Most relationships fall into these four ‘types’

If you have ever wondered whether or not your relationship is going to make it through to marriage (or whether you should have married in the first place), a new study has all the answers. It turns out, there are four types of relationships. And the one you have should tell you everything.

Researcher Brian Ogolsky, a professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois, and his colleagues examined the relationships of more than 300 couples in their 20’s and identified four main types of partnerships. These are:

Dramatic

These relationships are characterized as being “up and down.” They are much more likely to break up than any of the other groups. Another characteristic here is that their friends and families are less likely to want to see them stay together. Probably because of the drama, right? Don’t we all know “that couple”? The ones who always fight and never seem happy? Yeah. Not good.

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Partner-focused

These are the couple who don’t think about much else besides one another. It’s both good and bad. It’s good in that this is the relationship most likely to progress from casual to serious dating, but it’s also bad in terms of co-dependence. We all know that woman who disappears when she has a boyfriend. This is her type.

Socially involved

These are the couples who have a strong social group and ties to one another’s friends. It makes the breakups more rough, but they are far more likely to stay together assuming their friends and family approve of their relationship.

Conflict-ridden

Finally we have the “fighters” group. I totally fall into this, by the way. This couple is more likely to stay together than the dramatic group, but is also similar in that there is a lot of fighting and quarreling. I speak from personal experience when I say for some people, those conflicts are foreplay.

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So there you have it. The kind of relationship you have indicates your future success. On the one hand, this is nice to know, right? On the other, we all know relationships are far more individual and hard to characterize in one way than this study would suggest. The reality is you have to go with your gut. No matter what your “type” is, you will last if you want to and if the relationship is strong enough.