Occasionally, I imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t have my partner. I’ll even imagine that he has died and wonder what I would do. Sounds dark, right? Perhaps even more morbid is that his imaginary death always makes me feel happier with my relationship.
Now, before you start thinking that I am some sort of psychopath, social psychological research supports my morbid relationship musings.1 In a study on mentally subtracting positive events (imagining that a positive aspect of your life never happened), people in exclusive romantic relationships of at least 5 years either wrote about (a) how they met their partner, started dating, and ended up together (the presence condition), or (b) how they might have never met their partner, started dating, or ended up together (the absence condition). Another group of participants completed a series of control exercises such as writing about their typical day to offer a comparison.
Although outside observers who read these descriptions predicted that the people in the absence condition would feel worse compared to people in the presence or control conditi