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Blogger's text messages reveal how relationships change from dating to marriage

Setting out to prove that a spark in a relationship really does die — or, at least, dim — as the years go by, Alice Zhao culled together every text message she and her significant other ever sent to each other. The results offer an enlightening look not only into their relationship but for others’ as well.

As a six-year anniversary present to her now-husband, Zhao, who is a data scientist, wanted to give him #thegiftofdata and decided to compare the text messages the couple sent from their first year of dating and then the past year – a time when they transitioned from being engaged to newlyweds.

She started her analysis, which was posted on her blog adashofdata.com, by combining the words used in the messages in 2008 and present day and creating word maps.

“We can clearly see that my husband has an obsession with the word ‘home,’” she writes.

“As for me, my early twenties self frequently started conversations with the term ‘hey,’ and more recently I seem to have decided to no longer greet my husband, but instead agree with most of the things he texts me.”

Next, she looked at the frequency of commonly used terms including “hey,” “love,” “home,” “dinner,” and “OK.” Zhou astutely noticed that their conversations shifted from “hey, what’s up?” to “ok, sounds good” and that they don’t say “love” as much today as the pair previously did.

Not only has the content of their messages changed, but the time of day has shifted as well. Instead of texting all day and into the really late hours of the night, today the couple just keeps in touch during the workday.

At first glance this data can seem depressing. After years together, a quirky relationship — they’re both self-proclaimed nerds — has slowly started to become more mundane and boring, but data can be interpreted in a number of different ways.

For one, when the couple first started dating their communication was more flirty and now that they’re married, the butterfly stomach feeling has settled to a more maintainable level of love. And now that they’re married the newlyweds live together so instead of texting at 3 AM, they can roll over in bed and chat.

“Our text messages became more predictable, but only because all of the unpredictable things were said in person.”