How Can Mental Health Affect Relationships

How can mental health affect relationships?

We all experience ups and downs in our relationships, but if one or both people in the relationship are having mental health problems, this often brings extra challenges, and we underestimate the impact this can bring to even the strongest of relationships.

The mental health problems that often present in working in couples are acute stress, depression, anxiety, addiction, self-harm, grief, pre-or postnatal eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD, bipolar and borderline personality disorders, as well as many other issues.

Although our romantic relationships should provide security and comfort, they can also be a source of depression, anxiety, and stress.

A question that often is asked whether relationships difficulties contribute to mental health illness or whether mental health illness is caused by relationship distress.

Here are some examples of issues in relationships that can affect our mental health.

Communication breakdown.

When one or both parties has experienced poor mental health, communication is often the first thing that breaks down.

As they struggle to make sense and articulate what's going on for them.

It feels easier just to close down and withdraw, or to keep fighting and arguing in the same old way.

A breakdown in communication and distancing from each other often leads to couples feeling alone and isolated, often increasing depression and anxiety.

Partners can feel impacted and discouraged when they see no signs of improvement or no willingness to change.

Addiction and alcoholism, partners with addictive behaviours, can bring additional stresses into relationships which can cause exasperated mental health issues to one or both parties due to either what they're living, their lived experience, or supporting somebody with an addiction or a behavior that causes the other person to experience extreme stress.

Alternatively, a partner with mental health illness can resort to addictions to serve as a coping mechanism or to numb the pain.

Finance is another difficulty.

Financial difficulties, job stress, long working hours, job loss, career change.

Retirement can be a key major contributing factor to mental health problems.

As well as health and parenting.

Changes in parents' mental health can often affect children.

They often pick up on your low mood and anxiety.

Dealing with your child's mental health can often prove very stressful and overwhelming, leaving very little space for time for you or your relationship.

Depression and anxiety.

If a partner lives with depression, they often seem very withdrawn, disinterested in you and things around you.

And things you both shared or enjoyed.

This emotional distance can be harmful in the long term.

Displays of excessive worries and feelings of guilt and shame, confused thinking and extreme mood changes are often examples of poor mental health.