A Calmer Wife Strengthens A Marriage: The Emotionality Of Wedlock

Wives who quickly regain their cool after a spat keep a marriage strong while a husbands' emotional control during a verbal argument makes little difference. 

Researchers find that a wife's - but not husband's - temperament plays a significant role in marriage satisfaction while in a separate study they find a genetic link to how emotional people are to the state of their relationship.

Specifically, the willingness and ability of wives to control their emotions and harness “constructive communication” to keep arguments grounded were strongly linked to marital fulfillment. Conversely, the way husbands kept their emotions in check apparently had “little or no bearing in long-term marital satisfaction,” the study authors write.
This discrepancy could reflect generational differences in how marriage and gender-roles are viewed, as well as how arguments negatively impact a relationship. Northwestern University assistant professor and study co-author, Claudia Haase, noted “middle-aged and older couples in our study grew up in a world that treated men and women very differently. It will be interesting to see how these gender dynamics play out in younger couples.”