Sex Couples have satisfying relationships

Study shows same-sex couples have more satisfying relationships

By: U- WIRE

SAN DIEGO – Some relationship experts say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but what happens when couples are from the same planet?

Women studies professor Esther Rothblum’s research indicates that same-sex couples in committed relationships are more satisfied with their partners than married heterosexual couples.

“Same-sex couples are thriving and are doing well, even though we don’t have federal same-sex benefits or same-sex marriage,” Rothblum said.

The three-year study revealed that same-sex couples reported greater relationship quality, compatibility, intimacy and lower levels of conflict than married couples.

Rothblum said there could be a number of reasons for the results, but it could be because men in relationships with men and women with women have been socialized the same way and are both from “Mars” or “Venus.”

“It’s actually a miracle that heterosexual couples, a man and a woman, who have been brought up in very different ways – to handle conflict differently, to think about relationships differently [and] intimacy differently – actually ever make it in a relationship,” she said.

Rothblum’s research, published last month in “Developmental Psychology,” is the first study to follow same-sex couples in civil unions over time. This is because civil unions were not legal in the United States until recently.