Marriage is stressful! This is a common saying among married people, but marriage is more stressful on the wife than the husband. Although marriage involves two people, women seem to have a lot more on their plate, playing a good wife and a good mother. Indeed, this seeming basic role of a wife can be further broken down into jobs that people are hired for. Sometimes, the woman, the chef, the maid, the nurse, the grocery shopper, and the list are endless. Playing all these roles, most times concurrently constitutes stress for a woman. Unfortunately, husbands who try to relieve women of the stress from playing all these roles add more to their stress and studies have proven this fact.

A study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that married women report a higher level of stress than single women. 33% of married women were reported to have dealt with a great deal of stress in the past month, while 22% of single women have dealt with stress in the past month. Also, 56% of married women compared with 41% of single women reported an increase in their stress over the past 5 years. More married women than single women reported symptoms of stress such as: feeling as though they could cry, feeling irritable or angry, having headaches and experiencing fatigue.

Today.com found that 46% of the women interviewed in its recent survey reported that their husbands caused them more stress than their children did.

Nielsen Survey reported that Indian women were the most stressed in the world, especially married women between 25 and 55. The reason for this figure was found to be the increase in the expectation from a woman, who traditionally manages the home: but who now also work, and while a woman may be able to clamor for equality and be assertive at work, such is completely prohibited at home.

From these surveys, most married women's cause of stress is traced to the absence or inadequacy of support they get from their spouses. Most married women complain that they feel like single moms performing all responsibility, touching on child care. For others, the cause of stress is a seeming inadequacy of time in a day to complete their many chores.

The findings in these surveys were supported in the study conducted by the University of Padova. The study also showed the role stress levels play later in life after a spouse passes away. It was found that men suffer negative consequence when their wife dies because they have relied heavily on their spouse during her lifetime. As a result, widowers fall more into depression. The contrast is reported of a widow. A widow is found to be healthier and more enabled to deal with depression in widowhood.

Better communication has been suggested as the way to resolve this issue, and married women are advised to trust their husbands to care for their children. Shared responsibility or teamwork is also top on the list of ways to reduce married women's stress level. Some roles played by the wife, such as; chauffeur and grocery shopper, can be delegated to the husband.