Being married can help beat your mid-life crisis

BEING married could be the key to weathering a mid-life crisis because it makes you happier in middle age, researchers say.

From the age of 41 to 55 our satisfaction with life drastically plummets as we juggle work and family and question the meaning of life.

Having a spouse, however, makes you less unhappy during this tricky time because it eases the stresses of middle age, a study has found.

And those whose husband or wife is also their best friend see almost twice the boost to their wellbeing.

Canadian researchers looked at the U-shaped curve in happiness, which sees life satisfaction fall from the twenties through to middle age, before rebounding again in older age.

They found marriage protects against the sadness slump in middle age, based on surveys of almost 360,000 British people.

Co-author Professor John Helliwell, from Vancouver School of Economics, said: ‘Marriage may help ease the causes of a mid-life dip in life satisfaction and the benefits of marriage are unlikely to be short-lived.

‘Even after years, the married are still more satisfied. This suggests a causal effect at all stages of the marriage, from prenuptial bliss to marriages of long duration.’

Middle age is the time when, so the stereotype goes, the dissatisfied buy a sports car or start an affair. But the slump in satisfaction appears far worse for single people.

The research, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, gathered data from the British Household Panel Survey, taking in around 30,000 people between 1991 and 2009, and the UK’s Annual Population 2011 to 2013 Survey, involving more than 328,000.

Together, the surveys asked questions about satisfaction with life overall, how worthwhile people felt things to be, their happiness and anxiety.

The life satisfaction scale of zero to ten shows a fall to just above 6.5 for lifelong unmarried people between the ages of 46 and 55. But that rises to more than seven for those who have been married. The authors state: ‘One potential explanation for this result is that the social support provided by a spouse helps ease the stresses of middle age.’

Previous studies also show married people are more sociable, healthier, better educated and have more engaging jobs.

The boost from being married is even more noticeable in those who see their spouse as their closest friend – approximately half of married people.

Professor Helliwell said: ‘The wellbeing benefits of marriage are much greater for those who also regard their spouse as their best friend. These benefits are on average about twice as large for people whose spouse is also their best friend.’

Previous research suggests people receive only a short-term rise in life satisfaction from marrying. However the increased satisfaction from being married, or living with a partner, lasted in this study well beyond the so-called honeymoon phase of a marriage into old age.

The authors conclude: ‘Marriage seems to be most important in middle-age, when people of every marital status experience a dip in wellbeing.’