Your Mental Health and Your Relationship: How They’re Linked and What You Can Do About It
It shouldn’t come as a shock to you that your mental health and your partner’s mental health have a huge impact on the quality, longevity, and state of your relationship. Our emotional responses to other people don’t come exclusively from their behavior or words. How much sleep we’ve had, how hydrated we are, how balanced our hormones are (which is influenced by our diet and lifestyle choices), and our emotional state prior to the behavior all influence how we feel after someone says or does something.
Our mental health as well has a drastic impact on our relationships. The following will explore this link a little more clearly and identify some things you can do to improve this reciprocal connection between your relationships and mental health.
Understand How Relationships and Mental Health Are Linked
Every relationship is a little different, but there are some larger patterns that can be found if one is looking. Mental health disorders aren’t always widely accepted and supported, unfortunately. This means there is the risk of guilt, shame, and embarrassment surrounding a condition. Sometimes this results in hiding symptoms or refusing help.
Partners can be confused or frustrated by how little it seems they can do to help or how much extra they need to do around the house (sometimes on a rough day, even folding the laundry is a huge problem for someone suffering from a mental illness). Mental illnesses can make it more difficult to hold certain jobs, which can cause financial struggles and dependency on another person. All of these factors can strain a relationship and result in feelings of resentment, disappointment, rejection, or disconnection.
Mental illnesses are also often linked with disinterest in intimate activities (either from the condition itself or from the medications). This can put a strain on both members of a romantic relationship as feelings of inadequacy or unattractiveness weasel their way into the psyche.
Further, codependent behavior is a risk when a relationship contains some mental health condition. Unhealthy relationships can develop when someone is supporting or enabling dangerous behavior (addiction or coping strategies). Identities can shift to the role of caregiver and person in need as opposed to two equal members of a partnership.
Get Enough Sleep
We know. You’ve been told this one many times already. But still, most people aren’t getting enough. In the early 1900s, the average American was getting nine hours of sleep. Sleep is a major part of balancing our hormones, which in turn helps us deal with stress. It improves our focus and cognition, meaning we’re more aware of those little things: the hint that our partner is having a bad day.
If we were to miss that hint, we might find their comment at dinner frustrating. Well-rested people perform better at work and have energy left over for their partners at the end of the day (their libido is also improved with good quality sleep).
Sleep isn’t just good for your relationships; it’s good for your mental health as well. Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and ADHD are all amplified by a poor night’s sleep. Each of these mental conditions can, in turn, wreak havoc on our relationships. It can be hard to find the time (or the willpower to leave those screens full of sleep-disrupting blue light out of the room), but every part of your health, relationships, and work performance will thank you for it.
Talk About It
Naming our feelings is something we should all learn in kindergarten, but unfortunately, many of us don’t. As we grow and develop in relationships, we’re all going to have those days where we need a little help. Expressing that you need to rest or feel trapped or stuck or challenged is healthy and should be welcomed within your relationship. If you or your partner is struggling with this, consider lists of prewritten questions or Vertellis deep-conversation decks to get the ball rolling. When expressing feelings, try to keep things away from blame. Maybe avoid: you shouldn’t do this and try: when you do that, I feel this.
As a side note, when it comes to relationships talking is good between people, but sometimes venting to someone outside the relationship can cause problems. People listening might have their own biases that alter their feedback (like how your aunt always hated your husband or how your friend just got divorced and now thinks that’s right for everyone). Typically when we’re complaining about our partner to someone else, it means there’s something we haven’t been honest with them about. Always talk to your partner first (provided that’s safe).
The above tips will help you traverse the murky waters of relationships and mental health. Of course, some problems are bigger than two people can face. There is nothing wrong with reaching out to a mental health professional if that’s what the two of you need.
