Making the most of it when your partner shares good news

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A job offer. A great haircut. A promotion. A good visit with an old friend. An award recognizing your effort. A great comeback to a mean coworker. Good things happen to us, and when we share them with others, those good things can feel even better. But recent research suggests that how much better we feel depends on how people respond to our good news. Last week I focused on what not to do when things go wrong in our relationships, and this week I want to talk about what to do when things go right for the people closest to us. 

People’s responses to another person’s good news can be divided into four categories along two dimensions (active-passive and constructive-destructive). For example, imagine that William comes home to tell Kate he got a promotion in the Royal Air Force. An active-constructive response from Kate would be enthusiastic support, something like “Wow, honey, that is so great! I knew you could do it, you’ve been working so hard and this just shows you can do anything!” A passive-constructive response from her would be understated support, such as a warm smile with a simple “That’s good news.” An active-destructive response from Kate would be some sort of statement that demeaned the event such as “Does this mean you are going to be gone working even longer hours now? Are you sure you can handle it? Do you think they just gave this to you because of who you are?” And finally, a passive-destructive response from Kate would ignore William’s good news, such as “Oh really? Well you won’t believe what happened to me today while I was out shopping!” So why do these responses to good events matter?

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