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Bad relationships can cause health problems – study

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Phumzile Nhleko
Phumzile Nhleko

Do you want to live a long life and be physically and mentally strong? Get into a high-quality relationship where love and happiness overflow, says a new study.

The study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, found that an unhappy relationship can have a profound effect on your health.

City Press asked two women whether or not the findings ­reflected their experience.

“An unhappy relationship slowly sucks the life out you and throws you into stress turmoil, which can have other negative effects on your body,” said Phumzile Nhleko.

“It’s not easy to make the decision to be alone. Slowly, you get used to it and enjoy it more than crying every day due to stress,” she said.

Hlengiwe Dube-Magudulela said some people ­collapse at the slightest negative information about their partners. “Others become engulfed with rage and kill everyone around them. Sometimes being alone and raising your children is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

Dube-Magudulela believes that no one dies of lone­liness and that people should not be choosing to die from an abusive relationship.

The study, conducted at the University of Buffalo in New York, analysed how the quality of a relationship during the transition into adulthood affected health.

They found that about a third of the young people experienced relatively large changes in their relationships over a two-year period. Researchers took into account satisfaction, partner hostility and questions about criticism, support, kindness, affection and commitment.

They also asked about how partners behave outside of the relationship. Do they engage in deviant behaviour? Is there general antisociality?

Ashley Barr, assistant professor in the university’s ­sociology department, said the research showed that the longer people were in high-quality relationships – or, alternatively, the faster they got out of low-quality partnerships – the better their health was.

“Health benefits begin to accrue relatively quickly with high-quality relationships and supportive contexts. And then we see detrimental effects from low-quality relationships – particularly those low-quality relationships that last a long time,” said Barr.

Over the past few decades, the transition into adulthood has been extended, according to Barr. Younger people today are waiting longer to get married than those in previous generations, and they’re waiting longer to finish their studies. During this period, they’re moving in and out of relationships.

Although Dr Martjie van Zyl, a private clinical psychologist based in Johannesburg, had not read the entire study published in the Journal of Family Psychology, she said what Barr and her team found was in line with what relationship or marriage studies had found previously.

“Studies have shown that being in an unhappy relationship or marriage can cause stress, which, in turn, affects physical health. One particular study found that people who are ­unhappy with their spouse could be at higher risk of depression, high blood pressure and even heart disease,” she said.

Van Zyl was referring to a study conducted by the University of Utah, which revealed that people who think their partner is not supportive are more likely to develop heart disease.

“In the case of this study, where a younger person has been moving from one bad relationship to the next, the risk of such conditions could increase with time,” she said.

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