Marriage Benefits the Depressed
Despite the fact that depressed people tend to have lower quality marriages, they do experience a greater psychological benefit from marriage than those who aren't depressed, a U.S. study reports.
A team of researchers are Ohio State University in Columbus looked at data from 3,066 single people aged 55 and younger who participated in the U.S. National Survey of Families and Households. They identified those who had married in a five-year follow-up period and asked them about the quality of their marriage and their psychological well-being. Those who married and then divorced within the follow-up period were not included in the study.
The researchers found that participants who were married scored an average of 3.5 points lower on a depression test than when they were single. In addition, depressed participants who married scored 7.5 points lower than those depressed people who remained single. Non-depressed participants who got married experienced a smaller reduction in their scores.
Even though the depressed married participants scored better on the depression tests, they reported more conflict and less happiness in their marriages than those who were not depressed.
The study appears in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
Comments
What about older people and their relationships with children. Especially when the children are trying to micromanage the father’s driving. The boys decided to take wires off vehicle and remove keys. The daughter removes cigarettes. Now he is w/o a car and his smokes. We take him places but that is not really feedom. He does not need to drive or smoke. His mind is still sharp and he could drive but could have a wreck easily. Now he is depressed and I am affraid that my brothers don’t have a clue. What should we do?
Sincerely,
LV
From personal experience, the results are borne out in my experience.
I’m curious which of the results Sam’s personal experiences bear out: The finding that people who were depressed before getting married had worse marriages, overall, than those who were not depressed; or the finding that people who were single and depressed at Time 1 but got married were less depressed at Time 2?
Assuming it is the latter, does Sam attribute his lessened depression to marrying his (I hope current) spouse, or from meeting and falling in love, and BEING loved by her?
Overall, this study makes my head spin. Comparing the change over time in depression scores of people who are far distant from the mean (i.e., were selected as being depressed because their score was roughly at the 80th percentile) is just daring your results to be confounded with simple regression to the mean. Then, using as your sample only people who got and STAYED married between Time 1 and Time 2, and not expecting that to qualitatively bias the type of depressed people included in the study, is just wishful thinking.
I am curious about differences between the sexes — married men who were/were not depressed before and after breakup, and single men who were/were not depressed before and after breakup. Depression is a very complicated subject and deserves more careful scrutiny and explanation than this article gives.
This is interesting, and as a mentally ill (single) person, it makes sense to me. I would point out, however that an important fact to keep in mind is that being married to someone with a mental illness is a detriment. Someone with a spouse who is chronically ill has a shorter life span, lower quality of life, and an increased risk of suicide.
Better for someone with depression to go without those extra life improving points from marriage than to wreck someone else’s life!