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. 2024 Oct;60(7):1322-1332.
doi: 10.1007/s10597-024-01288-1. Epub 2024 May 7.

Strengths, Struggles, and Strategies: How Adults with Serious Mental Illness Navigate Long-Term Romantic Relationships

Catherine H Stein  1 , Rachel A Redondo  2 , Sharon Simon  2 , Zachary J Silverman  2
Affiliations

Strengths, Struggles, and Strategies: How Adults with Serious Mental Illness Navigate Long-Term Romantic Relationships

Catherine H Stein et al. Community Ment Health J. 2024 Oct.

Abstract

Married individuals and those in committed romantic relationships generally report having better mental health outcomes than their single or divorced counterparts. However, studies of romantic relationships for adults with mental illness have often ignored rewarding aspects of romantic relationships and have focused primarily on relationship difficulties. In this study, 23 adults with serious mental illness in long-term romantic relationships described their relationship strengths and struggles in small focus group discussions. Content analysis was used to characterize themes from participant accounts. Overall, participants described deep emotional bonds with their partners, a mutual willingness to work on their relationship, and good communication skills as relationship strengths. Mental health symptoms and internalized stigma were identified as major contributors to relationship struggles. Participants spontaneously identified intentional strategies that they used to navigate mental health challenges in their relationship that included self-directed, partner-directed, and couple-directed actions. Implications of findings for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Long-term romantic relationships; Qualitative methods; Romantic relationship strategies; Romantic relationship strengths; Serious mental illness.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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