Who will pick up the children from school, who stops to look after the sick child, who takes care of the shopping, how to manage the bills,…? When you live as a couple, there are many opportunities for conflict. But did you know that these permanent tensions were not trivial ? A poorly functioning marriage, where spouses experience chronic disagreements and are unable to settle their worries, can harm each other’s physical health. Here’s what a study recently published in the journal reveals Psychoneuroendocrinology.
To reach this conclusion, scientists at the University of Ohio studied the data of about forty couples who had been married for an average of 12 years. The latter being monitored as part of a study on the impact of stress on health since 2005. They also completed questionnaires on communication within the couple and were subjected to blood tests.
More stress, a weakened immune system
The scientists observed that couples who avoided complicated discussions, who were therefore in tension without being able to renew communication, had higher markers of inflammation in the blood than the others.
According to the researchers, their immune system was weakened by the spiral of negative emotions. To verify this, the couples had agreed to have a small arm injury observed daily to see if the frequency of arguing could slow healing. In couples with constructive communication, these wounds disappeared more quickly than in couples in tension.
This confirms that if disputes are often inevitable, what is important is to manage them well, with the aim of finding a common solution. “While the absence of a fight suggests that the couple is in agreement on everything, it actually hides the true personality of one or both spouses who dare not express their disagreement. This can explode after a while, through an often fatal existential crisis for the couple”, had explained to Top Health, the psychologist Camille Rocher, in a previous article on the conflict in the couple. Moreover, the psychological effects for the couple are never far away, as the psychologist had indicated: risks of depression when one of the spouses does not feel heard and ends up turning off “for the benefit of the couple”.
The state of love is a dream but it is very fragile. Regardless of the years, difficult to know if it is made to last beyond the passion. Is your relationship stable?, solid or in the hot seat? To find out, take the test in turn on Psychologies.
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Sources: Marital negativity’s festering wounds: The emotional, immunological, and relational toll of couples’ negative communication patterns, Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2023.
