Broadening your horizons: Self-expanding activities promote desire and satisfaction in established romantic relationships.

Abstract

In the early stages of romantic relationships, sexual desire is often intense, but over time, as partners get to know each other, desire tends to decline. Low sexual desire has negative implications for relationship satisfaction and maintenance. Self-expansion theory suggests that engaging in novel activities with a long-term romantic partner can reignite feelings of passion from the early stages of a relationship. Across 3 studies using dyadic, daily experience, longitudinal, and experimental methods, we find evidence for our central prediction that engaging in self-expanding activities with a partner is associated with higher sexual desire. In turn, we found that higher desire fueled by self-expansion is associated with greater relationship satisfaction. Self-expansion, through sexual desire, is also associated with an increased likelihood that couples will engage in sex, and when they do engage in sex, they feel more satisfied with their sexual experiences. We also demonstrate that the benefits of self-expansion for relationship satisfaction are sustained over time, and that the effects cannot be attributed solely to increases in positive affect, time spent interacting with the partner or closeness during the activity. Implications for selfexpansion theory and sexual desire maintenance in relationships are discussed.

Attachment Insecurity and Daily Relationship Threats as Obstacles to Relational Self-Expansion

“…New and exciting couple activities are important to intimate relationships because they help promote increased relationship satisfaction (e.g., Aron & Aron, 1986;1997;Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman, 2000;Girme, Overall, & Faingataa, 2014;Graham, 2008;Harasymchuk & Fehr, 2010;Mattingly & Lewandowski, 2013;Muise, Harasymchuk, Day, Bacev-Giles, Gere, & Impett, 2019;Reissman, Aron, & Bergen, 1993). However, people's quest for seeking novelty within their relationship may not always be a positive experience because of perceived threats to their relationship.…”

“…By nature, the self-expansion process is positive and rewarding for intimate relationships. Research has found that people who experience greater levels of relational self-expansion tend to reap rewards such as greater relationship quality (e.g., Aron et al, 2000;Carson, Carson, Gil, & Baucom, 2004;Coulter & Malouff, 2013;Muise et al, 2019;Reissman et al, 1993), and greater individual well-being (Aron et al, 2004;Mattingly & Lewandowski, 2013). For instance, through two 21-day daily diary studies of couples, Muise and colleagues (2019) assessed relational self-expansion through a daily selfreport measure and found that people reported greater relationship satisfaction as well as increased sexual desire on days when their evaluations of relational self-expansion were greater than usual.…”

“…Activities which promote relational self-expansion (i.e., broadening of the sense of self and relationship) have often been described as exciting (Aron et al, 2000;Coulter & Malouff, 2013;Muise et al, 2019), novel and arousing (Aron et al, 2000;, and challenging (Aron & Aron, 1986;Aron et al, 2000;Coulter & Malouff, 2013;Hill, 1988;Graham & Harf, 2015). Descriptors of couple activities which help to broaden one's sense of self and their relationship have also included: fun and interesting (Tomlinson, Hughes, Lewandowski, Aron & Geyer, 2018), boring (reverse-coded) and dull (reverse-coded; Aron et al, 2000;Lewandowski & Aron, 2004;Tomlinson et al, 2018), and active (Hill, 1988), as well as adventurous, playful, romantic, and spontaneous (Malouff, Mundy, Galea, & Bothma, 2015).…”

“…Putting aside the ongoing debate about the essential features of exciting couple activities, there is mounting evidence that exciting couple activities have many positive benefits for intimate relationships (Aron et al, 2000;Girme et al, 2014;Harasymchuk et al, 2019;Kilbourne, Howell, & England, 1990;Muise et al, 2019;Reissman et al, 1993;Rollock, 2011). As opportunities for relational selfexpansion may decrease over time (Aron & Aron, 1986;1997;), exciting couple activities bode well for relationship maintenance by providing intimate couples with a means to occasionally break away from routine behaviours which may lead to relational boredom (e.g., Harasymchuk & Fehr, 2010;2012; and instead engage in new activities in order to "spice up" the relationship.…”

“…People report increased relationship satisfaction when their relationships are characterized as active and challenging (Hill, 1988) and provide them with a sense of excitement (Malouff et al, 2015). Moreover, a number of studies have confirmed that engaging in exciting couple activities is associated with overall greater relationship quality (e.g., satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, sexual desire; Aron et al, 2000;Carson et al, 2004;, Malouff et al, 2015Reissman et al, 1993;Girme et al, 2014;Graham, 2008;Muise et al, 2019;Nardone, 2012).…”