If you and your partner rarely argue, you might wonder whether that is a sign of a healthy relationship or of two people who have stopped engaging. A 2026 study offers a cautious answer: both a relationship with mixed feelings and one with few feelings of any kind have been linked to poorer mental health, and which one shows up may depend partly on how researchers measure the relationship.
The study was published online on 27 May 2026 in Acta Psychologica. The authors, based at Canadian universities, started from a puzzle in earlier research. Some studies find that ambivalent relationships, with high positive and high negative quality, are linked to poor health. Others find that indifferent relationships, with low positive and low negative quality, are the problem. The researchers asked whether the way relationship quality is measured might explain the difference.
A total of 238 participants answered questions about one partner relationship, using the same people, the same time point and the same partner for every measure. Some questions were about support-seeking: how helpful and how distressing their partner was when they sought support. Others were broader: how supportive and how conflicted the relationship was overall. Participants also reported anxiety and depressive symptoms and some background details, which the researchers took into account.
The team used linear regression to test whether positive quality, negative quality, and the way the two combined, were associated with symptoms.
The pattern depended on the measure. With the support-seeking questions, the combination of positive and negative quality mattered in a way consistent with ambivalence. When a partner was seen as high in distress, higher helpfulness went with higher anxiety. So a relationship that was both helpful and upsetting during support-seeking was linked with more anxiety than the helpfulness alone would suggest.
With the broader questions about overall support and overall conflict, the pattern was consistent with indifference. When conflict was low, lower support went with higher anxiety. In other words, a calm relationship with little support was linked with more anxiety, which is the pattern the authors describe as consistent with indifference.
Both interaction results were statistically significant (p values of .035 and .028), though the abstract does not describe how large the differences in anxiety were. The published summary reports anxiety as the clear finding; it does not give a comparable headline result for depressive symptoms, so we do not draw one.
The authors suggest that the choice of measure may help explain why some studies point to ambivalence and others to indifference.
The central finding is about measurement. It does not show that a quiet relationship is unhealthy, and it does not show that arguing is good for you. A low-conflict, high-support relationship was not the one linked with higher anxiety.
Because everyone answered questionnaires at one time, the study cannot say which came first. Someone who is anxious may perceive a partner as less supportive, and a less supportive relationship may also add to anxiety. Both could be true. Self-report also reflects one person's view of the relationship, and it cannot tell us what the partner would say.
The sample was 238 people, and the summary we could access does not describe their ages, genders, relationship length or cultural backgrounds in detail, so we cannot say who the findings apply to. A statistical interaction is also a pattern across a group, not a verdict on any one couple. Plenty of couples argue rarely and feel close; others argue often and repair well.
This is general education, not advice. If a relationship involves fear, control or coercion, silence or calm may not mean safety, and these ideas do not apply. In Australia, Lifeline is on 13 11 14, and 000 is for emergencies.
Source: Positive and negative partner relationship quality and mental health: Ambivalent and indifferent partner relationships DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.107106
Conceptual illustration of the difference between quietness and emotional connection. AI-generated editorial illustration. This article summarises published research in our own words and is general information, not personal health advice.
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