The key to a happy marriage may actually be to not agree with your partner every time, a new study has suggested.
The study found that it could be harmful for one partner in a marriage to always have to agree with the other.
The study, which involved a married couple living in their own home, had to be halted after the husband - who was asked to agree to all his wife's demands - became miserable within 12 days.
Researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand evaluated the effect of being right versus being happy on a couple's quality of life.
The authors decided that the female participant would prefer to be right and the male participant would prefer to be happy. So the man was asked to agree with his wife's every opinion and request without complaint.
Even if he believed the female participant was wrong, the male was to bow and scrape. The male was informed of the intervention while the female participant was not.
Quality of life of both participants was measured using a scoring scale of one to 10 (10 being the best possible quality of life).
The study had to be stopped after 12 days as the result of a severe adverse outcome - this being that the male participant found the female participant became increasingly critical of everything he did.
The man's quality of life score fell from 7 out of 10 at the start of the study to 3 at 12 days. The women's increased slightly from 8 to 8.5 at six days.
"It seems that being right is a cause of happiness, and agreeing with what one disagrees with is a cause of unhappiness," said authors of the study published in British Medical Journal.
"The results of this trial show that the availability of unbridled power adversely affects the quality of life of those on the receiving end.
"Many people in the world live as couples, and we believe that it could be harmful for one partner to always have to agree with the other. However, more research is needed to see whether our results hold if it is the male who is always right," they concluded.
