Love: Good, Or Bad, For Your Health

Love can help you deal with stress, or cause you stress, according to two new studies. The Washington Post reports that:

Most studies on the health benefits of love have focused on married couples. In 2007, after reviewing research on the health effects of matrimony, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a 68-page report that found that, in general, married people are happier, live longer, drink less and even have fewer doctor’s appointments than unmarried folks.

Another study found that the recession — the “for poorer” part — has taken a toll on marriages in the U.S.:

At the same time, about a third of the couples surveyed said the recession had prompted them to work harder on saving their marriage – a finding that the report’s author described as one of two “silver linings” to the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression..Those who said they had redoubled their marital commitment as a result of the recession – 52 percent – were likely to report being in “a very happy marriage,” compared with 25 percent who disagreed that the recession had caused them to deepen their commitment.

The other “silver lining,” the report’s author argued, was that 38 percent of couples who were considering divorce before the recession had postponed splitting. Those findings are consistent with other data that indicate divorce rates have fallen since the recession began. The drop in divorce rates has been attributed to couples delaying divorce because they are unable to afford the cost of lawyers and maintaining two households.

I suppose what they say is true: You can’t live with ’em, and you can’t live without ’em!