Couples that savor together, stay together.

A new study out of the University of Illinois asked nearly 600 couples whether they stop and appreciate the good things they experience together.

They called it joint savoring: deliberately pausing to enjoy shared experiences, whether anticipating something, being fully present during it, or reminiscing afterward. Couples who did it more reported less conflict, more satisfaction, and more confidence the relationship would last.

The stress finding is the most interesting result. Under high stress, which is exactly when couples stop pausing for anything, those who kept savoring together showed no significant drop in relationship confidence. Those who didn't, did.

The study is correlational, so we can't establish causality. That could mean joint savoring makes relationships better, that healthier relationships naturally produce more savoring, or that some third factor—emotional maturity, secure attachment, or general positivity—drives both. But from a clinical perspective, that limitation doesn't change much. Prescriptive, diagnostic, or a marker of something deeper, we’re looking at something meaningful.

In session I sometimes ask couples to name the last time they genuinely enjoyed something together. For a lot of couples, it was longer ago than I would have hoped.

What the study calls joint savoring is really just turning toward each other when good things are happening. And most couples don't stop doing that because they stop caring about each other. They stop because life gets full and the good moments start passing without comment.

The bar for fixing it is lower than we might think. The moments are already there; we just have to savor them together.

It starts with noticing something good and saying so out loud, what we call a bid for connection: a small reach for your partner's attention on something worth sharing. But savoring is the exchange. One partner notices, the other responds, and for a moment they’re both enjoying something good.

That’s the whole thing.

Noah B. Larsen, Allen W. Barton, Brian G. Ogolsky. Joint Savoring in Romantic Relationships: Correlates and Protective Effects. Contemporary Family Therapy, 2025;