--- title: The Perfect Husband Is Healthy, Attractive, and Aggreable description: Researchers look at whose well being really affects the success of a marriage canonical: https://time.com/24985/happy-wife-happy-life-study-says-its-the-other-way-around/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-14T20:09:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:00.634Z og:title: The Perfect Husband Is Healthy, Attractive, and Aggreable og:description: Researchers look at whose well being really affects the success of a marriage og:url: https://time.com/24985/happy-wife-happy-life-study-says-its-the-other-way-around/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta04cb9fcd77bb211/698685763bc999a4b41a256c/453511937-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3600 og:image:height: 2025 og:image:alt: 453511937 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Perfect Husband Is Healthy, Attractive, and Aggreable twitter:description: Researchers look at whose well being really affects the success of a marriage twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta04cb9fcd77bb211/698685763bc999a4b41a256c/453511937-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Happy Wife, Happy Life? 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Mar 14, 2014 8:09 PM UTC  Cute romance Cute romance mediaphotos—Getty Images/Vetta by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Mar 14, 2014 8:09 PM UTC A [study](http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/03/12/husband-s-health-and-attitude-loom-large-happy-long-term-marriages) from University of Chicago researchers found that when it comes to good marriages, the health and attitude of the husband plays a major role in marriage bliss. They looked at 953 heterosexual couples and found that women whose husbands were described as having high levels of positivity were were less likely to report conflict in their relationship. What was interesting, was that women’s positivity levels had no impact on the relationship.Women reported more conflict if the husband was in poor health, but once again, it didn’t matter if it was the other way around. So yes, women can be miserable and still have a good marriage. But a grumpy husband hurt the marriage. Unsurprisingly, men who described themselves as neurotic, had wives who complained about marriage quality. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/24985/happy-wife-happy-life-study-says-its-the-other-way-around/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/24985/happy-wife-happy-life-study-says-its-the-other-way-around/"},"headline":"Happy Wife, Happy Life? 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