When romantic partners feel threatened by a potential rival, they tend to prioritize defending their bond over routinely nurturing it. Over time, this defensive focus can feed a loop of escalating jealousy and declining relationship satisfaction. These behavioral patterns were outlined in a recent paper published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Everyday efforts to keep a relationship functioning take several forms. Motivation experts frequently categorize human behavior as either chasing a positive reward or avoiding a negative outcome. A newer framework divides human motivation into three distinct categories. These include maintenance goals, protection goals, and progress goals. Maintenance goals involve actions that keep a current situation stable without addressing an immediate problem. In a romantic relationship, this might look like regular date nights, dividing household chores evenly, asking a partner about their day, or consistently providing emotional support. Old psychological models assumed that people were either running toward something good or running away from something bad. But keeping things exactly as they are requires its own targeted type of energy. Protection goals …