Fight With Spouse Simply For The Sake Of Health!

Fighting between couple is always unpleasant because you can imagine what types of words and phrases will come out from the angry pair. Some serious fight may even end up with breakup of the two. So, we are always advised to avoid fighting so as not to trigger any unexpected and disastrous results. Naturally, most couples will choose to suppress their anger.

But fighting with spouse is not always bad; at least, it is good for health. This is exactly what a new study found. The researchers of the University of Michigan had tracked 192 US couples for 17 years and reported in the January 2008 edition of the Journal of Family Communication that couples who suppressed their anger have a mortality rate twice as high as those in which at least one partner breaks the silence.

Couples come from different family backgrounds; have different ways of living before getting together.

Reconciliation of conflict has naturally become one of the main tasks for them. The only difference is how these couples resolve their conflicts. When couples choose to bury the anger, they will brood on it and they will start to resent the other party instead of solving the problem. Troubles will begin.

Previous studies have shown that suppressing anger increases stress-related illnesses such as heart disease and high blood pressure.

This study looks at how suppressed anger and the resulting build-up of resentment in a marriage affects overall mortality rates, and it adjusted for age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, bronchial problems, breathing, and cardiovascular risk. The study covers couples interviewed in 1971 and measures survival through 1988. It was carried out in a small, predominantly white and middle class town in Michigan and most of the women were "housewives" born before the sexual revolution.

A questionnaire was used to determine how the spouses responded to the behaviour that they perceived as unfair. The results show that both spouses suppressed their anger in 26 of the couples and at least one spouse expressed their anger in the remaining 166 couples. At least one death was recorded in half of the couples who suppressed their anger, whereas only 26 percent of the other couples suffered from the death of a spouse. And the anger-suppressing couples were nearly 5 times more likely to both be dead 17 years later.

As cautioned by the researchers, the results are still preliminary and do not constitute a representative sample of current marital relationships, and an upcoming analysis of survival rates 30 years later will probably yield more reliable results.

From now onwards, people should perhaps choose to have a 'good' fight with their spouse not only to resolve the conflict but also for the sake of health!

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