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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Friends with benefits 'new form of dating'
When Harry Met Sally asked if men and women could be friends without sex getting in the way. No Strings Attached asked if men and women could have sex without romance getting in the way.
Now, researchers have updated the scenario, asking in a new study if men and women can have a romance without their history as sex buddies getting in the way. And what they found surprised them.
Turns out, exclusive romances that begin as "friends with benefits" -- characterized by sexual encounters with no commitment -- are actually no more likely to fail than romances with no FWB roots. In fact, with the exception of a small negative effect on relationship satisfaction, their study showed FWB beginnings have no significant impact on a couple's ability to thrive.
"Just because people start out as friends with benefits, doesn't necessarily mean a doomsday scenario for their relationship," said lead author Jesse Owen, an associate professor of counselling psychology at the University of Louisville. "Friends with benefits may actually be the new form of dating."
Alongside Frank Fincham of The Florida State University, Owen plumbed the behaviours of 764 men and women in exclusive dating relationships. Of that group, 20 per cent had started out as FWBs (notably, previous research shows 10 to 20 per cent of young adults who start as FWBs progress into an exclusive romance).
The study tested for such things as relationship ambiguity (agreement with such statements as "I would rather things be kind of vague about what our relationship is"), relationship satisfaction, and communication quality (when problems arise, whether partners blame and criticize each other or try to solve the issue as a couple).
After controlling for potentially confounding factors such as alcohol use and attachment styles, they were surprised to find FWB origins were "basically a non-factor in the health and viability of those people's relationships," with no significant links to communication quality or strength of commitment.
"Commitment is a foundation of any relationship. And friends with benefits are really unstable, almost by definition," says Owen. "We thought that would carry forward but it didn't happen."
Furthermore, after four months, FWB-prior couples were no more likely to have separated than couples without a FWB history.
The study appears in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
-- Postmedia News
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 11, 2012 A17
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