Not just that, but marrying one of you lowers our own life expectancy too (while extending yours - women literally give up years of their lives to take care of men so that they can gain those years themselves).. 🤦‍♀️

[–] Uranium_Green@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I curious how much people dying of a broken heart plays into that?

My sister whose an MD said it was a known thing that when people get up there in age, it's not uncommon for someone to pass relatively soon (taking like within 5 years) after their partner passes.

For some people it can be days/weeks if they're not in good health, for others it can be years.

I think it's a similar reason to why folks will often struggle with memory after their partner passes; in lifelong partnerships people build shared memories where one half will remember some details which the other half won't and visa versa. That and the decline in socialisation, human interaction combined with the depression and isolation that follows the passing of a partner.

I'm curious as to whether people who lose their partners whilst still relatively young (40s) experience the same decline in life expectancy, and whether them having children correlates with higher life expectancy or not in those scenarios.

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure about all of that, but a couple of relevant points come to mind: men who'd lost their wives tended to die sooner after them, than women who'd lost their husbands source, also men are something like 6 times more likely to leave a sick wife than women are a sick husband (source.

So while I'm sure there's more nuance to it, the general trend seems to all point the same way - men need women a lot more than women need men, they require more care but are also quicker to discard their partner when they can no longer provide that care.