Study

Positive and Negative Marriages Affect How Couples Rate Their Health

C. Price

Written by: C. Price

C. Price

C. Price is part of DatingAdvice.com's content team. She writes advice articles, how-to guides, and studies — all relating to dating, relationships, love, sex, and more.

Edited by: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of journalism experience to ensure DatingAdvice articles have been edited for overall clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Gwinnett Daily News, and The Gainesville Sun covering lifestyle topics.

Discuss This! Discuss This!
Advertiser Disclosure

New research shows marriage quality could impact how couples rate their own health.
Christine Proulx, with the University of Missouri, said as happily married couples age, they are more likely to consider themselves healthy.

Proulx looked at data collected over two decades from 707 married adults, ultimately concluding both positive and negative marriages have a big impact on how individuals rate their health.

 

“Positive and negative marriages have a big

impact on how individuals rate their health.”

Interestingly, Proulx also found this pattern repeated itself at every stage of marriage, indicating marital quality influences the health of young couples as deeply as it can support or compromise the health of aging partners.

Looking over the data, Proulx concluded aging adults whose physical health is declining could especially benefit from improving their marriages.

She also noted healthcare professionals and individuals need to consider improving relationship quality an important step when it comes to ensuring long-lasting health, even when it comes to treating severe illnesses.

“We often think about the aging process as something we can treat medically with a pill or more exercise, but working on your marriage also might benefit your health as you age,” she said. “Engaging with your spouse is not going to cure cancer, but building stronger relationships can improve both people’s spirits and well-being and lower their stress.”

Source: MedicalExpress.com. Photo source: memorycarehs.com.

Advertiser Disclosure

DatingAdvice.com is a free online resource that offers valuable content and comparison services to users. To keep this resource 100% free, we receive compensation from many of the offers listed on the site. Along with key review factors, this compensation may impact how and where products appear across the site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). DatingAdvice.com does not include the entire universe of available offers. Editorial opinions expressed on the site are strictly our own and are not provided, endorsed, or approved by advertisers.

Our Editorial Review Policy

Our site is committed to publishing independent, accurate content guided by strict editorial guidelines. Before articles and reviews are published on our site, they undergo a thorough review process performed by a team of independent editors and subject-matter experts to ensure the content’s accuracy, timeliness, and impartiality. Our editorial team is separate and independent of our site’s advertisers, and the opinions they express on our site are their own. To read more about our team members and their editorial backgrounds, please visit our site’s About page.