Here’s How Your Relationship With Your Sister Affects Your Love Life

A new study has found a link between healthy love lives and men who have good relationships with their sisters. The study was published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence and determined that teens that get along well with their siblings of the opposite sex are more likely to have good??romantic competency in their relationships.?

The research for this study was done at Penn State University, and centered around 373 young adults. The study took place over a span of five years, and was looking for information about how confident the kids felt around people of the opposite gender. They were also looking to see how the kids thought that they were perceived to people of the opposite gender, like how attractive they might be to them.

The researchers determined that??having an opposite-sex sibling provides natural opportunities to practice relating to the opposite sex and learn important social skills that can be applied in other relationships, such as conflict resolution and emotional control.? So just by having a sister you are already exposed to a lot of things about women that it can be helpful to learn.

The research went a step further and also determined that the closer the male and female siblings were, the better off they were in their romantic life as well. The siblings who shared secrets and discussed their feelings provided a safe way to get comfortable communicating and be open with the opposite sex, which directly plays into how successful relationships are or are not.

This study was of course done on teenagers and has to do with the formative years, but there is no reason to think that being close to your sister in adulthood doesn’t have its benefits as well. In fact it could possibly increase your communication skills with women if you start perfecting them with your sister now. Get comfortable spilling your guts to your sister and listening to her life as well, and those communication skills just might land you the right lady.

The study also did not find any benefits in romantic relationships from having good same sex relationships with siblings, so while your relationship with your brother might benefit your life in many ways, it won’t necessarily be in this way. The study thinks that same sex siblings don’t have the same opportunity to realize how different the opposite sex can be when it comes to communicating, and of course don’t get to practice it on safe people. This can lead to some confidence hits when they get out into the playing field and feel unsure about what they really know about how to talk to girls.

At this point in your life you are probably pretty comfortable talking to women anyway, but it is a good reminder at how important social skills like conflict resolution and emotional control can be. Like anything else, having the awareness of what you need to change is the first step towards personal growth in any sort of relationship.