Opinion to those that idealize the relations in love without conflicts: to repress the anger can shorten the longevity of the spouses!
According to a structural étude1 on 192 couples of a small city of Michigan, to the United States, the risk to die would be raised more for the spouses forming a couple where one represses the anger and avoid the conflicts.
This conclusion results from 17 years of observations to the course of which one classified the couples according to the attitudes demonstrated by the spouses in situation of conflict.
Among the 26 couples composed of partners who avoided the conflicts or that communicated little, the risks that the two spouses prematurely die were four times more elevated than at those where at least one of the two spouses expressed its anger regularly.
More specifically, at 23% of the couples " without conflicts", the two spouses died during the survey against 6% at the other couples. In the same way, 27% of the couples " without conflicts" lost a spouse, compared to 19% within the other couples. These results even persisted after having isolated the other factors of risk of death.
Differences between men and women
During the same period (of 1971 to 1988), 35% of the men belonging to a couple where there was absence of sinewy verbal exchanges died, against 17% at the other couples. At the women, 17% living in a couple without conflicts died, compared to 7%.
According to the author of the survey, the resolution of conflicts in couple is a stake of public health since while repressing it, the anger is added at the other sources of stress and contribute to shorten life.
" Because the conflicts are unavoidable, the crucial point resides in the way of which every couple solves them: if you don’t settle the problem, you are vulnerable", concludes Ernest Hamburg, professor in psychology of the university of the Michigan2.
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