IS IT A HAPPY OR UNHAPPY MARRIAGE?

Physical consequences of staying where you’re miserable:

1. Weakens yours immune system

2. Wounds are slower to heal

3. Increases your blood pressure

4. Increases your cholesterol

5. Makes you gain weight

6. Puts you at an increased risk for heart disease, cancer, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and arterial calcification

7. Causes digestive disorders

8. Causes hormone imbalance

9. Causes poor sleep

10. Shrinks your brain

11. Kills brain cells and halts new brain cell growth

Although these risks apply to both men and women, they don’t apply equally. Around the age of 40, the impact of marital stress on women’s body  is much greater than on a man’s.

5 ways unhappy marriage affects you mentally:

1. Decreases your attention span

2. Causes memory problems

3. Puts you at greater risk for mental illnesses of all kinds

4. Makes it hard for you to think and make decisions

5. Increases your risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s

5 ways unhappy marriage affects you emotionally:

1. Greater risk for depression

2. More feelings of anger

3. General feelings of anxiety

4. Mood swings

5. Impatience with yourself and others

One of the biggest challenges everyone in an unhappy marriage faces is dealing with the problem.

People often choose self-soothing activities like smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, gambling, impulse buying, obsessive technology use and over (or under) eating to help them cope. The problem is these behaviors exacerbate the risk factors the stress of your unhappy marriage created in the first place.

The impact of unhappy marriage on an individual can be pretty scary, and it can be easy to say you’ll stay in it for everyone else. But, your unhappiness impacts more than just you. It affects your spouse and your kids.Hopefully, all this information is impactful enough for you to want to change the situation. But don’t jump to the conclusion that the only way to fix things is to divorce. Divorce is much stressful than an unhappy marriage.