A new study says that couples who spent time praying together regularly were more likely to be happy in their relationship than others who do not.
The research brief by authors of "Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos" was published by the Institute of Family Studies.
The book focuses mainly on Latinos and African-Americans, but the brief takes into account relationship lives of general Americans by analyzing a sample of 1,600 couples in heterosexual relationships from a 2006 National Survey of Religion and Family Life.
According to the researchers, shared prayer is a good indicator of the health of relationships, as time spent in prayer together may lead the couple to feel "a heightened sense of emotional intimacy, communication and reflection about relationship priorities and concerns, and a sense of divine involvement in one's relationship."
"Part of the story here is about shared faith being a real resource for contemporary couples," W. Bradford Wilcox, co-author of the study and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia told Deseret News.
"We see that couples who share religious attendance and even more so pray together enjoy high levels of relationship quality. The latter point, about prayer, is one of the most powerful predictors of relationship quality, compared to virtually any other factor," he said.
The research found that couples who pray together on a regular basis at least once have 17 percent increased chances of being happy in the relationship.
Also, as many as 78 percent of the couples who go to church together were more likely to be "very happy," or "extremely happy," as compared to 67 percent of those who did not attend church.
The researchers said that the reasons amounting to increased levels of happiness could be found in a secure network of friends at the church.
The research noted that "attending religious services with friends accounts for almost 20 percent of the association between shared religious attendance and relationship quality."
"Enjoying shared friendships in a religious congregation may boost relationship quality by giving such couples a sense of belonging and community, as well as other models of successful relationships... Praying with one's partner accounts for an even greater portion of this association. Combined, these two factors account for more than 60 percent of the association between joint religious attendance and reports of higher relationship quality."
