A Wife’s Happiness Is More Important Than Her Husband’s For A Successful Marriage, Research Finds

Aug 20, 2019 by apost team

At a time when the APA notes that the divorce rate is 40 to 50 percent, scientists have launched a study into marital quality to see just how satisfaction between married couples works. Their results showed that a wife’s happiness seems to be more important than her husband’s for a happy marriage.

The study was co-conducted by scientists at Rutgers and the University of Michigan, and published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. They worked with 394 couples who were 60 years old or older and have been married for 39 years or longer. The results of their findings were very interesting for married couples and single people alike.

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The couples were surveyed to rate their satisfaction in their marriage. They were asked about appreciativeness, rates of arguments, or how often their spouse annoys them. They were also asked to keep journals about their feelings during the day. The satisfaction rates were found to be quite high at an average of 5 out of 6.

It’s also worth noting that those averages are higher for husbands than for wives.

“I think it comes down to the fact that when a wife is satisfied with the marriage she tends to do a lot more for her husband, which has a positive effect on his life,” Deborah Carr, one of the study’s leads notes in Rutgers Today. ”Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives.”

In the cases of when a spouse falls ill, it was found that husbands’ happiness levels didn’t change, while wives become less happy.

“We know that when a partner is sick it is the wife that often does the caregiving which can be a stressful experience,” Carr continues in Rutgers Today. “But often when a women gets sick it is not her husband she relies on but her daughter.”

The implications of the study are important because good marriages are very critical to the health of older individuals, as Carr explains further.

“The quality of a marriage is important because it provides a buffer against the health-depleting effects of later life stressors and helps couples manage difficult decisions regarding health and medical decision making,” Carr said in Rutgers Today.

There is also a claim from the author Paul Dolan in his book "Happy Ever After: Escaping The Myth of The Perfect Life," that women do not benefit from marriage as much as men do. The New York Post reports that the book finds that men calm down with a spouse and take fewer risks while women do not. 

The old adage of “Happy wife, happy life” looks like it has been substantiated by science, but it's important for each spouse to take care of each other. For husbands, it might be possible that if you make your wife happy you will have a healthier life yourself.

What do you think about the results of this study? Is it common sense or is this news to you? Be sure to pass this article along to your spouse so they can weigh in too.