Finally, a counter-argument to the insta-perfect couples who detox, exercise and diet together.
(Because, let’s face it, anyone who’s not sold on the two-green-juices-and-lets-compare-pedometers relationship status, needs a counter-argument.)
Couples who drink together, stay together.
Yep, that’s right. While you’re out playing happy-active-wear families, I’m busy improving the chances of my relationship lasting with several rounds of gin and tonics. (It’s purely for the relationship, I swear).
Okay, okay. Back it up. This is not an excuse, or validation, for drinking non-stop with a significant other. But it is a happy piece of relationship advice you can reference when you are drinking non-stop with your significant other.
New research, published in the The Journals of Gerontology, has found couples who have similar drinking habits – getting drunk together regularly, or both abstaining at the same time – are more likely to have a successful relationship than those who have different drinking habits.
The study looked to the drinking habits of 4,864 married participants, over two year periods. They found concurrent drinking habits lead to a reduction in ‘negative marital quality’ (i.e. an increase in positive marital quality), particularly when reported by wives.
“The findings stress the importance of considering the drinking status, rather than the amount of alcohol consumed, of both members of the couple when attempting to understand drinking and marital quality among older couples,” the report states. “These findings are particularly salient given the increased drinking among baby boomers and the importance of marital quality for health among older couples.”
The results make sense. Having once lived in a household with one excessive drinker; one non-drinker; and me sitting somewhere in the middle, I can attest to the difficulties that arise when one person is trying to pick an argument or dance on the coffee table, and the other is laughing laughing laughing, until they’re not laughing any more. And, again, I’m stuck somewhere in the middle.