Marital quarrels will save your health
Family members in which each spouse suppresses anger in response to the other's attacks die earlier than partners who express their dissatisfaction with each other and thus resolve conflicts.
Scientists at the University of Michigan, working under the guidance of Professor Ernest Harburg, observed 192 couples for 17 years, which were divided into 4 categories: 1) couples in which both spouses expressed their anger; 2) and 3) couples in which one of the spouses suppressed discontent, and the second expressed it; and 4) couples in which both spouses restrained discontent and carried it within themselves. (Obviously, the option when both spouses can say "and we actually don't quarrel" is such a rarity that it is possible to single it out into a separate group only on a very large sample.)
It turned out that spouses who suppress their dissatisfaction in response to unfair attacks by a partner die prematurely twice as often as family members of the other three types.
According to Garburg, when forming a couple, one of the main tasks is the ability to resolve conflicts. Usually people don't have this kind of experience. If they grew up in prosperous families, they can imitate the behavior of their parents, but much more often newly married couples are not familiar with the mechanisms of conflict resolution.
If a person does not try to resolve the conflict, hides his discontent, repeatedly replays the situation in his head and experiences growing resentment about the source of the conflict, this can have the most deplorable consequences.
Out of 192 observed couples in 26 families, both partners suppressed their dissatisfaction, while 13 deaths were registered in this group during the observation period. Among the members of the remaining 166 couples, only 41 deaths were registered.
In 27% of couples where both spouses suppressed dissatisfaction with each other, one of the partners died during the observation period, and in 23% of couples both spouses died.
For comparison, in the combined remaining groups, the corresponding figures were 19% and 6%.
All processing of the results was carried out taking into account age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, problems with the respiratory system and the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
The work considered only attacks recognized by their victims as unfair or undeserved, because if a person realizes himself guilty, he does not feel anger at the accuser.
The authors emphasize that the preliminary results were obtained on the basis of processing a small amount of data. They are currently collecting data for a 30-year follow-up period that will almost double the number of deaths.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of ScienceDaily.
24.01.2008