Stress is a part of life. Part of the drive to marry is having someone to help carry the burdensome parts of life in a contract, a promise, to permanently collaborate – rather than dealing with it all on your own. Humans, like many animals, find tasks easier when we collaborate. But are all marriages equal? No.
New research at the University of Texas (Austin) has discovered that same-sex married couples cope with stress more positively and collaboratively than different-sex couples. The study also found that women married to men report negative support–their husbands either react ambivalently or even hostilely in response to stress–than women married to women.
While the difference between women in same-sex marriages and different-sex marriages was most obvious, both men and women in same-sex marriages were found to be more likely to cope with stress collaboratively.
These results were measured by examining how the sex and sex composition of a couple affect its dyadic coping: how they manage stress together. Then researchers analysed how dyadic coping affected the marriage’s quality.
Yiwen Wang, a Ph.D. candidate at UT Austin, and Debra Umberson, a professor of sociology at UT Austin, analyzed survey responses of 419 couples in both same and different-sex relationships.
“This research shows that while there are some gender differences in dyadic coping efforts, the effects of supportive and collaborative dyadic coping as well as of negative dyadic coping on marital quality are the same for all couples,” Wang said.
“Our findings also emphasize the importance of coping as a couple for marital quality across different relationship contexts, which can be an avenue through which couples work together to strengthen relationship well-being.”
While there are countless studies on heterosexual marital quality, dyadic coping and/or patterns of stress, not much research exists on same-sex marriages. This study helps correct the research imbalance by demonstrating the importance of sex composition in marriages, impacting marital dynamics.
The study indicated that same-sex married couples are more like to work together to cope with stress because of similar sex-related and homophobia-related experiences.
“Including same-sex spouses and looking at how they work with each other to manage stress as compared to different-sex spouses can help us better understand the ways in which gender dynamics unfold in marriages,” Umberson said.
“Same-sex couples face unique stressors related to discrimination and stigma. Coping as a couple may be especially important for them as they do not receive as much support from extended family, friends or institutions as different-sex couples do.”
But what about misogyny’s impact on a woman’s place in a heterosexual marriage? Men are capable of working together to combat stress, according to the study. Therefore, men refusing to work collaboratively in a heterosexual relationship reflects patriarchal power relations between men and women.
Gay men are less likely to represent the male sex stereotypes, which are often anchored in proving one’s heterosexuality, but all males are born with the same collaborative capabilities. Sexual orientation does not change anything about a person, besides who they’re attracted to. The study reveals that heterosexual men simply refuse to help their wives with the family’s stress load, in order to maintain their own mental clarity and embark on an individual life outside the home.
How we’re treated in our relationships inevitably impacts our well-being — for better or worse. Comparing same-sex to different-sex relationship dynamics could help shape policy and practice by shedding light on the way sex-based oppression infects different-sex relationships.
“It is imperative that we advance our understanding of how spouses influence each other’s well-being for same-sex as well as different-sex married couples and that we consider both spouses’ perspectives within couples,” Umberson said. “Research should identify areas of risk and resilience for men and women in gay, lesbian and heterosexual marriage to ground the most effective strategies for policy and practice.”
