Imagine me in the middle of a crowded room - watching so many marriages around me be torn apart by addiction, affairs, and apathy. Some seem so happy, until they’re not.

Someone asked me last week - is something in the water?

I have an opinion that isn’t very popular but I think I could build a case for it - a marriage lives and dies by the behavior of the husband.

Here’s the data on how marriage can help or hurt your health, happiness and longevity.

— — —

The marriage picture (especially in America) has changed more in the last 60 years than in the last 600. A few numbers from the U.S. Census, the CDC, and Pew that got my attention:

•       About 47% of U.S. adults are currently married. That number was over 70% in 1970. (U.S. Census)

•       Nearly half of Americans age 15 and up — about 132 million people — were unmarried in 2022. (U.S. Census)

•       In 2022, there were about 2.07 million marriages in the U.S., a rate of 6.2 per 1,000 people — historically low. (CDC)

•       The median age at first marriage is now around 30 for men and 28 for women. In 1960 it was 23 and 20. (U.S. Census)

•       Married-couple households dropped from 71% of all households in 1970 to 47% in 2022. (U.S. Census)

•       Over 1.8 million Americans divorced in 2023. About a third of ever-married adults have been through a divorce. (Pew Research) - Did you see that stat above about 2.07 million marriages began…and nearly the same amount ended!

•       43% of first marriages by women ages 15–44 end in disruption within 15 years. (CDC)

•       More than 37 million Americans now live alone — roughly 29% of all households. In 1960 that number was about 7 million. (U.S. Census)

If you grew up assuming marriage was the default, the default has quietly changed.

Single is now a major American story. So is divorce. So is starting over at 50.

This is the room we’re standing in when we ask, “Is marriage actually good for you?”

The short version: marriage, by itself, isn’t a magic pill. But good marriages might be.

A few of the most repeated findings in the field:

•       The Harvard Study of Adult Development has tracked the same group of people for over 80 years. The single strongest predictor of who lived a long, happy, healthy life wasn’t cholesterol. It wasn’t income. It wasn’t IQ. It was the quality of their close relationships in midlife. (Harvard Gazette)

•       A 2019 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that married people were healthier and lived longer than people who were never married, divorced, or widowed. (Journal of Happiness Studies)

•       The Gottman Institute reports that John Gottman could predict divorce with over 90% accuracy just by watching how a couple talks to each other for a few minutes — flagging what he calls the “Four Horsemen”: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. (Gottman Institute)

•       The Gottmans also argue that the point of marriage isn’t happiness — it’s growth. Two people refining each other into who they were always meant to be. (Gottman Institute)

•       Blue Zones research backs this up: among the world’s longest-lived populations, committed partnership and tight social bonds show up over and over as a non-negotiable longevity input. (Blue Zones)

Marriage doesn’t add years to your life because of a ring. It adds years because, done right, it gives you the one thing the body was built to need: safe, consistent, loving connection.

Here’s the part of the research that should make every husband sit up.

Men get the health benefits of marriage almost automatically. Just being married is associated with longer life, better health, more income, less depression, and lower risk of heart disease.

Women don’t get the same deal.

The data is fairly consistent on this:

•       Married men live longer and are healthier than unmarried men — pretty much across the board. (Blue Zones)

•       Married women only see the same longevity and health benefits if two things are true: the marriage is genuinely happy, and she has rich friendships and time with other women.

•       The Gottmans put it plainly in The Man’s Guide to Women: a happily married man “makes more money, has more and better sex, lives longer, and enjoys better health” — but her well-being is the foundation of his.

Translation:

He is the variable.

If the marriage is good, he wins by default. She only wins if he’s actually showing up — and if she has a circle of women in her life she’s still pouring into.

That’s not a guilt trip. That’s a job description.

Most of what follows is pulled from The Man’s Guide to Women by Drs. John and Julie Gottman — based on 40 years of research with thousands of couples in their “Love Lab.”

Let’s start it like this:

Dear Husbands, (wives can read too)

•       A woman’s number one need in marriage is safety — physical, emotional, financial, and relational. Not romance. Safety.

•       Trustworthiness is the trait women rank highest in a long-term partner. She has to know you’ll do what you say, choose her in private the way you choose her in public, and not flinch when she’s at her worst.

•       Actively listening to a woman — without fixing, defending, or rushing her — is, in Gottman’s words, “the closest thing to female Viagra.”

•       For a woman to want sex, she has to feel safe being vulnerable. Sex, for her, is the act of laying her power down and handing it to you. Her body will not do that under threat.

•       When a woman is stressed or afraid, her body floods with cortisol. Cortisol shuts down desire at a level no charm can override.

•       When she feels safe and connected, oxytocin takes over. Oxytocin is the bonding hormone. It’s released in high amounts during orgasm — and it’s a big part of why a woman becomes more attached, more drawn to you, more “at home” with you over time.

•       A six-second kiss triggers a measurable surge of oxytocin in her body. Gottman’s recommendation: do that, every day.

•       To be her hero in bed, you have to be her hero outside of it. What happens in the kitchen at 7 a.m. shows up in the bedroom at 10 p.m.

•       She has to be rested, connected, and unstressed before her body will say yes to vulnerability. If she’s exhausted, anxious, and carrying the household alone, your “moves” do not matter.

•       Asking her, often, “What do you need from me today? How are you feeling? What are you worried about?” — and then actually listening — does more than any romantic gesture.

•       Women need time with their girlfriends. Travel, walks, dinners, spa days, shopping. That’s not a competing relationship. That’s part of what keeps her alive. Don’t compete with it. Protect it.

•       A woman needs to love her body to fully feel desire. The way you talk to her about her body matters more than you think.

None of this is a technique. It’s how to make the thang work!!!

If you’re open to religious texts, this one matters:

There’s a passage in Ephesians 5 that gets quoted at women all the time. “Wives, submit to your husbands.” That’s where most sermons stop. That’s where most men stop.

Read the next part.

Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. To love her as their own bodies. He says no man hates his own flesh — he feeds it and cares for it. That’s the standard.

In other words:

•       A man is told to lay down his life, his wants, his dreams, and his ambitions for his bride.

•       He’s told to love her as much as — or more than — his own body.

•       Respect, in that framework, isn’t something a man demands. It’s something a man earns through that kind of sacrificial love.

Most of the marriages I watch quietly come apart aren’t broken by big betrayals. They’re slowly hollowed out by men who got the order backwards — wanting respect they hadn’t earned, while withholding the love that would have earned it.

Paul’s framing and Gottman’s data are saying the same thing, in different languages.

She follows safety. Safety follows sacrifice.

Here’s what I keep watching. Good marriages — not bad ones, good ones — quietly falling apart because nobody noticed when “good” became “comfortable” became “convenient” became “we’re more like roommates.”

It usually looks like this:

•       He becomes absorbed in work, achievement, screens, hobbies, or other forms of escape.

•       She stops feeling chosen. The cortisol creeps up. Desire dips. Resentment grows.

•       They stop flirting. They stop dating. They stop reaching for each other in small ways.

•       One day, one of them looks up and the marriage is technically intact but emotionally empty.

The most respectable form of this for men is work as the drug of choice. Nobody questions a man who’s “providing.” Nobody questions a man who’s “building something.” But if the building is happening at the expense of the only relationship the research says will actually keep him alive — what exactly is he building?

The other quiet killers:

•       Sports betting and gambling

•       Pornography and watching other people enjoy pleasure while his own home is starving for it

•       Unbounded hobbies that always come before her

•       Gaming, scrolling, and other infinite-loop distractions

•       A “good enough” mindset that mistakes the absence of fighting for the presence of love

If your marriage is good, that should make you a little nervous. Good marriages fall apart all the time. Great ones — the kind a wife brags about to her friends — rarely do.

If you’re a husband reading this, here’s the playbook. It’s the same playbook the data points to from five different directions.

•       Make her safety the foundation. Emotional, physical, financial, relational. When she feels safe, almost everything else gets easier. When she doesn’t, nothing else works.

•       Be the variable in your favor. The research says you’re the one with the most influence over whether this marriage extends both of your lives. Act like it.

•       Listen more than you fix. When she tells you something hard, the right answer is almost never a solution. It’s, “Tell me more.”

•       Six-second kiss. Every day. Not a peck. Not a goodbye. A real one. Oxytocin doesn’t lie.

•       Protect her time with her girlfriends. Encourage it. Pay for it. Watch the kids. Her health depends on it. So does yours.

•       Ask the four questions, regularly. What do you need from me today? How are you feeling? What are you worried about? What would make you feel loved this week? Then listen.

•       Cut what’s stealing from the marriage. Sports betting. Porn. Endless work. Hobbies without limits. Look at where your attention, money, and energy actually go. That’s where your marriage actually is.

•       Flirt with her like you did at the beginning. Texting. Sexting. Eye contact. A touch in the kitchen. Tell her she’s beautiful in clothes she didn’t ask about.

•       Date her again. Not “we got dinner.” A real date. On your calendar. Phones away.

•       Love her as you love your own body. Feed it. Care for it. Don’t punish it. That’s Paul’s standard. That’s the bar.

•       Pick a 20-year horizon. Don’t ask, “Are we okay this week?” Ask, “What does our marriage look like in 2046, if I keep treating it the way I’ve been treating it the last 90 days?”

— — —

I’m writing this as someone who is trying to figure it out.

The data is clear. Marriage, done right, may be the single highest-ROI health investment most of us will ever make. Better than a sauna. Better than a cold plunge. Better than every supplement in the cabinet.

Done wrong — or worse, done on autopilot — it can cost you your health, your peace, and in many cases, half your net worth. All because nobody was willing to do the unglamorous work of paying attention.

The good news is the work is mostly free.

Listening is free. Kissing her for six seconds is free. Putting the phone down is free. Asking her how she’s doing — and waiting for the real answer — is free.

The most expensive thing you can do is nothing.

-Jared

P.S. - My wife Baddie Crocker has a beautiful newsletter where she shares her perspectives on tending the land, recipes, women’s health and more.

I write this newsletter each week because I feel my best when my body, mind and soul are all healthy. I want the same for you. If you feel like you’ve seen something valuable here, please do me a favor and forward this newsletter to a friend or let me know what you think by replying to this email or texting me - (310) 879-8441

P.S. - This newsletter does not provide medical advice. The content, such as graphics, images, text, and all other materials, is provided for reference and educational purposes only. The content is not meant to be complete or exhaustive or to be applicable to any specific individual's medical condition.

Here are links to things that have helped me improve my health:

Whoop - Track your HRV and REM Sleep

Function Health - Optimize Your Health via 160+ BioMarkers

Here are a few topics I think you’ll love if you haven’t checked them out before:

How to Breathe for Better Health

How to Supercharge Your Sleep

The Power of the Sauna

•       Harvard Gazette — Over nearly 80 years, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has been showing how to live a healthy and happy life(2017). https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

•       Carr D, Freedman VA, et al. — Happy Marriage, Happy Life? Marital Quality and Subjective Well-Being in Later Life (PMC4158846).https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4158846/

•       Journal of Happiness Studies (2019) — Marital happiness, marital status, health, and longevity. https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v20y2019i5d10.1007_s10902-018-0009-9.html

•       Gottman Institute — Marriage and Couples Research. https://www.gottman.com/about/research/couples/

•       Gottman Institute — Seriously. What’s the Point of Marriage?https://www.gottman.com/blog/seriously-whats-point-marriage-growth/

•       Gottman J, Gottman J, Abrams D, Abrams R — The Man’s Guide to Women (2016). Rodale Books.

•       U.S. Census Bureau — Family Households Still the Majority (2023). https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/05/family-households-still-the-majority.html

•       U.S. Census Bureau — More Unmarried Women Than Unmarried Men in the U.S. (2023). https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/unmarried-women-men.html

•       U.S. Census Bureau — Home Alone: More Than A Quarter of All Households Have One Person (2023). https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-quarter-all-households-have-one-person.html

•       U.S. Census Bureau — America’s Families and Living Arrangements press release (2022). https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/americas-families-and-living-arrangements.html

•       U.S. Census Bureau — Households and Families update bulletin. https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USCENSUS/bulletins/39f6362

•       CDC / NCHS — Marriage and Divorce data and commentary. https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/category/marriage-and-divorce/

•       Pew Research Center — 8 facts about divorce in the United States (2025). https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/16/8-facts-about-divorce-in-the-united-states/

•       Blue Zones — Marriage Provides Health Benefits — Especially for Men (2025). https://www.bluezones.com/2025/02/marriage-provides-health-benefits-especially-for-men/

•       Barna — New Barna Data on Marriage and Divorce Trends (2025). https://www.barna.com/trends/marriage-divorce-trends-2025/

•       USAFacts — How have American households changed over time?https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-the-structure-of-american-households-changed-over-time/

•       The Bible — Ephesians 5:25–33 (Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus).