Survey Examines Relationship Anxiety in an Economic Downturn

Do you need different things from a/your relationship during a recession? An interesting question, which was recently posed by eHarmony through an extensive survey on the topic last month. More than a thousand Americans over the age of 18 were asked a series of questions about how the current economic situation affected them in relationships. The results? Although some of the study focused solely on married couples, some of the other data was thought provoking, such as:

• Fifty-seven percent of respondent were feeling stressed with regards to their relationship because of "personal economic situations", although women were less likely (52%) to do so as opposed to men (61%).


• Those in the 25-34 age group felt more stress because of the economic downturn (75%) than any other age group, with 71% of those 65+ feeling little or no stress on their love lives.


• Well over half of the unmarried respondents thought that the current economic situation didn't affect their want to be in a relationship, yet those who were the most stressed out about everything were more likely (14%) to be in a committed relationship by December 2009.

There was one shocking (to me) response to the survey from married women as well, which (may) equally apply to those in long term, committed dating relationships: of the married women who responded to the survey and who felt the economy was impacting their relationship, 15% believed their relationship may not make it until the end of next year, whereas only five percent of the married women who didn't feel the economy affected their relationship said the same thing. Yet the married men who answered these questions didn't feel there was any increase in the possibility that their marriages would suffer in either circumstance.

To translate this into information that we, as unmarried folks, can use: gents might want to pay a bit more attention as to how the economy is affecting their partner, and their willingness to move forward in their relationship, whereas women may want to initiate a conversation with their partners, to explain just how serious their concerns really are.