How to Stay Positive While Loving an Unhappy Partner

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The dynamics of coupledom is a sum of both partners' dispositions, demeanor, and personality. This is good news for couples who are like-minded or find their traits to be complementary. But it is potentially bad news for emotionally mismatched pairs who see things differently.

Waking up to the same partly cloudy sky, one sees a beautiful morning while the other laments it is probably going to rain. Planning a trip, one gushes with excitement over the new experiences that await, while the other has made a list of all of the things that could go wrong. Setting aside the question of how two totally different dispositions came together in the first place, the question is where do they go from here? Research explains why that is such a good question.

Negative Influence: Show Me Your Partner and I’ll Show You Your Future

Olga Stavrova and William J. Chopik (2023) studied couple co-development and well-being. In a report titled “Don’t Drag Me Down.”[i] they begin by recognizing the similarity in psychological well-being between romantic partners. Exploring valence asymmetry, they tested whether partners experiencing divergent levels of well-being would converge over time through a happier partner becomes less happy or an unhappy partner experiencing improved mood.

Through two longitudinal studies of over 20,000 couples, they found that happier partners experienced the most dramatic decline in well-being, while unhappier partners experienced only a slight improvement in their well-being, if anything. Stavrova and Chopik note that their results illustrate a negativity bias in well-being co-development—that “bad seems to be stronger than good” in shaping the dynamics of changes in a couple's well-being.

Stavrova and Chopik observe that people frequently share information with their partners about the stress of their day or about upsetting events as a method of coping and seeking social support. Because the brain's negativity bias gives negative information more weight than positive information in affective experiences, it might give unhappier partners more power to influence interactions and overall affective experience, allowing negativity to dominate daily conversations. They find that negativity is readily transmissible through social interactions.

Creating Positivity

Given the potential "contagion" of unhappiness, a worthwhile goal for couples would be to counteract negative patterns with positivity. Avoiding a pattern in which an unhappy partner drags down the happier one requires proactive planning. Some ideas include the following:

One idea couples could consider is designating a time to discuss negative events of the day—with both a start and an end time. This ensures a negative partner has the opportunity to vent or share unpleasant feelings but within a reasonable time constraint to ensure the negativity does not dominate the household. More time should be spent discussing positive topics, both before and after the vent session.

Misery Should Not Love Company: Maintaining Boundaries

The happier half of a couple should seek to maintain a positive emotional state, for the sake of both partners, while still being available to support the unhappy half. But a negative partner should not seek to bring down a spouse or supportive partner because “misery loves company.” It's important to remember that happiness is contagious, too.

Focus on the Future

Because achieving hope and happiness is often about a perception of control,[ii] happy partners can optimize optimism through proactively planning the future, incorporating plenty of events and plans that make both partners happy and hopeful. These can include family-related events, mutually enjoyable activities, movies, concerts, or merely time to relax together within a community of faith, family, and fun.

And, finally, when couples are unable to strategize emotional balance or find enough positive events to focus on or plan, professional help is available. With effort and optimism, it is possible for even challenging relationships to have a healthy, happy future.

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