I just read Is your marriage making you sick? on CNN.com. Fascinating. Not that this would relate to anybody I know, but still … they caused blisters on subject spouses, and the ones that argued well healed faster than those who didn’t. Seriously.
Overall, couples with more marital stress have worse immune function and higher blood pressure and heart rates, according to Debra Umberson, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas, who studies couples and stress.
So I’m ready to accept that, not really a big surprise, but the next question is,what makes good arguing? Is there such a thing. The piece goes on to explain, interestingly enough, how to argue well:
Let’s say, for example, your house is messy. You have a choice: you could say something like "This house such a mess, and you never help me clean it up" or you could say "I want us to learn how to be neater." The latter, marriage experts say, is better not just for your marriage but for your and your partner’s physical health.
"Any elements of criticism or demand make your words stressful," Umberson says.
Oh-oh. I want to say “good luck with that,” with a touch of cynicism. I don’t think anybody I know is going to be fooled by the so-called good example.
And then there’s this wisdom, which fits better with my world and my life (note: that’s life, with an l at the beginning; nothing that rhymes with it).
Your spouse is annoying. Accept it.
And I just plain love this interpretation. I can live with this. In fact, I think my wife and I have, for more than 40 years now, lived with several variations of this:
Umberson noticed something interesting in her studies of happy couples.
"It’s always been striking to me that when people get along, they just accept something annoying about their partner. They don’t try to alter it," she says.
Case in point: The wife in one of her happy couples had the habit of stacking up books in various places around the house, including doorways. Her husband wasn’t thrilled with it, but he learned to live with it — and more.
"He saw her as a creative, interesting, quirky person," she says. "He just saw it as a reflection of why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place."
There’s a lot of wisdom in that suggestion.
And there’s more in that same story. Don’t yell at a yeller. Limit the Greek chorus. Remember the good times. I’m impressed.
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