A husband that is healthy and has a positive attitude is crucial for a happy, long-term marriage, a new study finds.
University of Chicago researchers found that such husbands play an important role in preventing conflict in a couple's old age. Interestingly, women with the same characteristics were less influential in preventing marital conflicts, according to a press release.
"Wives report more conflict if their husband is in poor health," said the study's lead author, James Iveniuk, PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology in the statement. "If the wife is in poor health, there doesn't seem to be any difference in terms of the quality of the marriage for the husband."
The findings were made after analyzing data of a national survey conducted on 953 heterosexual couples who were married or cohabitating. The study participants were aged between 63 and 90 years and the average length of their relationships was 39 years.
Researchers compared the characteristics of the husbands to the characteristics of their wives and vice versa based on interviews with each person where they were asked to describe themselves. They found that there were many differences in personality traits between both genders. These included openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and anxiety. Researchers also measured the "positivity" level of each participant.
Iveniuk and his team found that wives of husbands with higher levels of positivity reported less conflict in their marriage. However, a wife's level of positivity didn't influence a husband's reporting of marital conflict.
Co-author Linda J. Waite clarified that these marital conflicts are not primarily about fighting or violence, but rather whether one spouse criticizes the other, makes too many demands, or generally gets on the other person's nerves.
Researchers also found that wives of men who described themselves as neurotic or extraverts complained more about the quality of the marriage. Overall, husbands reported more criticism and demands from their wives. They also thought that their wives needed higher levels of emotional support.
"Several previous studies have been about the implications of marital status on health," Waite said. "This research allows us to examine individual marriages and not 'married people.' We have the reports on the quality of the marriage from each person, about their own personality and their own health."
The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and published online in the Journal of Marriage and Family.
