A new study published in the medical journal The Gerontologist suggests that, “Drinking with your partner may be the key to a longer life and a happier marriage.” If you were surprised – even intrigued – by that finding, you’re not alone…
The study, by researchers from the University of Michigan, confirmed and added to the findings of related scholarly investigations over the past 10 years or so.
What they did
According to Food & Drink, Dr. Kira Birditt and her team, “studied 4,656 married cohabiting different-sex couples over the age of 50 living in the United States. From 1996 through 2016, the participants (9,312 individuals) completed surveys every two years, reporting if they consumed alcohol, and if so, how much.”
Birditt wanted to see if there was any social synchronicity between spouses who drank together, as opposed to those that didn’t.
What they found
“Spouses with concordant (i.e., similar) drinking behaviors often report better quality marriages and are married longer compared with those who report discordant drinking behaviors,” the study concludes. “Analyses revealed concordant drinking spouses (both indicated they drank in the last 3 months) survived longer than discordant drinking spouses (1 partner drinks and the other does not) and concordant non-drinking spouses.”
The findings don’t actually mean that you have to partake of the same libation at the same time as your spouse to reap the conjugal benefits. It’s all about whether you and your significant other both drink, or both abstain.
The takeaway
The results concur with earlier research, postulating marital troubles for couples with ‘misaligned’ drinking habits. A 2007 study published in the American Psychological Association journal said their evidence suggested that, “discordant patterns of alcohol use were related to lower levels of marital satisfaction.”
The result such a discordance could be trivial or critically serious, possibly leading to and could lead to violence and divorce.
“We’re not suggesting that people should drink more or change the way they drink,” Dr. Birditt told Reuters in 2017, in reference to an earlier study. “We’re not sure why this is happening, but it could be that couples that do more leisure time activities together have better marital quality…The study shows that it’s not about how much they’re drinking, it’s about whether they drink at all.”
But what I found most significant was that heavy drinking, by one or both spouses in a relationship, almost always presaged some sort of family catastrophe.
~ Maggie J.