People are constantly trying to find the secret to a successful relationship. Is it love? Understanding? Laughter? According to one study, the answer is alcohol.
The study published in The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Series, couples who sip together, stay together. The report found that relationships where partners drank together had less negative relationship quality over time — particularly among wives.
“Wives who reported drinking alcohol reported decreased negative marital quality over time when husbands also reported drinking and increased negative marital quality over time when husbands reported not drinking,” a summary of the study says.
According to Reuters, nearly 3,000 couples participated in the study. On average, the couples had been together for 33 years — two thirds of those were on their first marriage. The study asked participants how often and how much they drink, then asked if they found their spouse “irritating, critical or too demanding.”
Researchers found that couples who drank together had better marriages than those where only one partner drank. Furthermore, couples where only one partner drinks are more prone to marital problems — especially if it’s the wife doing all the boozing and the husband stays sober. It’s worth noting that couples where both partners abstained from drinking also fared well.
“We’re not sure why this is happening,” study author Dr. Kira Birdie of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor told Reuters Health, “but it could be that couples that do more leisure time activities together have better marital quality.”
But that’s not to say that all love birds should start popping bottles.
About 20 percent of men and 6 percent of women in the study had serious drinking problems, and serious drinkers have disruptive relationships with people, particularly their partners, University of Michigan’s Dr. Fred Blow told Reuters.
ALSO TRY: Studies showing moderate drinking is healthy were funded by the alcohol industry.
