The Formula for Staying Together

Next time you have an argument with your partner and you can’t reach an easy conclusion, agree to disagree and move on. Apparently you’ll have a better chance of staying together in the long term. According to Sydney University mathematician Dr Clio Cresswell, couples who compromise the least usually stay together the longest. She says that a conversation between a couple will always be bursting with patterns, just like in mathematics. “Studying newlyweds’ conversations revealed a similarity in the equations of the couples that were still together six years down the track.” Mathematics is showing that those who stand their ground in those early disputes will have a better outcome.