The Couple That Drinks Together

by
Claire Bates
Daily Mail



When you toast
your other half this Valentine’s Day, here’s hoping you don’t finish
off the bottle on your own.

For a new study
has found that couples who drink similar amounts are more compatible.

A study of
nearly 20,000 married couples revealed that husbands and wives who
both consumed a moderate intake of alcohol were far less likely
to divorce than couples where one was a heavy drinker.

Just 5.8 per
cent of couples who were lighter drinkers ended up splitting up
from their long-term partners, according to the study from the Norwegian
Institute of Public Health.

The highest
divorce rate – 26.8 per cent – was in couples where the
husband was a light-drinker while the wife went on binges.

However, it
seems women are more forgiving, as when the roles were reversed
the divorce rate halved to 13.1 per cent.

Researcher
Fartein Ask Torvik, said there were several explanations for the
disparity.

‘One of them
is that women in general seem to be more strongly affected by heavy
drinking than men are. Thus, heavy-drinking women may be more impaired
than heavy-drinking men,’ he said.

Co-author Ellinor
Major, added: ‘Heavy drinking among women is also less acceptable
than among men in our society.

‘A wife’s heavy
drinking probably also interferes more with general family life
– that is, the caring role of the mother, upbringing of children,
etc. Perhaps the husband is more apt to the leave the spouse than
is the wife when major problems occur.’

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the rest of the article

February
9, 2013

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