When choosing a life partner, pay attention not only to his attractiveness, intelligence and sense of humor. At the same time, take a closer look at how and how much your partner drinks and whether his drinking habits match yours. So you will live more friendly and less annoying each other.
Marriages in which both spouses drink or don’t drink are stronger and happier than those where one partner drinks and the other doesn’t. This conclusion was made by doctors from the New Zealand University of Otago1. After analyzing the family life of 1500 married couples, the researchers noticed that the happiest (91% of couples) are those men and women who drink together, but moderately, about once a week. Moreover, women in these unions turned out to be four times happier than their teetotaler friends, and men three times happier than those husbands who do not like to relax with a glass of cognac.
Similar conclusions were made by sociologists from the University of Michigan.2. “Our study shows that it’s not about how much a couple drinks, but whether they drink together at all”, – explains project leader sociologist Kira Birditt. She and her colleagues studied the experiences of 2767 American couples. Most of the subjects are legally married, the rest are in a civil marriage, but on average they lived together for 33 years. Every two years, sociologists asked spouses how often and how much they drink, whether they consider their partner reliable, whether he causes irritation. About 45% of couples reported that they drink together. It turned out that it is in such alliances that partners, as a rule, irritate each other less. Even if they drink different amounts of alcohol, this does not particularly affect the strength of the relationship.
The least happy couples are those where one partner drinks and the other does not.
Families in which spouses do not drink at all also look quite strong. The least happy couples are those where one partner drinks and the other does not. For example, wives who do not deny themselves alcohol are more likely to admit that things are not going well in their relationship and that their husbands criticize them when men lead a sober lifestyle.
“It’s hard to say for sure what the reason is,” Kira Berdit comments on the results. “Perhaps the whole point is more free time, which the spouses spend pleasantly and with pleasure together, and this is reflected in the quality of the relationship.” She does not urge partners to urgently change their drinking habits in order to adapt to each other, but still suggests: if one of the spouses completely stopped drinking, the other should try to do the same.
An important clarification: despite the fact that drinking partners together say that they do not feel strong annoyance towards each other, this does not mean that they have an ideal relationship. Just like a divergence in habits does not mean that couples are doomed to divorce: after all, they have already been together for so many years. In a word, mutual dissatisfaction is not yet a reason for divorce. But the opportunity to feel happier, spending a couple of evenings a week with your beloved spouse over a glass, is worth considering.
1 J. Meiklejohn et al. «Drinking concordance and relationship satisfaction in New Zealand couples». Alcohol & Alcoholism, 2012, № 47.
2 K. Birditt et al. «Drinking Patterns Among Older Couples: Longitudinal Associations With Negative Marital Quality», The Journals of Gerontology, June 2016.