You’d better hope your beloved likes a tipple as much as you do – or that you’re both into abstinence – according to new research from the University of Michigan.

Between 2006 and 2016, researchers interviewed 2,767 American couples over the age of 50, conducting in-person interviews with both partners about their drinking habits. The couples analysed had been married for an average of 33 years and about two-thirds of them had only been married the once.

Whether or not the couple drank, how many days each week they did so, and how many drinks they enjoyed per day were all topics canvassed by the study.

The results? Similar drinking habits made for happier relationships. In half the couples interviewed, both partners drank. In one-drinker marriages, husbands tended to be the ones who imbibed, though wives were found to be more dissatisfied than their bi-boozing counterparts even when they were the ones who did so. How much the couples drank didn’t appear to affect the results.

“The study shows that it’s not about how much [a couple is] drinking,” Dr Kira Birditt said. “It’s about whether they drink at all.”

“It may be more about similarity in leisurely activities rather than drinking itself.”

Dr Birditt suggested that, when one spouse stops drinking, the other should stop as well.

Alcohol’s effect on relationships has been studied in-depth before.

A 2012 study found that married women tend to drink more alcohol than divorced or widowed ones and that marriage has a tendency to curb men’s drinking over time.

A 2013 one found that high levels of drinking “have repeatedly shown to predict divorce,” though also noted that the risk was lower if spouses consumed the same amount of alcohol.

Going forward, Dr Birditt and her team would like to explore how drinking affects couples’ everyday lives, examining if it is common lifestyle choices, rather than alcohol consumption per se, that impacts positively upon relationships.

“We would like to conduct further research on the daily processes that occur among couples who both drink,” she said. “For instance, are they drinking together? Do they spend more time together? Do they participate in more social activities?”

Do they really need to ask that question? It seems pretty unlikely that partners who drink secretly in the bathroom without the other knowing and then hide the bottles in the linen press and brush their teeth thoroughly before claiming they’re only slurring their words because they had a long day at work are going to report that everything in their marriage is, you know, hunky-dory.

But then again, we’re not scientists.