Happy Wife, Happy Life?

Most of us have heard the phrase, “Happy wife, happy life.” But is this more than just a convenient rhyme? A new study from Rutgers University in New Jersey says yes, as it found that the happier the wife is in a long-term marriage, the happier the husband, regardless of how he personally feels about the marriage.

“Older husbands and wives in better marriages are more satisfied with their lives,” says study co-author Vicki Freedman, a research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. “But overall life satisfaction for an unhappily married man depends on how his wife describes their relationship. If she describes their marriage as higher quality, his life satisfaction is buoyed—even if he gives the marriage a less glowing assessment.”

Previous research demonstrates the health benefits of a happy marriage. For instance, a study published in June found that people in satisfying marriages or partnerships may have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Another study, published in 2013, suggested that marital happiness hinges on wives’ ability to keep calm following heated arguments.

In this latest study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Dr. Deborah Carr, from Rutgers collaborated with Dr. Freedman to analyze data from the 2009 Disability and Use of Time daily diary supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assess marital quality and happiness in older adults.

“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,” says Dr. Carr, “which has a positive effect on his life.” She adds that because men are typically less vocal about their relationships, “their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives.”

The study is among the first to examine the influence of his and her marriage appraisals on psychological well-being among older couples. According to the researchers, marital quality has far-reaching implications for the health and well-being of older adults.

“Marital quality is an important buffer against the health-depleting effects of later-life stressors such as caregiving, and a critical resource as couples manage difficult decisions regarding their care in later life,” says Dr. Carr.

‘Husband’s marital quality buoyed when wife reports a happy marriage’

To reach their conclusions, the team looked at data on 394 couples in which at least one of the spouses was 60 years of age or older. On average, the couples were married for 39 years.

Researchers assessed participants’ life satisfaction and feelings of happiness by asking them how happy they were overall, and how happy they felt while doing randomly selected activities. Marital quality was assessed by six questions, including asking how much they could open up to their spouse and how much their spouse made them feel tense. The husbands and wives also kept diaries about how happy they were in the previous 24 hours doing certain activities, such as shopping, doing chores and watching TV.

Overall, the participants had a high level of general life satisfaction, with an average score of 5 out of 6 points, and the husbands tended to rate their marriage slightly more positively than their wives did.

Dr. Carr says that being in a better-rated marriage “was linked to greater life satisfaction and happiness” for both spouses.

However, they also found that wives became less happy if their spouses became sick, but the husbands’ levels of happiness did not change or show the same outcome if their wives became ill. This is likely due to wives taking on the majority of the caregiving when a partner is sick, says Prof. Carr, who notes that is can be a stressful experience. “But often when a woman gets sick, it is not her husband she relies on but her daughter,” she adds.

Wives’ satisfaction is ultimately the most important predictor of satisfaction for both partners, says Dr. Carr — even more important than one’s own satisfaction:

For both husbands and wives, being in a better-rated marriage was linked to greater life satisfaction and happiness,” Carr said. “But wives’ assessments of the marriage are more important in some respects than their husbands’ reports.

The researchers believe this imbalance may reflect broad gendered patterns within marriage.

“Women typically provide more emotional and practical support to husbands than vice-versa,” explains Dr. Carr. “So even an unhappily married man may receive benefits from the marriage that enhance his overall well-being.”

Indeed, the significant burden of caregiving among adult women was recently highlighted in a study presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in August. According to the researchers, women suffer from more severe negative consequences linked to caregiving than men, which they warn could have “potentially intensifying effects on a series of gender inequalities pertaining to health and economic well-being.”