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Journalism of Courage
Having a blazing row with your spouse could be the secret to a long life. A good fight with your other half may be good for your health, a study has shown.
Husbands and wives who bury their differences and keep the anger inside are likely to die earlier than those who let the sparks fly, researchers found.
Couples in which both the husband and wife suppress their anger, when one attacks the other die earlier than couples where one or both partners express their anger and resolve the conflict, according to preliminary results of a University of Michigan study.
Researchers looked at 192 couples over 17 years and placed them into one of four categories: both partners communicate their anger; in the second and third groups one spouse expresses while the other suppresses; and both the husband and wife suppress their anger and brood.
When both spouses suppress their anger at the other when unfairly attacked, earlier death was twice as likely than in all other types, the research showed.
8220;When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict,8221; said Ernest Harburg, professor emeritus with the U-M School of Public Health and the Psychology Department, and lead author.
8220;When you don8217;t resolve the conflict, if you bury your anger, and you brood on it and you resent the other person or the attacker, and you don8217;t try to resolve the problem, then you8217;re in trouble,8221; Harburg said.
Of the 192 couples studied, 26 pairs both suppressed their anger and there were 13 deaths in that group. In the remaining 166 pairs, there were 41 deaths combined, the 8216;ScienceDaily8217; reported. The research, 8216;Marital pair anger coping types may act as an entity to affect mortality: Preliminary findings from a prospective study8217; will appear in the Journal of Family Communication.
