Don’t bottle up anger, but take care venting it

Published 4:07 pm Friday, January 25, 2008

Fighting with your spouse is good for your health, news organizations are reporting.

We’d like to take issue with that.

What the 17-year study really concludes is that it is bad for your health to keep things bottled up inside. Suppressed anger leads to resentment, which is the real threat to health.

A subtle difference, perhaps, but important. Standing up for yourself, in a marriage or not, is good. Constant conflict or being angry too often comes with its own set of health problems.

The study concludes that couples who repressed anger were twice as likely to die earlier than those who vent their anger.

Previous studies have shown that suppressing anger increases stress-related illnesses like heart disease and high blood pressure. In the study, researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health looked at how suppressed anger and the resulting buildup of resentment in a marriage affects overall mortality rates. The study period covers 192 couples interviewed in 1971 and measures survival through 1988.

It adjusted for age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, bronchial problems, breathing and cardiovascular risk.

The couples fell into four categories: where both partners expressed their anger; where both didn’t; and one where the wife expressed anger and the husband didn’t, and vice versa.

The group where neither partner expressed anger had the highest mortality rate.

The problem with study is that it puts everything on the marriage. It may have adjusted for age, smoking, weight, etc., but it couldn’t possibly adjust for hours spent at work, time spent commuting and all other situations in which people find themselves either expressing, or repressing, their anger.

In other words, people who keep things bottled up with their spouse tend to keep things bottled up everywhere else, too. (It also makes us wonder: Do single/divorced people who don’t express their anger live longer because they aren’t married? Or do they die early too? Break even?)

“I would say that if you don’t express your feelings to your partner and tell them what the problem is when you’re unfairly attacked, then you’re in trouble,” said Ernest Harburg, lead author of the study.

OK, but that goes for all of life.

Because the study took place from 1971 through 1988, Harburg cautioned that the results do not constitute a representative sample of current marital relationships. You can say that again. Heck, Helen Reddy didn’t write “I Am Woman” until 1972. Archie Bunker had just begun to yell at Edith to stifle it.

Stand up for yourself. Resolve conflict. Let resentment go. Live long and prosper.