Having a happy marriage has big benefits, according to Harvard University. The 88-year-old Harvard Study of Adult Development began in 1938 during the Great Depression.
Harvard scientists began tracking 724 young men participants for a study meant to collect data for their entire lives on what defined long, happy and healthy lives over time. The study expanded to include their wives and children. (And the study continues its research today into the second generation of original participants with over 1,300 descendants.)
But what researchers uncovered in regards to successful marriages was more than they bargained for, solidifying the deep impact marriage can have—and the importance of having a healthy marriage at age 50 for later life.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development findings
The wellbeing study set out to determine what factors lead to a happy, healthy life. Participants were given extensive psychological and medical examinations, and researchers went into their homes to observe their family life and conduct interviews.
With technological advances, DNA testing, MRI brain imaging, stress testing and more have been factored in to measure biological data.
And while many hypothesized the answer to a happier, healthier and longer life was getting rich, becoming famous, or other factors—they found that the “single choice we can make that’s most likely to keep us on a good path to wellbeing is to invest in our relationships with other people,” Robert Waldinger, the fourth director of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, told Big Think.
The study, which followed the young men through the end of their lives, found that those who had the “happiest, warmest relationships were the people that stayed healthy longest, and who loved the longest.”
In an interview with The Harvard Gazette, Waldinger added, “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health. Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.”
Marriage and wellness
Happy, fulfilling marriage is key to living a longer life.
“The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80,” Waldinger told The Harvard Gazette.
And in a 2016 TED Talk, Waldinger further explained the study’s findings and connection to having a happy marriage and longevity.
“When we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” he shared. “It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”
Besides physical health, researchers also found that marriage also deeply impacted positive mental health outcomes.
“Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains,” Waldinger added. “And those good relationships, they don’t have to be smooth all the time. Some of our octogenarian couples could bicker with each other day in and day out, but as long as they felt that they could really count on the other when the going got tough, those arguments didn’t take a toll on their memories.”
