Whose Happiness Matters More to a Healthy Marriage: Husband or Wife?

When it comes to the overall happiness of a marriage, it matters more that the wife is happy with the relationship than the husband, according to a recent paper published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. For the research, nearly 400 couples completed surveys and kept daily journals about “how much they argue, get on each other’s nerves, whether they are appreciated by their spouses and how much they feel understood.”

Professor Deborah Carr, who led the study, explained that when wives are happy, they are more likely to help their husbands, which in turn makes the husbands happier. While men generally reported being happier in their marriage than women, a marriage that was generally happy proved most important to individual ratings of happiness and satisfaction.

The study also found that since men are generally less communicative than women about the state of their marriage, men’s unhappiness might not reach women. As former UK parliament member Jeffrey Archer explained to Big Think, just chatting and making the little sacrifices is an important part of every marriage: