Do you constantly swear and sort things out? Perhaps your unrestrained spouse is “just what the doctor ordered.” The results of a study of married couples suggest that husbands and wives who argue until they are hoarse live longer than those who suppress anger.
“When people come together, resolving differences becomes one of the most important tasks,” said Ernest Harburg, professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology and Health at the University of Michigan, who led the study. “As a rule, no one is taught this. If both were raised by good parents, great, they take an example from them. But more often than not, couples don’t understand conflict management strategies.” Since contradictions are inevitable, it is very important how spouses resolve them.
“Suppose there is a conflict between you. Key question: what are you going to do? Harburg continues. “If you just “bury” your anger, but still continue to mentally object to the enemy and resent his behavior, and at the same time do not even try to talk about the problem, remember: you are in trouble.”
Numerous studies show that giving anger an outlet is beneficial. For example, one such work confirms that angry people make better decisions, probably because this emotion tells the brain to ignore doubts and focus on the essence of the problem. In addition, it turned out that those who openly express indignation are better in control of the situation and cope with difficulties faster.
Canned anger only increases stress, which is known to shorten life expectancy. According to psychologists, a number of factors explain the high percentage of premature deaths among spouses who hide manifestations of anger. Among them are the habit of hiding mutual dissatisfaction, the inability to discuss feelings and problems, an irresponsible attitude to health, according to a report published in the Journal of Family Communication.
If the attacks were regarded as well-founded, the victims almost never got angry.
A group of specialists led by Professor Harburg studied 17 married couples aged 192 to 35 for more than 69 years. The focus was on how they perceive clearly unfair or undeserved aggression from a spouse.
If the attacks were regarded as well-founded, the victims almost never got angry. Based on the reactions of the participants to hypothetical conflict situations, the couples were divided into four categories: both spouses express anger, only the wife expresses anger, and the husband drowns out, only the husband expresses anger, and the wife drowns out, both spouses drown out the anger.
The researchers found that 26 couples, or 52 people, were suppressors—that is, both spouses were hiding signs of anger. During the experiment, 25% of them died, compared to 12% among the rest of the couples. Compare data across groups. During the same period, 27% of depressed couples lost one of their spouses, and 23% both. Whereas in the remaining three groups, one of the spouses died in only 19% of couples, and both — only in 6%.
Remarkably, when calculating the results, other indicators were also taken into account: age, weight, blood pressure, smoking, the condition of the bronchi and lungs, and cardiovascular risks. According to Harburg, these are intermediate figures. The research is ongoing and the team plans to collect 30 years of data. But even now it can be predicted that in the final count of couples who swear and argue, but remain in good health, there will be twice as many.