Here's Why You Should Marry Your Best Friend

There are a lot of reasons to get married, with love and companionship coming in at the top of the list. But if you're looking for a little more motivation to get down the aisle, a new report is claiming that marriage might make you a happier person.

According to New York Magazine, researchers John F. Helliwell and Shawn Grover conducted a review of all the literature out there on the subject to figure out whether marriage makes people happier or if happier people are just more likely to get married. So what did they find?

Married people are happier than their non-married counterparts. And while wedded folks seem to be more satisfied with their lives in general, having a spouse can apparently protect you from the negatives of a mid-life crisis:We find that the married have a less deep U-shape in life satisfaction across age groups than do the unmarried, indicating that marriage may help ease the causes of the mid-life dip in life satisfaction and that the benefits of marriage are unlikely to be short-lived.

The study goes on to say that the best relationships are those where friendship is alive and well:[The researchers] found that for people who say their partner is their best friend, the well-being effects of marriage are doubled, even when controlling for factors like age, gender, income, health, and pre-marriage life satisfaction. Interestingly, this happiness bump seems to also occur for those who are not married but are living together.

So, Loverlies, whether you're getting ready to tie the knot or still looking for The One, make sure your partner is someone you really, really like. And not just the "I enjoy spending time with you" kind of like, but the Best Friends Forever kind. It will pave the way for the happiest of happily ever afters.