Even Re-marriage Can Not Heal Divorce Scars

The novel study has found that divorce has a lingering, detrimental impact on health, and even remarriage could not lessen that impact.

Making your marriage last can cause great damage to your health, suggests a new study, adding that even re-marriages cannot heal those painful separation scars. The study by researchers in Chicago has warned people thatdivorceor death of a spouse can impair one's mental andphysical health.

Detrimental impact ofdivorceon health
The researchers have suggested that getting married and remaining married can contribute to an individuals well-being, butdivorceor widow-hood could bring about an immediate and long-lasting hurt on the health of middle-aged and older people. It has already been proved in some earlier researches that married men live longer than unmarried men. But, it is still unclear what happens to the health of a person, if he loses his wife either todivorceor death. Now, the novel study has found thatdivorcehas alingering, detrimental impact on health, and even remarriage could not lessen that impact.

How the link between marriage and health examined
To reach theirfindings, a team of researchers at theUniversityof Chicago and Johns HopkinsUniversitystudied 8,652 people aged 51 to 61. Of the total study participants, about 20 percent were remarried, while nearly 22 percent had previously been married but had not remarried and less than four percent were never married. The research team, headedby LindaWaite, the Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology and director of the Center on Aging at theUniversityof Chicago, found that those who either ended their marriage or lost their spouse to death were 20 percent more likely to suffer chronic healthconditionssuch as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people.

"Each person's experience of marital gain and loss affect this stock of health," Waite said. "For example, the transition to marriage tends to bring an immediate health benefit, in that it improves health behaviors for men and financial well-being for women. "Waite along with colleagues observed thatdivorceor widowhood caused 23 percent moremobilitylimitations, such as trouble climbing stairs or walking a block, in middle-aged and older people.
Waite said: We argue that losing a marriage throughdivorceor widowhood is extremely stressful and that a high-stress period takes a toll on health. Think of health asmoney in the bank. Think of a marriage as a mechanism for saving or adding to health. Think ofdivorceas a period of very high expenditures.

Likewise, people who remarried had 12 percent more chronic healthconditionsthan those continuously married, and 19 percent moremobilitylimitations, while people who never married had 12 percent moremobilitylimitations and 13 percent moredepressive symptoms. Waite conducted the study with Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins' BloombergSchool of Public Health. Their research will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior in the article, "Marital Biography and Health Midlife."