This drug was seen as a marriage fixer — but therapy worked better

There’s no easy fix to a troubled marriage.

Oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone,” is present in all of us — and especially so during the fleeting rush of courtship. The chemical is understood to be responsible for how we express and respond to emotion, strengthen bonds with others and is a catalyst for falling in love.

That’s why doctors thought that it might help couples with intimacy issues, specifically men — who have been known to struggle to connect on an emotional level with their romantic partners.

Instead, researchers at the University of Essex in the UK, in collaboration with Cardiff University, found that supplemental oxytocin in men couldn’t stand up to traditional therapy and education to mend marriages, according to their new study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

The hormone is currently available over-the-counter in various forms, from nasal sprays to vitamin supplements and even perfumes.

“There are lots of studies examining whether oxytocin can increase a particular desired outcome, but relatively few studies have actually compared whether oxytocin is better than something else which is also designed to increase the same outcome,” said study author Katie Daughters in a statement.

“In our study, we wanted to improve people’s ability to recognize emotions, as individuals who struggle to recognize emotions are at an increased risk of developing poor mental health.”

The scientists enlisted 104 young men with an average age of 19, a portion of whom were given a nasal spray containing oxytocin. Another group was given a placebo drug while also taking part in an accredited emotional training program — called the Cardiff Emotion Recognition Training Program. A third group took a mock training program.

Following their treatment and training regimens, the participants were tested on their ability to read emotions in faces.

“We found that in healthy young men, those who completed our computer-based emotion training program were better at recognizing some emotions, but those who had oxytocin showed no benefit,” said Daughters.

“On the other hand, computer-based psychological interventions, like helping someone to recognize different emotional expressions and how to interpret their meaning in different scenarios, may not only provide longer-lasting beneficial impact but also cost less,” she added.

Researchers hold out hope that oxytocin could be useful for women or those with certain mental illnesses or psychological disorders.

Those who thought oxytocin could help people with autism spectrum disorder, which is known to impair one’s ability to identify emotions in others, were disappointed when a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year showed that it, too, had no benefit in this application.