Marriage is not for everyone! I’m sure we have heard that a thousand times. As long as the marriage works, both partners are healthy and happy, but what happens when things go wrong.

According to a new study by researchers at the University of Utah, women involved in strained marriages are more likely than other wives to have high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease. But the same wasn’t true for their husbands.

The study was presented at the American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting in Chicago. It involved 276 couples aged 40 to 70 who had been married an average of 20 years. Each couple filled out questionnaires designed to assess the good and bad aspects of married life.

The researchers found women in marriages with high levels of strife were more prone to depression and metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms such a thick waist, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and abnormal blood sugar that significantly raise the risk of heart disease.

“What we found is that negative aspects of the marriage -- a high level of conflict and discord -- were associated with increased levels of metabolic syndrome for women and not for men,” said Tim Smith of the University of Utah, a psychology professor and study co-author, said.

“The immediate implication is that we should be concerned about not just traditional risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol but the quality of our emotional and family lives,” he added.

However, it is a little premature to say that women would lower their risk of heart disease if they improved their marriages or dumped their husbands.