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Your personal mental health has an impact on your marriage, your children, and your family as a whole. But for the Prioritize Your Marriage podcast, we’re going to focus on how the health and stability of your marriage relationship are influenced by the mental health of each partner on a day-to-day basis or in different seasons of life. This episode is an introduction to a mini-series of episodes on mental health and your marriage. Amberly discusses the impact that the mental health of each spouse can have on the marriage relationship and prefaces upcoming episodes about improving individual mental health and supporting each other’s mental health while maintaining boundaries that help maintain a healthy relationship dynamic.
October is my very favorite month, which feels a little cliche because I feel like it’s everyone’s favorite month, but I really do truly love it so much; almost as much as I love the color purple. The weather in October is perfect. The blue skies are the perfect color of blue. You can wear your entire wardrobe in October, from shorts and sandals to sweaters and boots. Mine and my husband’s birthdays are also in October, which may or may not contribute a bit to it being my favorite month, but I really do truly love the colors that the world turns, the activities that are available in October, both outside and inside, the chill in the air. All the things.
I’m excited for October here on the podcast, because I have some great content planned. I spent last weekend at a content creator retreat that was powerful. It was an intimate setting. There were about 30 people total that attended. 16 stayed overnight. And there were probably about 20 people at any given time, in the house. That retreat really helped me refocus on A Prioritized Marriage and the Prioritize Your Marriage podcast, especially after the last year when it has become a struggle for me to keep this space going because other priorities in my life came first. We had an entire class one morning on resetting our priorities and that hour of the retreat was honestly life-changing for me. And it’s helped me… it makes me a little emotional… but it’s helped me to refocus, not just on this space, A Prioritized Marriage and the Prioritize Your Marriage podcast and my local date night website. The things in my own personal life. My life as a wife, a mother, a friend, a sister, a daughter, all the roles that I fill. The things in my life that are most important to me. Not just the things in life that I think have to be important because of what other people say or what society may suggest. And I might take a little bit more about this in-depth in January when I’m focusing my content on goal setting, and after I’ve got my routine shifted to match those true priorities. Because that’s the next trick is, I know what I want it to look like, but it’s gonna take some change in my routines. And change in the expectations that other people have of me. And some change in my mindset as well.
But I want to get back to what will be on the podcast this month. I’m going to be doing a mini-series of episodes, starting with this one, on mental health and how it impacts your marriage. October is National Depression Education and Awareness month. The week of October 6th this year, is Mental Illness Awareness Week. October 10th is World Mental Health Day. And this time of year, I have traditionally shared a lot about mental health in my space in this space. My own mental health has had an impact on my marriage relationship over the years, and I will share more about that, and that has also inspired a lot of the content that I have shared previously and that I will be sharing moving forward.
One thing that drew me to the field of Family Studies was the focus on how each member of a family and the various relationship dynamics between each of those family members have an impact on how the entire system functions. This means that your personal mental health has an impact on your marriage, your children, and your family as a whole, not just on you as an individual person. But for the Prioritize Your Marriage podcast, we’re going to focus on how the health and stability of your marriage relationship are influenced by the mental health of each partner on a day-to-day basis or in different seasons of life.
Mental health can include a broad range of things. Some mental health challenges are constantly underlying and can be impacted by situations happening in an individual’s life. These mental health challenges can include such things as depression, anxiety, OCD, etc. Other mental health challenges are seasonal, such as postpartum depression and anxiety, seasonal affective disorder, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, etc. Then there are mental health challenges that come up that don’t necessarily require medical intervention but can impact the relationship; such as a really bad day or a period of grief. These things can also escalate into one of the previously mentioned challenges.
I am not a mental health expert, so I can’t speak to all of the things and the ways different mental health disorders and challenges specifically impact a relationship. There are experts out there. And I have found a few that I will be sharing throughout the month and some resources that you can go to to get further in-depth education and support. But I specifically want to provide a broader idea of how you can start to support each other through mental health challenges, and how you can prioritize your own mental health to create a better marriage relationship.
A study done by the Institute of Family Studies showed that regardless of gender, age, education, income, church attendance, race, political ideology, and parental status, marriage is associated with better mental health. I will link that study in the show notes because it’s a really interesting one to read. There are a lot of thoughts and theories on why the advantage of being married is so statistically significant in improved mental health. But no research has been done to find the reason why being married leads to that better mental health.
The mental health status of one, or both partners can impact communication, physical intimacy, and relationship stability, to name a few. As well as feelings of happiness and fun within the relationship, and how much you just enjoy being together. Again, there’s a lot that goes into this and the intricacies make it impossible to discuss on a general level. But I hope to provide you with tools and action steps to work towards better support of mental health challenges in your marriage that will in turn, deepen the intimate connection you have, remembering intimacy is the depth of your relationship and how well you know and trust each other.
If mental health has an impact on one or both partners and your marriage, please seek professional help for medication, therapy, and other coping skills and tools. If one or both of your mental health challenges are impacting your relationship, definitely seek out a therapist for your relationship, in addition to the therapy that you attend individually. Remember medicine and therapy don’t mean you’re failing or that you are broken. They are resources and tools that can help you manage what life is throwing your way and find stability that allows you to improve the health of your person and the health of your relationship.
We are not meant to know it all. We are not meant to be able to figure it all out. We are here to support each other, both as spouses and as other humans in the world. And there are professionals out there who can help support you in your journey of life, regardless of what you’re going through, but as we’re talking in these next few episodes, specifically with your mental health.
So I have two more episodes in this three-part mini-series next week, I want to talk about prioritizing your individual mental health and how that relates to marriage. (I’ve got expert quotes and research to share with you.) And I’ll get pretty personal as I share a bit more on my own mental health challenges over the years and how they have impacted my marriage and how prioritizing my mental health has helped my relationship. The week after that, I’m going to focus on how you can prioritize your spouse through their mental health challenges and support them, while maintaining boundaries that keep your mental health in a good place and don’t turn you into their therapist. Because again, we’re not meant to do it all alone. We are not meant to be each other’s everything. And there are other tools, resources, and support people to help you to keep that relationship that you have with each other a priority, and keep that relationship healthy.
The next couple of episodes, in addition to this one, might be heavier content than what I’m usually putting out in podcast as it sits as a prevention tool. These are conversations that I feel are important to have, and being able to do this work will lead to more fun and enjoyment in your relationship overall, which is a pillar of A Prioritized Marriage. And I believe that prioritizing your own mental health and supporting your spouse in their mental health journey is just a small piece of prioritizing your marriage.
So I’m going to wrap up the month with two really fun episodes to lighten the mood. One is all about celebrating your spouse for their birthday, because like I mentioned, in the beginning, it is birthday month in our marriage, and celebrating birthdays is one of my favorite things. I like to joke that I could never become a Jehovah’s Witness because I can never give up birthdays. The second episode I’m going to do at the end of the month is a fun “Confessions of a Marriage Expert” episode that I’ve been working on, which was inspired by some conversations I had during my retreat this past weekend. And I’m kind of excited about it!
My challenge for you this week, the action I want you to take after listening to this episode that wasn’t really education and content heavy, but more of a preview and a preface and an introduction to the next two episodes. Is to think about how mental health has impacted your marriage over the years. What challenges have one or both of you faced that fall into that mental health space? Have they been seasonal or ongoing? Have the ongoing challenges ebbed and flowed and when have they had the greatest impact on your marriage? I would love it if you would also think about what you do for your personal mental health regularly. And how you have supported your spouse’s mental health throughout your relationship. Then come back over the next two weeks and we’re going to dive deep. I’m really excited to dive into this conversation, even though it can be heavy, as I mentioned.
Relisten to this episode with your spouse, discuss it during your marriage meeting and think about what you would love to learn, and where you would like to improve your marriage in the mental health space. Discussing it and thinking of it and coming towards it with a mindset of ‘it’s an us against the problem’. It’s us against postpartum depression. It’s us against the ongoing anxiety. It’s us against ‘insert your mental health challenge here’. Happy October friends, and thanks for being here. I’m looking forward to diving into this conversation more, and I hope that it really helps you and your marriage.