Now we know why the life with your partner is a continuous hell: because this way you will live longer! Couple fights could boost your health, while suppressing anger brings an early death.

"Researchers looked at 192 couples over 17 years and placed the couples into one of four categories: both partners communicate their anger; in the second and third groups one spouse expresses while the other suppresses; and both the husband and wife suppress their anger and brood," said lead author Ernest Harburg, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the Psychology Department.

When both partners suppressed their anger with the other when unfairly attacked, this doubled the death risk.

"When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict. Usually nobody is trained to do this. If they have good parents, they can imitate, that's fine, but usually the couple is ignorant about the process of resolving conflict. The key matter is, when the conflict happens, how do you resolve it? When you don't, if you bury your anger, and you brood on it and you resent the other person or the attacker, and you don't try to resolve the problem, then you're in trouble," said Harburg.

26 out of 192 pairs suppressed their anger in the case of both spouses; 13 died during the follow-up, while 41 deaths occurred in the case of the remaining 166 pairs.

In 27 % of the couples with both partners suppressing their anger, one spouse died during the follow-up, while in 23 % of them both spouses passed away (just 6 % of both spouses of the couples died in the remaining three categories during the follow up). In the other three categories, just 19 % of them witnessed the death of one spouse.

"The study adjusted for age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, bronchial problems, breathing, and cardiovascular risk. The paper only looks at attacks which are considered unfair or undeserved by the person being attacked. If the attack is viewed as fair, say an abused child or woman who believes they deserved the attack, then the victim does not get angry," said Harburg.

"These preliminary numbers are small, but the researchers are now collecting 30-year follow-up data, which will have almost double the death rate," he added.