A happy life may mean more than a happy wife. It may be the key to a heart healthy wife (and husband). A new study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, looked at marital interactions and cardiovascular disease. Specifically, the research team looked at one measure of cardiovascular risk — carotid artery intima-medial thickness. They found that positive marital interactions reduced thickness while negative increased it.

The increased risk was present even when other factors were controlled. For example, the relationship still existed independent of nonmarital social interactions, personality, and demographic factors. Marital interaction quality was measured by spouses assessing the quality of their interactions hourly for four days. The ratings were used to determine positive and negative marital interactions.

According to Medical News Today, this is not the first study to link marriage and heart health. Earlier this year, a study suggested that unmarried women are more likely to die from heart disease than married ones. The new study does, however, break down the marital relationship with cardiovascular health by looking at the type of marital interaction that boosts heart health. The results focused on middle-aged adults that were married or cohabitating in a marital-like relationship.

Moreover, Medical News Today goes on to explain that it is not only the heart that may benefit from marriage. A 2013 study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, suggested that people who are married when they are diagnosed with cancer are likely to live longer, compared with cancer patients who were unmarried at diagnosis.