Are you stressed out by your spouse? A new study has found that people who experience chronic stress in their marriages may have an increased risk of developing depression.

Previous research has shown that married people tend to be happier and healthier than single people overall. US researchers decided to investigate the effects of chronic marital stress on people.

Married people filled in questionnaires about stress and they were also assessed for depression. These same tests were repeated almost a decade later. The participants also underwent emotional response testing, to see how quickly they could recover from negative experiences.

The study found that overall, those who were in very stressful marriages were less able to enjoy positive experiences, which can be a sign of depression. They were also more likely to report other symptoms of depression.

The team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that these findings are important because they may help researchers to better understand what makes some people more vulnerable to mental health problems.

This is not an obvious consequence, if you will, of marital stress, but it's one I think is extraordinarily important because of the cascade of changes that may be associated. This is the signature of an emotional style that reveals vulnerability to depression," the researchers said.

Details of these findings are published in the Journal of Psychophysiology.

For more information on depression, see our Depression Clinic here