New Study Pinpoints the One Thing That Makes Relationships Last

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Getting into a relationship is easy. With so many people searching for their soulmate - you're bound to find someone who's willing to take a chance that it could be you! The hard part comes with keeping that relationship going. If you find yourself wondering how to keep your good thing going - you're in luck!

Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany have been taking a deep dive into what makes relationships tick, and what they've found is nothing less than groundbreaking. According to Inverse, these white-lab-coated Casanovas have found the most important factor for keeping your relationship strong and happy.

The results of their study were published in the prestigious Sociology and Personality Psychological Compass, and they point to playfulness as the lynchpin that holds the rest of your relationship together. As we get older, the research explains, we tend to focus on paying bills, running errands, and basically everything necessary to keep a household going. While all of that is necessary, it does little to feed the fire that originally brought you together - the fun!

According to the data, this playfulness "helps strengthen bonds with our partners and elicits positive emotions. Those positive emotions, in turn, foster social skills and help us communicate — all of which increase relationship satisfaction."

The more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes. You didn't get together so you could figure out how to split the phone bill - you did it because you like spending time with them. That light-hearted feeling you had in the beginning is the key to making it last. Experts say that planning a time free from talking about "household business" to enjoy your partner's company is absolutely necessary to keep everyone satisfied in the relationship.

I'm not saying you should pull a prank on your spouse (unless you're sure they're into that kind of thing) - but maybe a mini-golf date is long overdue.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.