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I'm Dr. John Ruiz, assistant professor of clinical and experimental psychology
My research team determined that the personality of the person you marry, and your happiness
in marriage, can positively and negatively impact your health.
We've known for some time that your own personality and mood before surgery influences your recovery.
To determine the health effects of spouses, we interviewed heart bypass patients and their
spouses before the surgeries, and followed up with them 18 months later.
We discovered that patients who were married to worriers — spouses who were generally
more anxious — reported more symptoms of depression after their surgeries. Conversely,
marriage to a more positive, optimistic person predicted fewer symptoms of depression.
But what about love? It turns out the effect of your spouse's personality depends on how
happy you are in your marriage. If the heart bypass patients were happy in their marriages,
their spouses' anxiety did not negatively affect their recovery. However, if they were
less happy with their marriages, their spouses' negative characteristics had a much stronger
effect on their future health.