A study claims that married individuals live 2 years longer than unmarried people do.
Being in an intimate relationship with your loved one can practically increase your lifespan. On the other hand, isolation is bad for your health. It makes you prone to depression and increases your blood pressure. It can also ruin your cholesterol levels and doesn’t forgive your cognitive abilities either.
So, this blog will deal with how relationships affect your well-being. We will focus on how your mental health depends on being in a healthy relationship.
You’ll see the health benefits of positive relationships and the downside of being in a toxic relationship. It will also explore a few tips for dealing with unhealthy relationships.
Relationships and Your Mental Health: What’s the Connection?
Relationships Affect Your Mental Health in a very negative way. That’s especially true when you and your loved one are already in a bad place. In fact, 2 in 10 married couples experience mental distress when their relationship experiences setbacks. This is where clinical psychologists can help you.
They know how the human mind functions. They understand how people act and think. Moreover, they know what affects their behaviors. Different internal and external factors can impact people’s mental well-being. Thanks to their evidence-based psychology schooling, they can help married couples by:
- Making a very safe space for open discussions
- Making sure they can communicate openly without judgment
- Sharing unique tips to make their marriage work
That’s because your mental health depends a lot on how healthy your relationships are. It also depends on how supportive others around you are. Here’s how your marital relationship affects your mental and overall well-being:
1. Emotional Support
Healthy relationships constitute the foundation of your emotional support system since your partner:
- Validates your feelings, so you don’t feel isolated
- Makes you realize that you’re not alone in your recovery journey
2. Self-Esteem
Besides other things, your self-esteem depends a lot on the person you spend your life with! That’s because:
- Your partner’s compliments will indeed make you feel good about yourself, improving your sense of self-worth in the process.
- On the other hand, constant criticism can lower one’s self-esteem.
3. Communication
When you and your partner have a healthy, non-toxic relationship, you enjoy honest conversations. Also, you respect each other’s boundaries. On the other hand, poor communication leads to:
- Stress/anxiety
- Misunderstanding
- Doubting each other
- Unresolved conflicts
4. Making Healthier Choices
The feelings of isolation and neglect can hurt your mental health. But feeling connected to your partner makes you a healthier person. It reinforces healthy habits, such as:
- Exercising more often
- Eating nutritious meals
- Less smoking/drinking
You can feel encouraged by your relationship to socialize more often. This activity is directly responsible for excellent mental health among many adults.
5. Conflict Resolution
Don’t forget that conflicts don’t make a relationship unhealthy; they’re part of all relationships. Conflict resolution techniques can help couples tackle this issue. Both your relationship and your mental wellness are improved by these techniques. It usually leads to couples:
- Regaining trust in each other
- Experiencing more satisfaction in their relationship
- Finding opportunities for growth together
Try to address marital conflicts on time with a clinical psychologist’s help. This way, you can prevent them from escalating into something more painful.
6. Interdependence
Do you seek personal growth within a relationship? Then, you should learn to balance dependency with the much better alternative interdependence. The former is a sign of being in a toxic relationship. But the latter indicates that you and your partner are in a healthy relationship.
So, healthy interdependence supports mutual growth when you two respect each other’s boundaries. But a sense of suffocation is created by unhealthy dependency. You might also feel overwhelmed by this feeling as well. It usually occurs when your independence is overshadowed by your partner’s growing needs.
7. Potential for Toxicity
When you have conflict in a relationship, it makes you really fearful, hopeless, depressed, and traumatized. Sometimes, you can find yourself in a toxic and extremely unhealthy relationship. It can lead to psychological effects like:
- Increased anxiety
- Poor self-worth
- Feelings of hopelessness
In the next section, we’ll discuss what to do when you’re in an unhealthy relationship.
Are You in an Unhealthy Relationship?
As you remember from the previous section, the role of relationships in your mental health cannot be overestimated. For this reason, if a relationship reaches its breaking point, it can be a very devastating affair. However, some people are compelled to leave a relationship. It happens when the relationship poorly affects their psychological well-being.
If you also find yourself in a very unhealthy relationship, here’s what you should do:
1. See the Signs
Always be on the lookout for red flags, such as:
- Lack of boundaries
- Snarky comments by your partner
- Manipulative tendencies in your partner
- Limiting your social interactions with others
- Recurrent arguments that have no resolution
2. Check Your Feelings
Make a list of the emotions you feel and then ask yourself, “How do interactions in this relationship really impact my well-being?” You can do that by:
- Keeping a diary of how you feel.
- Noting down your behavioral patterns
- Doing some self-reflection
3. Seek Support
Next, you should talk about your relationship issues with the people you really trust.
- Talk to those close to you and care about you so they can provide perspective.
- Find a clinical psychologist who can guide you on how to deal with an unhealthy relationship.
4. Focus on Self-Care
If you’re struggling with relationship issues, neglecting self-care will only worsen your mental health. So, don’t forget to take really good care of yourself by:
- Socializing and letting yourself be surrounded by your loved ones.
- Finding interest in hobbies you really enjoy doing.
- Exercising very often and eating very healthy meals.
- Practicing mindfulness so you reduce stress.
In short, your mental and emotional heakth is affected by your relationships. Your mental health relies on having positive connections in your life. Negative relationships can make you prone to stress and depression, which is why it’s important to be with people who lift you up and make you happy.
