Can you have a healthy relationship with someone who has bipolar disorder? Many people wonder if they are in a relationship with a person who has bipolar disorder, will it be successful? Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that causes severe mood swings from mania and hypomania to depression. These mood swings can occur in episodes and affect their thinking, feeling, and behavior. While there is no cure, bipolar disorder symptoms can be managed with treatment. Learn how bipolar disorder can affect your relationship in this article. Visit the best Mental Health Clinic in Brooklyn at Doral Health & Wellness or log on to www.doralhw.org.
How does bipolar disorder affect relationships?
Bipolar disorder causes many problems in a relationship. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a good relationship with someone who has bipolar disorder. Several ways can help you develop healthy, fulfilling, satisfying relationships for both sides. It may need work, effort, and care, which is also required in any other relationship.
Here are the major problems that you may encounter in a relationship with bipolar people:
- Communication:
Communication between partners may not be fluid when a partner is experiencing a manic or depressive episode. However, communication plays a crucial role in understanding each other.
Research shows that communication between partners and members of a bipolar spouse’s care team increases their care and supports their relationship. Additionally, research shows that couples believe that a level of emotional disclosure is essential for their relationships.
In a study where researchers interviewed the wives of patients with bipolar disorder, they uncovered that wives felt helpless, frustrated, and hypervigilant when their spouses felt unwell. Another study determined spouses have a challenging time understanding the impact of bipolar disorder on their partners’ lives.
So ultimately, bipolar disorder and its emotional impact on partners can weaken their communication.
- Intimacy:
Intimacy issues are quite common in relationships when bipolar disorder or any other mental health condition is present. It happens because sex drives can increase or decrease depending on the manic or depressive episode.
During manic or hypomanic phases, your partner may have sex urges higher than normal, and they indulge in risky activities such as masturbation or use pornography more frequently than usual, engage in unprotected sex, or extramarital affairs during this phase.
During depressive episodes, your partner may avoid any sexual contact. This may feel confusing like rejection, especially, if your partner recently showed a lot of sexual desire during a manic or hypomanic period. Additionally, many medications for bipolar treatment also lower your sex drive.
- Parenting issues:
Parenting is considered the most stressful yet rewarding experience. However, any kind of stressor (good or bad) can trigger manic or depressive episodes in people with bipolar disorder. Additionally, this erratic behavior that is linked with bipolar disorder can be confusing or scary to children, who look to their parents for stability.
That’s why your partner needs to get treatment for their symptoms to provide a safe and secure home for children.
- Work issues:
Performing well at work is affected by bipolar disorder because severe mood swings along with manic symptoms can lead to poor judgment and impulsivity, while with depressive symptoms you experience low energy and disinterest which make it difficult to find and maintain a job.
This puts stressors on your partner’s life, especially if your partner needs to provide financial support.
- Difficulty relating:
A person without bipolar disorder may have a tough time understanding their partner’s condition or knowing how to react to their various symptoms, which can be distressing for both partners. It can create negative, unresolved emotions such as loneliness, powerlessness, and anger which can be hard to resolve without professional help. Some partners may also experience muscle pain or insomnia, which may increase your need for medical care.
If you need help with bipolar disorder, then visit our mental health clinic in Brooklyn to get medical help. For further inquiries, call us on +1-347-384-5690 to get a consultation. We have some of the finest experienced psychiatrist doctors who listen to your concerns, examine your symptoms, and create a treatment plan to improve your condition as soon as possible. If you need help learning coping methods, register your information and make direct contact with our doctors and psychiatrists to learn those methods, log on to www.doralw.org. Visit us at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212.
