Wives' Insomnia Hurts Wedded Bliss

If your wife has a poor night’s sleep, it can be bad news for the marriage—but if it’s your husband who can’t drift off, that’s no problem, a study finds. After a woman’s night of tossing and turning, the likelihood of an argument the next day increased. But men’s poor sleep didn’t boost the odds of a feud. “We found that wives' sleep problems affect her own and her spouse's marital functioning the next day,” said a University of Pittsburgh researcher.

She recorded the sleep habits of 35 couples over 10 nights, the Telegraph reports. The next day, both husbands and wives made note of their “positive marital interactions” and negative interactions. “Wives who took longer to fall asleep the night before reported poorer marital functioning the next day, and so did their husbands,” said the researcher. On the other hand, the “husband’s sleep did not affect his own or his spouse’s report of next day’s marital interactions.” (More marriage stories.)