Telegraph title: Divorce is bad for you? Marriage can be too
Telegraph subtitle: A new study claims that an unhappy union is better for your health than being single. Three writers reveal the impact their relationship breakdown had
Date: 8 February 2023
Male perspective by Simon Mills
His subtitle: With morale low and blood pressure high, I was not healthy
“Japanese business culture has a word for it: oidashibeya. It translates literally as banishment or expulsion room . . . chasing-out room. Japanese companies are traditionally averse to firing office workers, and when someone (a man, usually) becomes surplus to requirements some bosses prefer to choose slow humiliation over the tricky bureaucracy and legal minefield of the conventional lay-off. Unwanted employees keep their jobs but are cruelly stripped of all responsibility, status, dignity and contact with other workers.
Moved into bland, featureless environments and forced to do menial, mind-numbing tasks (or given nothing to do at all), they are shamed, ostracised, bored and emasculated — the oidashibeya thing can go on for years and years — until they finally crack, resign and walk out. It’s cruel, unhealthy, wholly demoralising and mentally damaging but, eventually, brutally effective.
That’s how a failing marriage, a union in the last throes of its death cycle, can feel for a soon to be ex-husband: a bleakly loveless, domestic oidashibeya of sadness and dull, undignified inertia. A familial purgatory where hope has all but evaporated, and the future is wildly uncertain and is surviving mostly on ready meals. That’s how it played out for me, anyway.
The last few years of my 19-year marriage were, on reflection, a despondent waste of time. For all concerned. Sleeping in separate rooms, holidaying apart, sometimes going out together to present a brave, socially acceptable front, but both increasingly open to the possibility of new relationships — my wife and I knew it was over. But we were also too polite, unsure and (probably) scared to force the issue, to finally call time on things. Instead we carried on, in a state of mutual oidashibeya, for 18 sad, tense and uncomfortable emotionally Stockholmed months, hostages to our marriage.
But was this unhappy time a healthy time? Looking back, definitely not. Ergo, I find it hard to believe a study published in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care that concluded that marriage — no matter how toxic and dysfunctional — appeared to have a protective effect against type 2 diabetes, preventing people’s blood sugar from rising dangerously.
According to the white-coated researchers even an unhappy marriage is better for you than being alone, couples being at less risk of heart disease as well as diabetes. Examining the health records of 3,335 adults in England aged between 50 and 89 who had regular blood checks to monitor their risk of type 2 diabetes, they found that being married or living with a partner was linked to healthier blood sugar levels. Which is nice, but had they tested me 12 years back, during the final act of my marriage drama, an increased reliance on red wine and vodka would have had my levels nudging the danger zone. I wasn’t well.
With morale low and blood pressure high, and my failing marriage self-medicated by a winning thing for booze, I was very much not a fit and healthy husband. I stayed in. I cried and catastrophised. Most of the time I looked and felt terrible. And a kind of madness kicked in. Even though I was ostracised and isolated, living mostly in an expulsion room/study just off the kitchen, I honestly thought we might survive. Lying there in my pathetic cot of a bed, legs too long for its junior proportions, I would convince myself that I/we could find some kind of happiness somewhere in the unhappiness, a secret door out of my own private oidashibeya.
I’d weigh it all up: the economics versus the platonics, the benefits felt by the children (of having both parents around) versus the detriment and dishonesty of a sham marriage and a series of fake family holidays. The emotional and financial cost of splitting up against the rolling misery of staying together. Could it work?
And then, finally, I left. As I should have done more than a year before. For everyone’s sake.
Initially, being single at 49 wasn’t much fun. Divorce sort of muted me. In my marriage hangover I became an introverted, miserable, hermetic bore. I saw no one. I worked. I consumed more red wine. I was also prescribed medication for anxiety and depression. I wasn’t cheered by learning that divorced men are prone to deeper depressions and more likely to drink excessively and do recreational drugs. The prognosis was not good. Divorced middle-aged men living alone for more than seven years after the “life-altering event”, I learnt, had higher levels of inflammation in their bodies, which could result in hardened arteries, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, dementia. (Not really selling this, am I, chaps?)
So, staying in an unhappy marriage against the distress and sadness and financial ruin of a painful divorce. Which one is better for a man? Which one of these two miseries would I endorse, healthwise? With 20/20 hindsight, and now ten years clear of my kid-sized bed in the study, I am happier and healthier as a single man than I ever was as a failing, unloved and unloveable husband, and pleased to report that, in time, things did get better. Sadness gave way to something approaching stability, contentment and optimum operational fettle.
A long and painful break-up will be a difficult period for all, but with the clock ticking, a well-judged and timely exit might just gift a longer ramp to a new happiness. This concept proved a revelation. Miraculously, after 18 months of being single, for the first time in many years I realised that I didn’t feel dangerously unwell any more. Despite what the report says, not being unhappily married has been good for this man’s wellbeing.”
Female perspective by Jemma Forte
Her subtitle: Divorce is horrible but I’m not sure I’d cohabit again
“A new study has pronounced that even an unhappy marriage is better for you than being alone. According to research, couples are at less risk of heart disease and diabetes. Furthermore, being married or living with a partner is linked to healthier blood sugar levels. Can you hear my very heavy sigh? Can you feel the vibrations from this singleton’s massive eye-roll?
Apparently, the findings hold true regardless of whether the relationship was happy or not. Apparently, getting divorced is linked with a damaging rise in blood sugar.
Don’t get me wrong, there are aspects of this study that are interesting. Given its scientific nature, I’m not going deny its validity either. But is it helpful? Does it apply to everyone? Does it differ according to sex? Also, is it trying to intimate that sharing a space with someone you have outgrown, no longer love or, God forbid, can’t bloody stand is healthier than doing the brave thing by calling it quits? Because, if so, I’m tempted to add a childish v-sign to my sigh and eye-roll. As someone who divorced a decade ago and has been single for the past three years, I can honestly say the main thing affecting my cortisol levels and blood pressure are studies like this.
Society needs to have a word with itself. Yes, divorce is horrible. It’s also stressful, sad and challenging financially. But the idea that cohabiting with someone is the only way to be a well-rounded, happy, healthy individual needs to stop being perpetuated. Instead, surely people need to be reassured that there are other ways to live and alternative ways to conduct relationships that might suit you better. Cohabiting is not necessarily for everyone. In fact, I’m not convinced I’ll do it again, although never say never, I suppose. What I am sure about is that it is perfectly possible to live a healthy life without relying on someone else.
When I was married, I was more secure financially, so I do relate to the bit about cortisol levels on that front. I also think loneliness is debilitating and awful. During lockdown, whenever my kids were at their dad’s, life without my busy professional life, family and friends was hollow and indeed lonely, so I can relate to that part of the study. But, ordinarily, being single doesn’t equate to being lonely, you just have to make an effort to see people and keep busy.
As for the stress of not sharing the bills with anyone, interestingly, it’s that which has ended up making me embrace regular exercise. The stress I felt ten years ago when I had to resurrect, indeed restart, my career meant I had to work out how to combat it and keep sane. After a lot of graft, my career is in a much better state, but the exercise routine has stayed. So actually I am stronger than I was a decade ago. I’m slimmer too and fitter. These are huge positives. I also think becoming financially independent has made me grow as a person too. There is always a positive flipside if you look for it.
As for diet, when I was married we definitely ate too much. My ex-husband even told me (kindly) that I was a feeder and that when we split up he lost weight naturally, due to not living with a half-Italian woman who was constantly serving up massive plates of lasagne. He looks better now than he did when we were married. We share our children amicably and, of course, when they are with me, I make proper square meals for them. When they are with their dad, though, there is a different type of pleasure to be gleaned from being able to make do with what’s in the fridge. I can spontaneously go out with a friend, eat in front of the telly, and cook a whole plate of healthy veg without the carbs my teenagers need, but which my thighs can do without.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that whether we’re in a relationship or not, surely one’s health and happiness shouldn’t rely on anyone but ourselves. It’s fulfilling to be an individual who makes good choices. Plus, if you are single there’s always the possibility that one day you’ll meet someone new who will want to see you naked. And if that isn’t a carrot for staying healthy and fit, I don’t know what is.”
Sources:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/divorce-is-bad-for-you-marriage-can-be-too-x7s6sqxn7
and
2023 new study as mentioned above: How sweet is your love? Disentangling the role of marital status and quality on average glycemic levels among adults 50 years and older in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
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