Love as a couple, that space in our lives that we decide to share with another person by creating bonds of affection, is something that can take many forms and varies greatly depending on the time and place.

However, in our love life there is something that is constant and always there, affecting the way we perceive our relationship with the other person and the way we interact with them . It is our personality or, more specifically, those personality traits that define us .

Our personality applied to love

If it is true that our personality affects us in all areas of our life, it is no less true that our love relationships are one of the most important aspects of our existence. Therefore, all that we know about personality traits, brought to light by decades of scientific research, can be used to know, approximately, the characteristics of the way in which we tend to live love.

That is why, if we are interested in trying to establish approximate predictions about how our love life is going to be, it is much more advisable to rely on what is known about personality traits than to do so based on pseudosciences such as astrology.

Personality traits and love relationships

Below you can read what are those aspects of personality traits that help us to understand our way of experiencing love relationships .

To do so, we will take as a reference the Model of the 5 great traits of personality, also known as the Big Five, in which these dimensions of personality are established: extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, responsibility and kindness.

1. Extraversion

This dimension of personality serves to establish the extent to which we tend to be assertive and seek social interaction in the present. Therefore, serves to measure whether we are more or less socially active or, on the contrary, introverted and difficult to access .

Extroverted people are more exposed to interaction and dialogue with other people, as they go to meet this type of situation. This is why they can more easily polish their social skills and become charismatic people , with a relative ease in finding a partner and managing the relationship with the person in whom they have a romantic interest.

However, this personality trait is also related to the tendency to look for short term relationships and seek novelty in love life, looking for new partners and not valuing monogamous life as much as others (something that reminds of the Coolidge effect).

Thus, introverted people may have more difficulties in finding a partner , but, if they learn to communicate well with their partner, they are more likely to devote efforts to making the relationship stable and lasting.

2. Neuroticism

Neuroticism is the dimension that measures the degree to which we are emotionally stable or, on the contrary, very sensitive to changes in mood and anxiety levels. Thus, people with a high level of neuroticism are volatile and have more difficulty in controlling their emotional states.

With regard to love life, a high score on the neuroticism trait means a greater likelihood of developing dissatisfaction in the relationship or marriage, and of getting divorced.

This may be because people with a higher degree of neuroticism are particularly sensitive to stress and, moreover, have difficulty managing their actions so that this is not a problem in their relationships with others. Therefore, they are more likely to generate conflicts with a certain frequency and it will be difficult for them to solve them by establishing effective communication channels with their partner, since for this they should adopt a calm attitude and see the problem from a colder perspective.

People who, on the contrary, are characterized by their emotional stability will have an easier time making these problems appear and reproduce themselves over time.

3. Openness to experience

This personality trait indicates our propensity towards curiosity and the way we value living new experiences or, on the contrary, the degree to which we like to base our life on rigid and stable rules. Moreover, it is the feature of the Big Five model that has the least impact on our love life. In contrast to neuroticism, which is the one that allows us to better predict what our relationships will be like.

If there is one fact to be noted where openness to experience is significant in our romantic relationships, it is in our intimate relationships. One study points out that women with higher scores in this trait have such relationships more frequently , while this effect was not present in men. This may mean that, in marriages, it is the women who decide what happens in their bedroom and with what kind of periodicity, since men are willing to be more intimate.

4. Responsibility

Responsibility is the trait that signals our tendency to take the necessary steps to achieve medium- and long-term goals and to be disciplined. In romantic relationships, a high score for this trait indicates a greater probability of avoiding infidelity and generating well-being in life as a couple. Similarly, people with this more pronounced personality trait show a propensity to avoid the risks of pregnancy and transmission of venereal diseases.

5. Kindness

Kindness indicates the degree to which we are receptive to friendly treatment or tend towards hostility . As with the responsibility trait, it correlates positively with satisfaction in marriage, possibly because it facilitates communication and makes direct confrontations more difficult.