Materialistic couples have more problems

Materialistic couples are less likely to have a happy and stable marriage, according to new research from Brigham Young University (BYU).

The researchers’ statistical analysis showed that couples who say money is not important to them score about 10 to 15% better on marriage stability and other measures of relationship quality than couples where one or both are materialistic.

“Couples where both spouses are materialistic were worse off on nearly every measure we looked at,” said Jason Carroll, a BYU professor of family life and lead author of the study, which has been published in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy.  “There is a pervasive pattern in the data of eroding communication, poor conflict resolution and low responsiveness to each other.”