Have you ever asked yourself, “What makes me happy?” Your answer might be your good health, seeing your family healthy or liking what you see in the mirror. But these answers differ greatly from those identified by Canadian and US researchers who claim that your happiness, or lack thereof, might rest in your spouses’ hands.
The University of British Columbia, University of Washington and Pennsylvania State University study of more than 6000 people used data collected over more than 50 years. The researcher found that, particularly in long-term married couples, the happiness of both parties ebbed and flowed almost in unison, MSNBC reported.
“What we saw over a long period of time,” University of British Columbia lead researcher Professor Christiane Hoppmann said, “is that if one spouse changed in terms of increasing happiness, the other spouse’s happiness would go up. And if there was a dip in happiness, this dip would also affect the respective spouse.”
The researchers filtered data from the Seattle Longitudinal Study to examine specific results from married couples and then compared how happy they were.
While this research seemed to show that happiness in married couples is linked to the spouse, researchers are now wondering if this is a good or a bad thing.
“We can’t tell if one spouse lifts up the other when there’s trouble or whether one spouse drags the other down. It could be both,” Professor Hoppmann said.
Your say: What do you think of this study? Do you find your own happiness is dependent on your spouse’s? Do you find yourself dragging down or lifting up your spouse? Contact us at [email protected]
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