Get Healthy

Across the board, married adults are better off in nearly every measure of health.

They’re generally healthier than those who are single, divorced, widowed or are living with a partner, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control.

And that’s not all. Married couples also enjoy an increase in emotional and financial health. More benefits include lower mortality rates, less depression, anxiety and suicide, lower rates of chronic illness, fewer problems with drinking and substance abuse and much higher health self-ratings.

So, what happens after a marriage ends, whether in divorce or the death of a spouse?

Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, says that marital loss is a powerful force in damaging health. Waite recently authored a study looking at the association between a decline in health and the end of a marriage and found that divorced or widowed adults have 20 percent more chronic health conditions—such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease—than married couples.

Remarrying helps, but there remains an increase of 12 percent in chronic conditions as compared to continuously married adults.

But the news isn’t all bad.

Though almost half of all marriages end in divorce, the per capita divorce rate—despite much ado to the contrary—is actually falling.

In fact, the divorce rate has dropped to 3.5 per 1,000 adults since its peak in 1981 at 5.3 per 1,000.

However, the study does not suggest that you should stay in a bad marriage simply for the health benefits. Marriages that involve a dangerous environment—domestic violence, child abuse or an active drug or alcohol situation—are dangerous to your health in other ways.

Linda Culver, a staff therapist at New Leaf Resources, says, “Your safety—and the safety of your children—is critical.” Additionally, “prolonged or chronic despair, as an alternative to divorce, also has significant health risks.”

Rather, if your marriage ends, you should be especially attentive to your health and stress levels. Waite and Culver both recommend counseling—before and after marital loss—as an important option, since anything you can do to build a strong marriage is much like treating and preventing future illness. And after the marriage ends, there is often an overwhelming feeling of failure, loss and confusion.

“There is a recovery saying: ‘Our secrets make us sick,’” Culver says. “When we share the awful things that happened or all the confused feelings, the burden is lightened.”