•  Book Review: For Better or Worse •  Stress and Marriage

There are reasons why so many people get married: Among other things, a good marriage can be a shelter from loneliness and fear. Many studies and surveys have found that satisfied couples tend to be healthier and happier than people going it alone.

But marriages don't always run smoothly, and they don't always last. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about half of today's marriages are likely to end in divorce. Going through a divorce can be like stepping into a wind tunnel. It's also the kind of stress that can make a person sick.

Women are more at risk of a major depression after a divorce, but men are more at risk of experiencing their first onset of major depression, according to a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

And a 2006 study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that the stress of divorce can wear down women's health. Iowa State University sociology professor Fred Lorenz and his colleagues made this discovery through interviews with more than 400 mothers of adolescent children, including 80 women who had just gone through a divorce. The interviews started in the early 1990s and were repeated a decade later.

When the interviews started, the recently divorced women were more stressed-out than the women who were still married. "Immediately after a divorce, stress levels jump," Lorenz says. "There are an awful lot of adjustments that people have to make."

Interviews with the divorced women uncovered many trials and hardships that would undoubtedly be familiar to the millions of people who have also gone through a divorce, including dwindling incomes and social isolation. Despite these troubles, stress tended to fade within two or three years, Lorenz says. "Things eventually settle down," he says. "Families reach a new equilibrium."

Even though stress dropped over the years, it left an unmistakable mark. Ten years after the study began, the divorced women reported significantly more health problems than the married women. They were more likely to suffer from hypertension, diabetes, depression, stomach trouble, and other conditions that are strongly correlated with stress.

The health gap that developed between the divorced and married women is especially striking because the two groups were equally healthy when the study began, Lorenz says. But as years passed, "divorce seemed to have had a direct impact on health," he says.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported the study with the headline "Stand by your man or get sick," but Lorenz doesn't think his research should encourage anyone to stick with a marriage that isn't working. "Bad marriages are stressful, too." he says. "We can't say that any of these women would have been better off staying in their marriages."

In many cases, divorce really is the best option a couple may have, says Alan Booth, professor of Sociology and Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University. "We've followed people in poor marriages," he says. "They get progressively sick. They'd do better getting out of it." The stress of divorce often disappears completely, especially if a person can quickly find another partner, he says.

But there's one group that doesn't recover easily from a divorce: kids. Marital breakups can be extremely hard on children, Booth says, especially if mom and dad didn't seem to fight much before the divorce. When parents fight bitterly and constantly, divorce may actually come as a relief to the children as well as the adults, he says. But when parents in "low-conflict" marriages divorce, children feel blindsided and betrayed, feelings that may lead to depression and illness for years to come. According to Booth, however, open communication and support from parents can minimize the potential harm to children.

Booth believes that a growing number of parents and marriage counselors are starting to put a high priority on the health and well-being of kids. Because of that concern, parents aren't quite as quick to divorce as they used to be, he says.

Anyone who has ever been married knows disagreements are unavoidable. They're also stressful. Sometimes stress is just a trickle, and sometimes it's a torrent. And recent research shows that the way couples respond to stress, during good times and bad, just might determine the fate of a marriage.

In a study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 2003, researchers at Ohio State University found that high levels of stress hormones among couples before, during, and after fights strongly predicted divorce.

Ninety newlywed couples each spent 24 hours together in a laboratory. All of the couples were asked to discuss a subject that causes conflict in the marriage. (In-laws and finances were popular subjects.) Throughout the day, researchers took blood samples to measure the levels of cortisol and other hormones released during stress.

When researchers checked on the couples ten years later, they discovered that those blood tests held the key to the future. The couples who eventually divorced produced 34 percent more stress hormones during their fight. They also produced an extra 24 percent throughout the rest of the day. Remarkably, these hormones were better predictors of divorce than anything else, including the couples' reported satisfaction with their marriage.

There's no doubt about it: The stakes of marriage are high. Too much stress can lead to divorce. And divorce causes additional stress. For these reasons, many therapists and spiritual leaders advocate premarital counseling or couples counseling before you start a marriage -- or decide to end one.

-- Chris Woolston, MS, is a contributing editor to Consumer Health Interactive. A former staff writer for Hippocrates magazine, he has written for Health, WebMD, and other journals. He is also the co-author of Generation Extra Large: Rescuing Our Children from the Epidemic of Obesity (Perseus paperback, 2006).

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First published March 6, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Consumer Health Interactive

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