How Satisfied Are You in Your Relationship?
The overall verdict, the good feelings and the bad ones, measured separately
Asked whether they are happy in their relationship, most people give one answer. But a relationship can be full of warmth and full of frustration at the same time, or calm and strangely empty, and a single score hides the difference. Researchers who study couples measure the overall verdict, and some of them also measure the good and the bad feelings as two separate things. Doing both says more about where a relationship really stands than either on its own.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about your current relationship as it has been over the last month or two, not about the best weekend or the worst argument.
What it measures
Your overall satisfaction with the relationship, as measured by the classic satisfaction scales, plus two separate bars for positive and negative feelings about it. This is not the same as the 'why you stay' test on this site, where satisfaction is only one of several reasons people remain committed, nor the red flags test, which looks at how you argue. Here the question is simply how the relationship feels to you.
Based on: Relationship Assessment Scale (Hendrick, 1988) and Couples Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007), with positive and negative dimensions (Mattson et al., 2013)
Possible results
Overall satisfaction
Your overall verdict on the relationship: does it give you what you hoped for?
Good feelings
How much warmth, enjoyment and pride the relationship brings you.
Bad feelings
How much frustration, disappointment and loneliness the relationship brings you.
Common questions
Can you love someone and still be unsatisfied?
Yes, and it is more common than people admit. Researchers who measured good and bad feelings about a relationship separately found that some people are high on both - ambivalent - and that this pattern carries information a single satisfaction score misses. Love is closer to the good-feelings bar; satisfaction is the overall verdict, and it can be low while the love is still very much there.
Is relationship satisfaction the same as commitment?
No. Satisfaction is how the relationship feels; commitment is whether you intend to stay. People stay in relationships they are not satisfied with because of children, shared history, money or a lack of alternatives, and some leave relationships they were fairly satisfied with. The 'why you stay' test on this site looks at those other reasons.
Should I show my partner the result?
It can be a useful opening, as long as it is offered as information about how you feel rather than as evidence against them. A better use is for both of you to take the test separately and compare: the interesting finding is rarely the height of the bars, but the places where your answers differ.
Sources
- Hendrick, S. S. (1988). A generic measure of relationship satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family. doi:10.2307/352430
- Funk, J. L., & Rogge, R. D. (2007). Testing the ruler with item response theory: Increasing precision of measurement for relationship satisfaction with the Couples Satisfaction Index. Journal of Family Psychology. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.21.4.572
- Mattson, R. E., Rogge, R. D., Johnson, M. D., Davidson, E. K. B., & Fincham, F. D. (2013). The positive and negative semantic dimensions of relationship satisfaction. Personal Relationships. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2012.01412.x
An honest note The items are Quinthea's own wording adapted from the published satisfaction scales, so scores are not comparable with their norms. Those scales are one-dimensional: only the first bar corresponds to them. The good and bad feelings bars follow a separate two-dimensional approach and are not validated factors of those scales. Answers reflect one person on one day. If your relationship involves fear, control or violence, this is not a satisfaction question - please contact a support service or professional.
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