This month marks my 10-year wedding anniversary, and it’s got me reflecting on the surprising truth I’ve learned: choosing a spouse is a health decision. Not just a romantic one.
Stress is one of the fastest ways to age your body and mind, and your spouse will either contribute positively or negatively to your stress level. So in honor of a decade together, here’s my case for treating love like preventive medicine—and how to choose (and keep) a relationship that helps you live longer.
Why Stress Changes Your Biology
Stress hormones (especially cortisol and adrenaline) raise blood pressure and blood sugar, disrupt sleep, blunt immune responses, and accelerate “allostatic load” (the cumulative wear-and-tear on organs and systems). Over time, higher allostatic load is linked to hypertension, insulin resistance, visceral fat, immune dysfunction, anxiety/depression, and cardiovascular disease. (source)
Stress can even leave marks at the cellular level. Women in abusive relationships with children and higher perceived stress showed shorter telomeres (chromosome end-caps that help regulate cellular aging) (source). This finding was seen again and again across cohorts and associated with faster biological aging. (source)
I think it goes without saying, but your spouse can be your calm, steady rock, or the root cause of your stress.
Your closest relationships are among the strongest predictors of long-term health. A meta-analysis of 308,000+ people found that strong social connections were associated with a 50% greater likelihood of survival. (source) You can’t choose all your relationships (hello family!), but you can definitely choose your spouse.
Good Relationships Keep Us Healthier
The Harvard Study of Adult Development—one of the world’s longest running longitudinal studies—has repeatedly found that the warmth and stability of close relationships predict healthier aging, less chronic pain, better brain function, and longer life.
The simple headline from the study’s current director: “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.” (source).
So Yes—Choosing A Spouse Is A Health Decision
A spouse can be your primary buffer or source of chronic stress. Supportive, low-conflict partnerships reduce allostatic load, improve health behaviors (sleep, diet, activity), and correlate with lower cardiovascular risk.
By contrast, sustained conflict and criticism are linked to inflammation, poor metabolic control, and higher depression/anxiety, each a pathway to earlier death. Sorry to be so blunt!
How To Choose Well
So now the question is, how do you make sure you make a good choice? Here are some top considerations:
- Emotional safety. Do you feel calm, respected, and able to be yourself? Or do you withhold, maybe walk on eggshells? Emotional safety predicts healthier conflict resolution when one arises.
- Repair > Perfection. Every couple fights. Two different human beings co-existing is bound to lead to a disagreement or two (or many!). But the marker is how well you are able to resolve conflicts and a shared desire to fix it. Some green flags are couples who own mistakes, who de-escalate and who work together productively. It can’t be one sided. Is your potential spouse showing signs of good conflict resolution?
- Aligned Foundational Values. Change is inevitable and when you are with someone, you are likely to witness someone growing through various versions of themselves. But there are some foundational values that rarely change. This can include views on money, kids, faith, substances, sleep, health habits, lifestyle, temperament, etc. Are you compatible in the views that are important to you? This becomes increasingly important when it comes to raising kids.
Tips For A Resilient, Low-Stress Marriage
Once you’re married or have made a long term commitment to someone, how do you keep the peace? Here are some tried and true tips for keeping the marital stress on the low end:
- Mind the overall stress cycle. Identify and reduce your overall “daily stress load”. Sometimes external stress can place a strain on your marriage. Never-ending routines and responsibilities, financial challenges, work/career, kids, etc. Ensure you are managing your stress well, help each other, and build in shared stress-relieving rituals. My husband and I are constantly looking for what he calls “life hacks.” Ways to win back our time as our responsibilities grow! This helps manage our day to day stress load. We're also very grateful for the grandmas that live 10 minutes away. They constantly help us catch a breather!
- Fight clean. Slow down fights, stick to one issue, don’t expect mind-reading, and use time-outs before saying unfixable things. Then repair. Also, consider what is worth fighting for. Some things are truly not that important.
- Prioritize sleep. Lack of sleep will also age you faster, but when it comes to relationships, it makes you more irritable and more prone to conflict. Stop the doom scrolling and Netflix binges, make sleep a priority. I know this is laughable advice for new parents, but accept that the newborn stage is a season. Which brings me to my next point…
- Recognize the season you are in. I’m going to bring in music to help me with this one. Listen to “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds (1965). There is a time for everything. We go through different seasons in life. Nothing is forever! Sooooo many people divorce in the early years of parenthood. And I don’t think it’s actually because the relationship was bad, but rather that they were seeking an escape from a time in their life where it suddenly got hard and they couldn’t wait for the sun to rise again. The sun will rise again. You will sleep a full 8 hours again. Routines will get easier. Some things you just need to wait out. Stay positive!
- Stay positive. Things go wrong. People lose their jobs. People get sick. If you’re able to laugh through the toughest moments, you’ll be alright! Lean on each other instead of pushing one another away when things get tough.
- Guard your circle. Surround yourselves with healthy couples and strong friendships—social ties are literally longevity assets. External relationships can affect the most important relationship in your life (your partner) so choose wisely here too.
I met my husband at 14. We started dating at 22, married at 30, kids at 35. We’re now 40. We’ve been together through many versions of ourselves and like all relationships, sometimes it was rocky as we matured into our current selves. I think some of the reasons we have such a strong relationship is because of many of the factors we already discussed: we’re aligned on core values, life goals, parenting and health habits. Other than that, we’ve worked hard on our relationship.
Here are some habits we routinely practice:
- Love Tank. Long ago we read the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The book introduces the concept of a “love tank” and routinely checking in with your partner on how full or empty their love tank is. To this day, when we notice one of us is in a slump or extra stressed, we ask each other how full our love tanks are, and act accordingly.
- The Rule of 7. I can’t recall exactly where I heard this concept. But essentially it suggests that for every negative interaction you have with your spouse, you should have at least 7 positive ones, AT MINIMUM. When this ratio starts to shift, trouble is on its way. Stay mindful and bring it up for discussion when you notice more quarreling than usual. This helps prevents spirals and escalations.
- Family Meeting. I’ll be honest, we haven’t done one of these in a long time. But before we had kids, we’d have annual meetings. Nothing too formal, but we would go out to dinner and talk through a few things: how happy each of us are, goals for the future, anything we want the other to work on or keep doing. For us, we always made it Valentine’s Day so we would remember! We haven’t done one in a few years, but we’re pretty locked in on our family and life goals at the moment, so we’ve been alright! However, I strongly recommend this for all couples. You can keep an agenda in the Notes folder of your phone and bring it up each year.
Bottom Line
Stress ages us. Supportive partnership buffers that stress, shapes healthier habits, and correlates with longer life. Choosing a spouse isn’t only romance, it’s preventive medicine. And even great matches need maintenance.
At Ivy & Fields, “toxin-free” isn’t just about what’s in your shampoo. It’s also about what’s in your heart and mind. We’ll keep covering whole-self topics so you can be your healthiest self.
