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How many years of life can a bad relationship cost you?

How many years of life can a bad relationship cost you?

Here’s the good news for anyone currently in a committed romantic partnership: Being in a relationship, compared to being single, could mean an extra 1.5 years in life expectancy for a decade.

Add this over a 50-year marriage and think about a lot more evening walks and time spent with family.

A team of scientists led by Kyle Bourassa of Duke University followed the life trajectories of 974 adults in New Zealand over two decades, ranging in age from 26 to 45 years. They found that involvement in an intimate relationship was linked to biological aging, as measured by physical markers such as body mass index, facial age, white blood cell count, cardio and respiratory capacity.

The results come with an important caveat, however, while a good relationship can save you years of your life, a bad relationship will almost certainly cost you.

To understand how much, researchers divided the quality of human relationships into four categories:

Positive relationships

Low quality relationship

Relationships with cases of abuse

Low quality relationships with cases of abuse.

They found that people in positive relationship partners age less than what would be considered normal.

Not surprisingly, people in low-quality relationships with cases of abuse age faster, adding approximately 1.2 years to each calendar year of study. People in low-quality relationships or relationships with abuse age faster than normal, but not as fast as the pace set by them in low-quality relationships with cases of abuse.

The authors note that changes in the quality of one’s relationship over time were not associated with biological aging. In other words, it is the amount of cumulative exposure to relationship problems, not whether one's relationship has improved or deteriorated recently, it is more important for biological aging.

They also report that victims of abuse are at greater risk of premature aging than the perpetrators of this abuse.

* Article taken from Psychology Today. Translated and adapted for Tiranapost.al.