press) found that simple boredom seven years into the marriage predicted decreased satisfaction nine years later, irrespective of couple conflict or tension. Unfortunately, even though boredom (and to a lesser extent, relationship boredom) is a world-wide experience, neither of these concepts has received much attention by researchers (Vodanovich, 2003; although seeBarry, Lawrence, & Langer, 2008, for a notable exception).

Examining boredom

Boredom is a universal experience like happiness or sadness, but how does it feel to be bored? Some might answer "it just feels boring," though responses like uninterested, dull, monotonous, tired, unhappy, and so on, are also likely. Boredom is often described as a state of low or decreased arousal and is variously elaborated in terms of dissatisfaction and inadequate stimulation (Mikulas & Vodanovich, 2003), emptiness, disengagement, and disinterest (Bourgeois, 2001), unvariating repetition, (Conrad, 1999), restlessness and lethargy (Martin, Sadlo, & Stew, 2006), absence of meaning (Barbalet, 1999), and lack of novelty (Smith, 1981).

Engagement, the opposite of boredom, is also a universal experience. Everyone at times has felt that drive, purpose, interest, and involvement that staves off boredom. Csikszentmihalyi’s (2000) characterization of "flow," a highly enjoyable state brought on by focused engagement in an intrinsically motivated pursuit, is perhaps an antithesis to boredom. Maybe boredom is best thought of not as a something, but as a lack or absence of something; perhaps a lack of engagement? That is, if engagement means being interested and involved, then boredom (or "relationship disengagement") should mean being uninterested and uninvolved. From the preceding observations, bored people appear to lack something. They are not being challenged enough or they are overly skilled at what they are doing.

Romantic relationship boredom

Relationship boredom should represent most of the characteristics of typical, non-relationship boredom; that is, a lack of engagement, interest, excitement, and so on. Further, it should also consist of a lack of relationship-specific concepts, such as intimacy, commitment, passion, romance, etc. These concepts tend to be associated with highly arousing emotions and relationship approach motivation goals. That is, intimacy and passion are both emotional and highly arousing in nature, while commitment to one’s partner and engagement in romantic behavior represent motivational goals one must work on to sustain.

Because there is no definitive example or statement that captures the meaning of relationship boredom, it may be best represented using a prototype structure; that is, comprised of a set of similar, yet distinct ideas, each of which is more or less central to the overall concept of relationship boredom. For instance, both "lack of intimacy" and "not going out enough" may be important in describing relationship boredom, but different people may consider each more or less central to its overall meaning. To use a different example, if asked to choose whether a tuna or a salmon is a better example (more prototypical) of a fish, some would choose tuna and others would choose salmon, but everyone would likely agree that both are very representative of the prototype of "fish."

When we asked people to list as many words and short phrases as they could think of about relationship boredom, a prototype structure did appear, and supported our conviction that relationship boredom is comprised of an absence of positive emotion and approach motivation. The most frequent words included variations of: No love, no fun, lack of sex, lack of caring, growing apart, stale relationship, not talking to each other, and so on. It is clear that relationship boredom is not easy to sum up in one simple statement, it truly appears to encompass several meanings, centered primarily around emotion and motivation, and people will relate more or less to a particular meaning based on their own feelings about it. This helps us address some questions we raised earlier: "Are certain people (or relationships) doomed to be boring?" The answer: probably not. Because the meaning of relationship boredom appears flexible and dynamic, we suggest that the tides of boredom may rise and fall in different circumstances for different people. If one is experiencing relationship boredom, they may be able to change it by changing the situation and changing their feelings and motivations. We will revisit our questions again and provide more detailed, potential solutions. Now that we have a better representation of the meaning of relationship boredom, we can examine it and its association with relationships.

Emotion, motivation, and relationship boredom

In the preceding paragraphs, we suggested that relationship boredom consists of an absence of positive emotion and an absence of approach motivation. But what does that mean exactly—an "absence" of emotion and motivation? Positive and negative emotions are independent of each other (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988); that is, "feeling good" is NOT the same as "not feeling bad." People feel varying amounts of positive and negative emotion at the same time. Imagine someone riding a roller coaster; as the car races over the track, swerving and diving, the person might feel excited and afraid, anxious and happy, all at once. He or she is experiencing arousing positive and negative emotions at essentially the same time, something that would be impossible if positive and negative emotions were opposites of each other. Simply, one can feel positive emotions ranging from low arousal (calmness, relaxation) to high arousal (excitement, exhilaration), and at the same time, one can feel negative emotions ranging from low arousal (irritation, annoyance) to high arousal (rage, terror). When one is experiencing either low negative or low positive emotion, it means they are experiencing very low amounts, or even an absence of that emotion. In other words, low positive emotion means a lack or an absence of positive emotion.

From the foregoing analysis it is possible to characterize boredom as being more representative of an absence of emotion rather than being an emotion itself. Boredom is very low arousal, or even an absence of arousal, and is experienced as dissatisfying. Thus, it appears to be a complete lack of positive emotion and either a lack of negative emotion or negative emotion of the very lowest arousal. The view of boredom as a lack of arousal and emotion makes practical sense; feeling bored is more a feeling of nothingness instead of feeling positive or negative. Or, to quote Elie Wiesel: "The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference."

As stated earlier, relationship therapists commonly hear complaints of boredom. Could boredom in a romantic relationship be more distressing than conflict? Although boredom (or romantic disengagement) and conflict are both unpleasant, they are not identical (Barry, Lawrence, & Langer, 2008). At least couples who argue with each other are still doing something. They may not be happy, but they are probably not bored (Strong & Harasymchuk, in press). Further, boredom may be an underlying cause of conflict. When someone is bored, they seek a means of relieving it. Boredom can be relived in both constructive and destructive ways. Perhaps some couples begin arguing as a (destructive) way to relieve relationship boredom? If so, it suggests that couples who stop arguing with each other may actually be setting themselves up for boredom; especially if they fail to increase their positive emotion to replace the negative emotion that came from arguing.

Emotion is only one part of relationship boredom; another—approach and avoidance motivation—will be elaborated next. Hedonism refers to the pursuit of pleasures and the avoidance of pains but these are separate motivations and engaging in one does not necessarily prevent the other. This distinction is important because there are different outcomes when one either achieves or fails to reach a motivational goal, depending on whether one is approaching a desired outcome or avoiding an undesired outcome (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1999). When a person is doing well in approaching a desired goal, the result is an increase in positive emotion such as joy or happiness. When one is doing poorly at the same goal, the result is a decrease in positive emotion (i.e., experiencing low positive emotion), such as disinterest or boredom. When one is doing well at avoiding a particular undesired goal, the result is a decrease in negative emotion (i.e., experiencing low negative emotion), such as relief and security, but not an increase in positive emotion, such as joy and excitement. When one is doing poorly at this task, the result is an increase in negative emotion such as fear, anger, sadness, etc., but not a decrease in positive emotion. Successfully avoiding a conflict with your spouse is rewarding and positive; nevertheless, it is not the same as successfully receiving praise from your spouse. Avoiding an argument is not the same thing as receiving a gift, even though in both cases, goals are being achieved (avoidance goals for the former and approach goals for the latter—avoiding pain versus pursuing pleasure).

Like positive emotion, a lack of approach motivation could be a significant factor of relationship boredom. How can a romantic relationship grow and flourish if there is no progress or goals? If it does not move somewhere, forward, backward, anywhere, it becomes stagnant, dull, and boring. Thus, we once again suggest that relationship boredom is a prototypical construct that generally encompasses an absence of positive emotion and an absence of approach motivation.

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.

References

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