Want to know the secret to making love last? It may be as simple as writing about your romance.

In a study titled “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Words,” psychology professor James Pennebaker and graduate student Richard Slatcher of the University of Texas at Austin analyzed writing samples from 86 couples and found that writing about a relationship could be linked to its length.

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The study worked like this: The 86 couples were split into two groups. In the first group, one member of each couple wrote about daily activities for 20 minutes a day for three consecutive days. The other group wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings about their relationship. The participants’ dating partners did not complete any writing task.

Seventy-seven percent of volunteers who wrote about their relationship were still dating their partners three months later. Only 52 percent who wrote only about everyday activities stayed with their partners.

Researchers monitored instant message conversations during the days following the writing period to examine the ebb and flow of the participants’ daily conversations in their natural settings. This gave insight into the progression of the relationships after the writing.
Those who wrote about their relationship used more words expressing positive emotions, such as “happy" and "love" in instant message exchanges with their dating partners. These same couples were more likely to stay together down the road.

“These results demonstrate that people who express more emotion, both in their writing and to their partner, may have the power to improve their relationship’s longevity,” Pennebaker says.
Pennebaker and Slatcher believe the connection between writing and improving one’s relationship may extend beyond the realm of dating couples.

“That people may enhance their romantic relationships by simply writing down their thoughts and feelings about those relationships has clear implications,” Pennebaker says. “The use of expressive writing as a tool for relationship enhancement could be applied to those in families, circles of friends and even work groups.”

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