Emotion regulation in romantic relationships

Romantic relationships are hotbeds of emotions - from the high highs and low lows in the beginning of a new relationship to all the tough and tender moments when navigating life as a couple to the question of how to let go and move on when a relationship ends. How couples regulate emotions has profound consequences, not only for relationship quality and stability, but also for well-being, health, and longevity (e.g., Gottman & Gottman, 2017; Levenson et al., 2014; Wells et al., 2022).Drawing from functionalist perspectives of emotion (e.g., Levenson, 1999), we propose that each phase in a romantic relationship (i.e., initiation, development, ending) can be characterized by specific challenges and opportunities that give rise to specific emotions and with it, demands for emotion regulation. We do not wish to imply that these challenges and opportunities are universal (although there is evidence that romantic love is a cross-cultural phenomenon, see Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992) or that everyone will navigate these stages in similar ways (in fact, variability is key when it comes to couples’ emotion regulation; Levenson et al., 2014). But we hope for this to be a useful organizing framework that can bridge the vast affective and relationship science literatures that speak to couples’ emotion regulation.