Your Genes Could be the Secret for a Happy Marriage

Want a happy married life? Your genes could be the secret for a happy marriage, reveals a new study.

The secret to a happy married life may lie hidden in your genes, reports a new study. The findings of the study are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

People fall in love for many reasons -- similar interests, physical attraction, and shared values among them. But if they marry and stay together, their long-term happiness may depend on their individual genes or those of their spouse, says a new study led by Yale School of Public Health researchers.

Genes Impact the Quality of Marriage
Do you think you could lead a happy married life? The answer is in your genes, a new study has said.

‘People fall in love for a lot of reasons, but the length of time you stay with your spouse may depend on genes that are responsible for producing 'cuddle hormone' oxytocin.’

The study examined the role of a genetic variation that affects oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in social bonding.

Lead author Joan Monin, associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, and her team studied 178 married couples ranging in age from 37 to 90 years old. Each participant completed a survey about their feelings of marital security and satisfaction, and also provided a saliva sample for genotyping.

The research team found that when at least one partner had a genetic variation known as the GG genotype within the oxytocin gene receptor, the couple reported significantly greater marital satisfaction and feelings of security within their marriage. Those couples had greater satisfaction compared with other couples who had different genotypes.

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While the oxytocin receptor variant, OXTR rs53576, has been previously studied and linked to personality traits such as emotional stability, empathy, and sociability, the new study is believed to be the first to examine its role in marital satisfaction.

"This study shows that how we feel in our close relationships is influenced by more than just our shared experiences with our partners over time," said Monin. "In marriage, people are also influenced by their own and their partner's genetic predispositions."

Stress in Married Life Might Lead to Depression
A study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and their colleagues says that marital stress may make people more vulnerable to depression.

The researchers also found that people with the GG genotype reported less anxious attachment in their marriage, which also benefitted their relationship. Anxious attachment is a style of relationship insecurity that develops from past experiences with close family members and partners over the life course, and is associated with diminished self-worth, high rejection sensitivity, and approval-seeking behavior, said Monin.

The researchers said that an individual's GG genotype and their partner's GG genotype together account for about 4 percent of the variance of marital satisfaction. Although this percentage is small, it is a significant influence considering other genetic and environmental factors to which couples are exposed.

What Should Men Do to Have a Happy Married Life?
A recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, seems to suggest that a man’s marital happiness is dependant on the way his wife looks.

The study findings may lead to future studies to examine how couples' genotypes interact to influence relationship outcomes over time. Another important future direction for the study will be to examine how the OXTR rs53576 variant interacts with specific negative and positive relationship experiences to influence relationship quality over time in a large representative sample of married couples, said Monin.

Source-Eurekalert