Mental Health Experiences within Sexual and Gender Diverse Long-Term Marriages

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 11. Sexuality and Sexual Health

Abstract

Research on intimate relationship dynamics around mental health issues such as depression has primarily focused on couples comprised of cis men married to cis women, highlighting the inequalities in how support and emotion work is provided around mental health within these types of couples. More limited work has considered depression with same-gender (men with men and women with women) relationships, identifying how masculinity and femininity discourses shape mental health experiences and support exchanges within these couples. Yet, despite this previous research highlighting how different gender compositions of a couple matter for support around mental health, these past studies are limited in focusing on heterosexual, gay, and lesbian cisgender married people, missing both broader sexual and gender diversity. We analyze in-depth interviews with individual spouses nested within couples in which at least one spouse identifies as bisexual or pansexual and in which one or both partners reported a mental health issue (e.g., depression, anxiety; N = 62 individuals, 31 couples). We specifically address the following questions. First, how do people in long-term intimate relationships disclose their mental health issues to their partner, and how do their partners respond? Second, how do relationship dynamics shift in response to the mental health disclosure and mental health experiences? This study points to the importance of using both a gender-as-relational and a “queering family” approach to examining mental health dynamics within marriage, rather than examining mental health through a cisnormative and heteronormative lens. We further emphasize the usefulness of deploying couple-level approaches to better understand mental health in sexual and gender minority populations.

Authors

• Mieke Beth Thomeer, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

• Hannah M Lindl, University of Alabama at Birmingham

• Rin Reczek, The Ohio State University

• Katie Mueller, The Ohio State University

• Asya Saydam, University of Texas-Austin