Marriage, divorce, and the immune system.

Abstract

This paper reviews evidence from several lines of work to describe how marriage and divorce can provoke health-relevant immune alterations, including ways that marital closeness can be perilous for health and divorce can be beneficial. The multiple stresses of a troubled relationship are depressogenic, and the development of a mood disorder sets the stage for psychological and biological vulnerability. Depression provides a central pathway to immune dysregulation, inflammation, and poor health; gender-related differences in depression and inflammation can heighten risk for women compared to men. Sleep and obesity can simultaneously feed off depression as they promote it. In addition, spousal similarities in health behaviors, gene expression, immune profiles and the gut microbiota offer new ways to consider the health advantages and risks of marriage and divorce, providing new perspectives on couples’ interdependence, as well as new directions for research.

Stress Reactivity: What Pushes Us Higher, Faster, and Longer—and Why It Matters

“…Postconflict epinephrine in the first year of marriage was 34% higher in couples who subsequently divorced than among those who were still married 10 years later. During the first year of marriage, hostile partners’ epinephrine and norepinephrine were also higher throughout the day and night in those who would later divorce compared with the still-married couples, and similar results were found in couples who were satisfied compared with couples who were dissatisfied but still married 10 years later (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2018). Norepinephrine and epinephrine have half-lives of 1 to 2 min, and thus these 24-hr differences did not simply reflect responses to the conflict—these data demonstrated heightened and sustained SNS responsiveness.…”

“…Of note, many potential confounds were accounted for because these couples had no current or past mental or physical disorder and had low depressive symptoms; moreover, initially happy newlywed couples whose marriages were later troubled did not differ from their untroubled counterparts on individual-difference trait variables or cardiovascular reactivity to a nonmarital experimental stressor as newlyweds. These findings show how some couples remain distressed following a marital disagreement, whereas others find a way to cool down during and long after this potent interpersonal stressor; these data also highlight potential mechanistic pathways from marital distress to ill health (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2018).…”

“…Work from our lab showed that newlyweds who used more hostile behaviors during a discussion of marital problems had larger acute increases in stress hormones (epinephrine, norepinephrine, and adrenocorticotropic hormone) as well as bigger negative changes in immune function 24 hr later compared with less hostile couples (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2018). These data, collected in couples’ first year of marriage, foreshadowed marital satisfaction and divorce 10 years later.…”

“…In our lab, we assessed individual and joint contributions of a mood-disorder history and an interpersonal stressor, a marital conflict discussion, on obesity-related metabolic responses to high-fat meals (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2018). Participants with a mood-disorder history had steeper rises in glucose and interleukin-6 (IL-6, an important inflammatory marker) than participants without such a history.…”

Partnership Status and Living Situation in Persons Experiencing Physical Disability in 22 Countries: Are There Patterns According to Individual and Country-Level Characteristics?

“…As we do not have information on the duration of the partnership, partnership status before SCI, quality of the partnership, or the satisfaction with the living situation, we cannot assess the health relevance of partnership or living situation. Depending on their quality, partnerships can either provide resources (e.g., social support, reduction in loneliness) or be detrimental for health (e.g., psychosocial strain through conflicts, hostility) [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. Moreover, this research does not allow any value judgement on whether having a partner or living with others is positive or negative.…”