The Impact of Marriage Problems on Your Health

You know when something is wrong in your marriage.  The carefree feelings of love and trust aren’t quite so strong, you begin to doubt your significant other, and you find yourself entering into pointless arguments that seem to rehash the same old missteps over and over.  These are the signs of a marriage on the rocks.  Of course, there are also more extreme cases, in which cheating occurs, one or both spouses are absent (physically or mentally), or there is even abuse happening.  And while these major infractions can have obvious detriments to your health, it is the more insidious problems of day-to-day life that can creep in and cause issues with your health without your knowledge.

If you’re in a relationship that is in any way abusive; physically, verbally, or psychologically; you should know that the impact to your health is going to be massive.  Physical abuse, of course, can lead to bruises, cuts, broken bones, and even death if you don’t find a way to escape the situation.  But an abusive marriage can also have a marked impact on your mental health, causing loneliness, depression, hysteria, anxiety, panic attacks, ongoing fear, and issues with self-esteem, amongst other things.  The mental scars can take far longer to recover from than the physical ones in these scenarios.  But these mental issues can lead to psychosomatic symptoms like insomnia, fatigue, digestive disorders, ulcers, hypertension, and even more serious problems if the causes aren’t addressed.  Your only hope is to extricate yourself from the relationship and being working out your issues separately.  It is imperative that you do this for your own health and well-being.

But if you’re marital difficulties are somewhat tamer than the extreme case presented by an abusive relationship, you might not even realize that they’re to blame for the ongoing issues you’re experiencing with your health.  You may not think to associate the arguments, loneliness, or overall dissatisfaction with your home life with the sleeplessness, anxiety, body aches, or digestive disorders you’ve started to experience.  And yet, the stresses that result from setbacks in your primary personal relationship can have a definite impact on your overall health.  Stress, in particular, could be termed a silent killer.  Scientists are still uncovering the many ways that stress can lead to physical manifestations, but it seems that the major offender is a decrease in immune function.

This means that issues on the home front could be to blame for the fact that you seem to constantly come down with every cold and flu that sweeps through the area.  And when you suffer from an ongoing state of unhappiness, a sniffle could be the least of your worries.  You may suffer weight gain (or loss) as a result of high tension at home.  This could lead to serious disorders like hypertension (or other heart disease) and diabetes.  Your body is telling you that something needs to be done.

Luckily, there are a couple of options that you may want to consider as a way to rebuild your relationship and recover your health.  Marriage counseling is at the top of the list, since you clearly need to learn how to communicate.  Don’t think you’re the only one, either; this is a sticking point for the majority of married couples.  But if your partner isn’t willing to enter the process, or you simply can’t stomach the idea of investing more time in a dying enterprise, then maybe it’s time to call it quits, get a divorce, and get on with your life.  When a relationship is unhealthy, you have three options: let things go on the way they are, fix the problems, or simply give up and move on.  Unless you want to compound the damage you’re doing to your health, it behooves you to select one of the latter two options.