幸福的夫妻就是这样争吵的

幸福的夫妻就是这样争吵的

In his seminal novel, "Anna Karenina," Tolstoy remarked that "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." His observation, that it takes the avoidance of flaws to have a successful family (or an experiment), has become adapted by statisticians and ecologists alike, even being deemed the "Anna Karenina principle."

托尔斯泰在其影响深远的小说《安娜·卡列尼娜》中写道:“幸福的家庭都是相似的;不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。”他的观点是，要想拥有一个成功的家庭(或一项实验)，就必须避免缺陷，这一观点已经被统计学家和生态学家所接受，甚至被视为“安娜卡列尼娜原则”。

When it comes to choosing your battles, happily married couples know it's best to choose together. (Photo: Andreas Saldavs/Shutterstock)

When it comes to marriages, a study from the University of Tennessee found something similar: happy couples tend to argue the same way, or rather, they strategically choose to only argue about problems that have a concrete or easy solution.

田纳西大学的一项研究发现，在婚姻问题上也有类似的发现:幸福的夫妻倾向于用同样的方式争吵，或者更确切地说，他们战略性地选择只就那些有具体或容易解决的问题争吵。

The multi-method, two-sample investigation published in the journal "Family Process" compared couples in their mid- to late- 30s to couples in their early 70s. All were self-described as happily married, and were asked to rank their least and most serious issues. Both samples ranked jealousy, religion and family as the least serious, while intimacy, leisure, household, communication and money were ranked as the most serious — including health for the older couples.

发表在《家庭过程》杂志上的一项多方法、双样本的调查将30多岁和70多岁的夫妇进行了比较。所有人都自称婚姻幸福，并被要求对他们最不重要和最严重的问题进行排名。这两个样本都将嫉妒、宗教和家庭列为最不严重的因素，而亲密关系、闲暇时间、家庭生活、沟通和金钱被列为最严重的因素，其中包括老年夫妇的健康状况。

As researchers observed the couples discussing marital problems, it became clear that both married groups chose their battles wisely. "Happy couples tend to take a solution-oriented approach to conflict, and this is clear even in the topics that they choose to discuss," said lead author and associate professor Amy Rauer.

研究人员观察了讨论婚姻问题的夫妻，很明显，双方都明智地选择了战争。研究报告的主要撰写人、副教授艾米·劳尔说:“幸福的夫妻往往会采取一种以解决问题为导向的方式来处理矛盾，这一点甚至在他们选择讨论的话题中也很明显。”

For instance, the couples focused on issues with a resolvable solution, like how to spend leisure time or divvy up household chores. “Being able to successfully differentiate between issues that need to be resolved versus those that can be laid aside for now may be one of the keys to a long-lasting, happy relationship," concludes Rauer.

例如，夫妻们关注的问题都是有解决方案的，比如如何打发闲暇时间或分担家务。“能够成功地区分需要解决的问题和可以暂时搁置的问题，可能是一段持久、幸福的关系的关键之一，”Rauer总结道。

Happy wife, happy life?

幸福的妻子，幸福的生活?

A marriage can help you live longer — as long as it's a happy, healthy one. (Photo: Pormezz/Shutterstock

It's been shown that being in a healthy relationship can help you live longer, too. From cardiovascular disease to depression to cancer, studies show that happy marriages play a valuable role in health issues, and encourage healthy behaviors like a healthy diet and staying socially active. But not just any marriage will do, and it changes depending on gender. Men benefit more from marriage, while women are especially vulnerable to a bad marriage. Psychiatrist Sudeepta Varma tells WebMD: "We now know that depression, obesity and hypertension can all result from women suffering in unhappy marriages."

研究表明，拥有一段健康的感情也能让你活得更长。从心血管疾病到抑郁症再到癌症，研究表明幸福的婚姻在健康问题上扮演着重要的角色，并鼓励健康的行为，比如健康的饮食和保持活跃的社交活动。但并不是所有的婚姻都会这样，它会随着性别而改变。男人从婚姻中获益更多，而女人尤其容易受到糟糕婚姻的伤害。精神病学家Sudeepta Varma告诉WebMD:“我们现在知道，抑郁、肥胖和高血压都可能是女性婚姻不幸的结果。”

So how does one keep a happy marriage, well, happy? It could be in your genes. Research from the Yale School of Public Health suggests that happily married couples shared a common strand — specifically, a genetic variation known as the GG genotype within the oxytocin gene receptor. Couples who reported the most domestic bliss had more of the gene, aka OXTR rs53576, which is also linked to qualities found in good people, like empathy and emotional stability.

那么，一个人如何保持幸福的婚姻呢?可能是你的基因。耶鲁大学公共卫生学院的研究表明，幸福的夫妻拥有一条共同的基因链，具体来说，就是催产素基因受体中的GG基因型。那些报告说家庭生活最幸福的夫妻拥有更多的这种基因，又名OXTR rs53576，这也与好人身上的品质有关，比如同情心和情绪稳定。

Of course, not every study suggests that marriage leads to eternal happiness and endless fulfillment in life. Dr. Bella DePaulo believes that many scientists are biased when it comes to proving that marriage makes you happier.

当然，并不是所有的研究都表明婚姻能带来永恒的幸福和无尽的满足感。贝拉·德保罗博士认为，许多科学家在证明婚姻会让人更幸福的问题上存在偏见。

DePaulo declares that most of these marriage studies are too limited in their scope: only those who got married and stayed married were included in the studies she references, and that comparing stay-married people to stay-single people is simply unfair. They are different groups of people with different motivations in life — and let's not forget that American policymakers also treat married people better with goodies like tax breaks and health insurance benefits. Too many factors go into a married or unmarried person's state of happiness that make it difficult, if not impossible, to determine if marriage alone makes one live happily ever after.

德保罗宣称，这些婚姻研究的范围大多过于局限:只有那些结过婚并一直保持着婚姻的人才被包括在她所引用的研究中，而将已婚人士与单身人士进行比较纯粹是不公平的。他们是不同的群体，有着不同的生活动机——我们不要忘记，美国的政策制定者也用减税和医疗保险福利等更好地对待已婚人士。已婚或未婚人士的幸福状态受到太多因素的影响，因此很难(如果不是不可能的话)确定婚姻是否能让一个人从此过上幸福的生活。

Whether you're married or not, all healthy relationships require upkeep and attention. Good marriages don't just happen out of nowhere, and neither do good friendships.

无论你是否结婚，所有健康的关系都需要维护和关注。好的婚姻不是凭空而来的，好的友谊也不是。