Is Your Relationship … OK?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Forget the questionable relationship advice from internet influencers. Today, we’re diving into the science of lasting love, fighting, and "red flags” to find out what really matters for a healthy relationship. We’ll find out what it means to fight well with your partner. And we’ll also look at the signs that a relationship might become dangerous or abusive. For all this, we speak with Professor Ben Karney, Dr. Megan Haselschwerdt, Dr. Elizabeth McLindon and Matt Brown. U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800.799.7233 or www.thehotline.org Find international resources and more at spotify.com/resources Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsIsYourRelationshipOK In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Influencers love giving advice (02:36) How to have a ‘healthy fight’ (09:44) If you fight badly, will you get divorced? (13:55) What are ‘red flags’? (21:01) Red flags you should watch for (28:23) Approaches to try to change abusive partners (34:00) Why do people try to control their partners? (37:57) Can an abusive partner change? This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman, with help from Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Emma Munger, So Wylie, Peter Leonard, Bumi Hidaka and Bobby Lord. Thanks to our consultants Maya Serelis and Jess Hill. A special thanks to the researchers and folks working in the space of domestic violence that we spoke to including, Dr Áine Travers, Claire Marshall, Professor Sharon Dawe, Professor Kelsey Hegarty, Dr Franscesca Righetti, Dr Andrea Meltzer, Professor Amy Rauer, and Dr Amie Zarling. A big thanks to Joseph Lavelle Wilson and the Zukerman family. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Verses.
0:05.4	All over the internet, people are doling out advice about your relationship.
0:11.5	These are the nine things you need to know about love.
0:15.5	You figure let me try to make your work. You're wasting your time.
0:19.4	There's advice about all kinds of relationship things, like people saying if you're in
0:24.6	a fight with your partner, here's the things you need to be doing. And it kind of feels like if
0:30.1	you don't follow their advice, you'll be breaking up before someone can say, why do you keep
0:35.4	restacking the dishwasher? See, psychologists say the strongest predictor of a lasting relationship isn't how well you avoid
0:42.3	conflict, it's how well you repair after conflict.
0:45.3	If you keep getting into the same dump fights with your partner, please, I'm begging you to do this.
0:49.3	Here's how you can repair any fight in three easy steps.
0:52.3	I've watched video after video about red flags, signs that this person that maybe you thought
0:59.7	was great actually isn't.
1:02.3	Have you ever looked back and thought, fuck? I really should have seen that red flag sooner.
1:06.1	If she's doing these three things, bro, she's cut off.
1:08.5	If he has a girl best friend, keep your goddamn eye out.
1:12.4	You're not being loved, you're being controlled.
1:14.5	That's a huge red flag.
1:17.9	And while some of what people are saying online seems reasonable enough, some of it
1:24.1	kind of seems terrible.
1:27.0	So today on the show, rather than getting our relationship advice from some rando on the
1:32.1	internet, we're going to get it from scientists.
	...

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