Couples Who Get Drunk Together, Stay Together, According To A New Study

I never thought I would stumble across similar study! If you still don’t drink together, here’s an incredible reason to start!

We are seven billion people, hopelessly running after love. For ages, we have tried to find the perfect combination to a thing called “soulmate”.  And when we finally find them, things get so hard and twisted that we have to let go…

So what’s the hidden secrets behind the success of a relationship. Is it understanding? Courtesy? Patience?

According to a study published in The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Series, couples who spend time drinking together reported a less negative relationship quality over time, and the results were “significantly greater among wives.”

The study quotes that partners over the age of 50 had better marriages if both of them participated, or abstained from consuming alcohol. If one them was drinking, while the other remained sober, they were more likely to be unsatisfied in the marriage, especially wives.

The results were: “Concordant drinking couples reported decreased negative marital quality over time, and these links were significantly greater among wives. Wives who reported drinking alcohol reported decreased negative marital quality over time when husbands also reported drinking and increased negative marital quality over time when husbands reported not drinking.”

According to Reuters: “Older married couples with the same drinking habits – whether they partake, or abstain – tend to be happier than couples where only one partner drinks, researchers say.”

For the study, Birditt and her colleagues analyzed responses from 4,864 married participants, in 2,767 couples, participating in the long-term Health and Retirement Survey. Between 2006 and 2016, all participants had a face to face interview with researchers and answered questionnaires about their drinking habits – whether they drank, how many days a week they drank and how many drinks they had on the days they drank.

They also answered questions about the quality of their marriage, including whether they thought their spouses were too demanding or too critical, if their spouse was reliable when they needed help and if they found their spouse irritating.

“We’re not sure why this is happening,” Dr. Kira Birditt of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor told Reuters, “but it could be that couples that do more leisure time activities together have better marital quality.”

“The study shows that it’s not about how much they’re drinking, it’s about whether they drink at all,” Birditt said.

But just because they’re happier doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.

Birditt says that drinking among older people is becoming a bigger problem, “especially among baby boomers, who seem more accepting of alcohol use.”

About 20 percent of men and 6 percent of women had significant drinking problems in this study, he said.

“Problem drinkers are a whole different kettle of fish,” he said. “Serious heavy drinkers have disruptive relationships with people, particularly their partners. That’s an important issue that should be looked at going forward.”