Sorry, Guys: Wives' Happiness Matters More

Study: If women are happy in marriage, men are happy, period
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2014 3:55 PM CDT
Sorry, Guys: Wives' Happiness Matters More
   (Shutterstock)

A new study of marriage by sociologists suggests that what Medical Daily calls an age-old "morsel of manly wisdom" is actually true: For men, "a happy wife is a happy life." Researchers from Rutgers and the University of Michigan found the following dynamic at play: If women reported that they were happy in their marriage, their husbands reported being happy in general—even if the men didn't give the marriage such high marks. Women, on the other hand, were not happy in general if they viewed their marriage as an unhappy one, reports the Telegraph. "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,” says Deborah Carr of Rutgers.

”Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships," she adds, so whether he's happy or unhappy in the relationship doesn't have as much of an effect as his wife's attitude. In the study published in the Journal of of Marriage and Family, the researchers also took note of this quirk related to illness: When a husband gets sick, the wife's level of happiness drops, but when a wife gets sick, the husband is no less happy. Reason? “We know that when a partner is sick it is the wife that often does the caregiving, which can be a stressful experience,” says Carr. “But often when a women gets sick it is not her husband she relies on, but her daughter.” (Another study found the cost of your wedding and engagement rings can predict divorce.)

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