Home Top

The secret to a lasting marriage? Being happy for one another! Brain scans reveal how strong couples share each other's joy

Scientists scanned the brains of elderly, happily married women while they watched clips of their husbands and strangers showing various emotions
Women were more sensitive to husband’s unexpected positive emotions
Study reveals happiest couples are the most emotionally interdependent

By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

Published: 14:14 EST, 13 August 2015 | Updated: 14:26 EST, 13 August 2015

View
comments

How your partner reacts to your good news could reveal how long your relationship will last.

This is according to a new study that looked at the brains of happily married couples to find out their secret to a lasting marriage.

Researchers in Canada studied the brain signals of married, elderly women, while they watched their husbands experience positive emotions.

How your partner reacts to your good news could reveal how long your relationship will last. This is according to a new study that looked at the brains of happily married couples to find out their secret to a lasting marriage.

The study, published in the journal Human Brain Mapping, found happily married women were more sensitive to their husband’s unexpected positive emotions than to their negative ones.

‘Many of us tend to think we choose partners who help us work on our issues, and of course, that's part of what happens in good relationships,’ Dr Duana Welch told DailyMail.com.

‘But science increasingly shows that we choose one another for how good they make us feel.’

The Rotman Research Institute in Toronto studied 14 women with the average who been married for an average of 40 years, according to a report in Science of Us.

Overall, the women produced more brain activity when watching the videos of their husbands – but only when they videos showed surprisingly positive emotions

Each woman was shown a silent ten-second videos of either her husband or a stranger while they displayed an emotion that mismatched the way the video clip was labelled.

THERE REALLY IS SUCH A THING AS WEDDED BLISS, SAY SCIENTISTS

Married couples are happier than single people, especially those who say they married their best friend, says a new study.

Married couples enjoyed both a honeymoon period of the first year or two after the wedding as well as being supported against stress from work pressure and looking after children or aging parents.

The National Bureau of Economic Research in Canada used data for the report from the British Household Panel Survey, the United Kingdom's Annual Population, and the Gallup World Poll.

'There's a lot of stress going on in middle age,' said Department of Finance Canada a researcher Shawn Grover in an interview with

'Having someone to talk that out with and having someone to support you in those difficult times can help explain why it's a bit harder for people without a partner.'

Those who saw their partner as their 'best friend' reported the highest happiness levels.

Researches note that that fell in line with thinking that close relationships were necessary for long term well being.

For instance, the clip may have been labelled ‘wedding day’, but instead the footage showed the husband’s reaction to remembering a car crash.

The videos were designed to make the volunteers feel confused and surprised about the reaction.

Overall, the women produced more brain activity when watching the videos of their husbands – but only when they videos showed surprisingly positive emotions.

In footage when the men appeared to display unusually negative emotions, the womens’ brains showed just as much overall activity for both a stranger and her husband.

Women who scored higher on relationship satisfaction, according to a filled out questionnaire, also showed more brain activity in regions that trigger empathy.

‘Many studies show that the happiest couples are the most emotionally interdependent,’ added Dr Welch, who was not involved in the study.

Dr Welch, who is the author of Love Factually, cites how happy couples mirror one another's facial expressions more than unhappy couples do.

‘That may actually be why happy couples tend to look more and more alike as the decades pass,’ she said.

‘When a woman recently asked me how she could work on her problems with her husband more effectively, I advised her to begin by noticing positive emotions,’ added Dr Welch. ‘It worked.’