Amy Muise

Yes, exactly.

And in a relationship where there might be different attachment styles, it might just be varying these activities to sort of focus on one partner's emotional needs at one time and the others at another time.

Yeah.

So what we found is that both trying new things and doing things that are more like familiar and comfy, they're both good for relationships.

So overall, we see positive effects on relationship satisfaction.

So neither of these things are bad.

But what we found is that they might be particularly beneficial depending on the person's attachment style.

So for people who are more avoidant, like we just talked about, these novel and exciting activities are actually particularly beneficial for them.

So this would be

doing new things, trying something or learning something together, going somewhere unfamiliar, something that maybe feels like a little bit expanding or out of your comfort zone.

And it seems like the reason for this is it's kind of like a side business.

intimacy right it's not an overly intimate you know you're not really digging deep into these vulnerable feelings it's something that feels more fun rather than heavy so this seems to be something that kind of buffers the lower relationship satisfaction that's more typical for people who are avoidantly attached

Yeah, it's actually the opposite pattern.

So it was more of these familiar and comfortable experiences that were particularly beneficial for relationship satisfaction.

And so this could be, you know, because anxious folks tend to fear that their partner won't be there for them, it's possible that these familiar, calming, routine experiences actually help to kind of quell some of those concerns.

So yeah, it is those like watching your favorite TV show, maybe cooking like your favorite food

meal together, spending those like a comfortable night in, that tended to be particularly beneficial for those who were more anxiously attached.

It seems to be good overall for everybody.

It's just that what we found is that these activities are particularly beneficial depending on the attachment style.

So that's an important point.