Mental Health and Relationships: What Couples Therapists Should Know

When entering into a relationship or marriage, most people promise to be there for each other for better for worse. However, some find it hard to keep the promise when their partner suffers from a mental health. While awareness and understanding about mental health has increasing grown in recent years, it is still a challenge to handle a partner with a mental health condition. Mental health issues can complicate couples goals and even shake the strongest relationships. When working with couples, counselors should be aware of mental health issues to understand how to help them. Let’s look at how mental health affects relationships what marriage therapists need to know.

Breakdown in Communication

When one partner in marriage suffers from poor mental health, communication might be significantly affected. Individuals with extreme mental issues might face difficulties in communicating their feelings or even make a conversation and this can affect a relationship. While anxiety causes unfounded mistrust, depression causes apathy in communication between couples. The misunderstanding can affect communication and leave partners feeling isolated. Communication is important in relationships and counselors should understand different mental issues and how they reveal themselves in patients. Therapists can tailor tactics that encourage and improve communication to helps couples dealing with metal health problems.

Job Loss

Losing a job can contribute to poor mental health. Likewise, mental health conditions can also lead to job loss. Losing a job is a significant life change that can affect a relationship. Most people develop mental health after job loss because they have not only lost the paycheck but also a reason to wake up every morning. It involves losing a career, an incentive to you pushing and perhaps the worst of all, losing your status. Whether your job was for leisure or he primary source of income, adjusting to unemployed life can be difficult, making hard to deal with your relationship. Counselors should understand and help their patients through difficult times to prevent them from developing mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

Financial Challenges

While some people say that money does not matter in issues of love, the fact remains that financial challenges are among the largest causes of divorce. Mental issues can lead to financial problems like reducing the desire to check financial status or lacking self-control when spending. Other events that can deepen mental health issues and widen relationship cracks are debts, threats of bankruptcy and visits from auctioneers. Communication and getting professional help from experts in mental health and financial advisers is a great way of addressing these issues.

Resentment

We grow from different environments and cultures that shape our way of viewing things and expectations in relationships. As life changes and relationship grows, we may change our expectations causing tension in a relationship. If one partner fails to meet the expectations of the other in terms of family time or housework, it can be upsetting. One can develop resentment and lead to communication issues in a marriage. Couples therapies should understand the leading causes of resentment to help partners find ways to solve them. We have NYC Mental health Counseling Services that help individuals communicate openly to end resentment and contempt.

Parenting

Any couple lucky to have children understands how parenting is vital in a relationship. A relationship can become strong when both parents play their part in fulfilling the big and small responsibilities of their children. However, mental health problem of any partner can affect the ability to meet the responsibilities as a parent, affecting the relationship. A person with mental issues might not be able fulfill even the smallest duties like taking kids to school or at the park. Therapy helps parents with mental health issues overcome some issues that may be affecting their ability to meet their parental duties.

Loss of Intimacy

Relationships are built on physical and emotional intimacy but mental health can affect it. a person struggling with mental problems may not be in a position to talk about their issues and may even resist a simple touch. The other partner may feel unloved or rejected leading to issues in relationships. Couples therapists should address the issue of intimacy because it weakens or strengthen relationships.

In conclusion, mental health can affect relationships. When helping couples, therapists should seriously address mental health problems since they might be the cause of the couple’s challenges. A mentally challenged person might not be affectionate to their partner, might have financial problems, be unable to parent well and even grow feelings of resentment. Therapists have a responsibility to find the cause of mental issue and help couples overcome it to avoid escalation which could break a relationship.