According to a study published in The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Series, couples who drink alcohol together reported a less negative relationship quality over time, and the results were “significantly greater among wives”.
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Overall, the study found that both partners in a couple that drank on the same occasions were happier than partners in a couple where one one partner drank and the other didn’t.
As per Reuters, the study also revealed that in couples where, “wives drank and the husbands didn’t, wives reported they were more dissatisfied with their marriage”.
Birditt interviewed 2,767 couples between 2006 and 2016 as part of the study, analysing their responses to questions posed about their drinking habits and quality of their marriage. And according to the results, the amount consumed didn’t really affect the quality of their partnership, as long as neither drank to excess of course.
While the research team aren’t entirely sure why a mutual love of merlot poses such a significant impact on long-term romances, they suspect it might have something to do with time spent bonding. They further asked the couples about the quality of their marriage, and whether they found their spouse to be reliable, demanding, critical, irritating etc.
But what if we told you that apart from these obviously important things, drinking together can also keep your relationship thriving? She suggests that when one spouse has to stop drinking, the other should stop as well.
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Dr Fred Blow, another researcher at the University of MI said: “Problem drinkers are a whole different kettle of fish”. But, particularly for wives, there was less satisfaction with a relationship when only one drank. “Alcohol works on the brain to lower our inhibitions which can lead you to say something in an argument which you may come to regret”.
