London: Want your marriage to last? Just try to make heavy use of the first person plural pronoun "we", says a new study.

An international team has claimed that couples should try to describe them as "we", rather than as "me" and "you" -- this exhibits more positive emotional behaviour and both the partners would be more satisfied with their relationship.

For their study, researchers, led by Robert Levenson of the University of Berkeley, put some 154 couples through "conflict conversations" while monitoring their physiological responses using a polygraph.

Older couples used far more "we" words than middle- aged couples, showed less cardiovascular arousal and less negative emotional responses, and also had more instances of positive emotional responses, the findings revealed.

The researchers have also noted that the person using the "we" word is not the one who receives the most benefit, at least not directly -- rather, the words have a soothing effect on their partner, the 'New Scientist' reported.

According to them, if one uses a lot of "I/you" words, one'll activate a "separateness schema" in one's relationship.

This is "particularly toxic to marriages. Spouses use separateness language as a way of expressing the frustrations in ways that are often contentious and adversarial," the team members were quoted as saying.

Cutting down on the negative emotional effects of marital arguments is almost certainly good for one's health.

Men also put themselves at more risk of heart disease if they resort to controlling behaviour in arguments, the study said.

The findings have been published in the 'Psychology and Aging' journal

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