Awareness that eating disorders do not just affect teenaged, white females is growing. Your partner–male or female–may have struggled with an eating disorder as a young person, which puts them at risk for re-developing symptoms when faced with challenges as an adult. Or your partner may develop an eating disorder for the first time as an adult in an attempt to cope with something overwhelming, such as a traumatic event or a loss, whether that be of a person, job, ability, or something else that was significant for them.

A new study from researchers at the University of Minnesota has shown that eating disorders can be triggered by lack of support following traumatic events such as bereavement, relationship problems, abuse and sexual assault.

They identified six major events that commonly are associated with the development of eating disordered behaviors: school transition, relationship changes, death of a loved one, home or job transition, illness/hospitalization, and abuse/sexual assault/incest.

What might this look like for your partner?

The saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” is applicable to those who struggle with hoarding, a type of anxiety disorder that some professionals believe is correlated with obsessive compulsive disorder.

People who hoard are not lazy slobs who refuse to clean up after themselves, despite what it might seem like to others. To people who hoard, every item in their house (or car, or office, or other space) has a purpose and is needed.

Hoarding is defined by three primary traits: the obsessive collection of objects that seem useless to almost everyone else, the inability to get rid of any of them and a resulting state of distress.

How do you know the difference between “pack rat” and “hoarder”? A pack rat collects things as well, but when they run out of room, they will throw out something they no longer need. A hoarder will make room, even if it’s in what anyone else would consider inappropriate space, such as in the bathtub or in bed.

If you have an anxious partner, you may find yourself repeating statements like the following:

“It’s fine…you can do this.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Relax–everything will work out in the end.”

Or maybe you have given up on trying to reassure your partner that worrying is not helpful, and are now using statements such as:

“Enough already! Stop obsessing!”

“You are driving me crazy with your worries!”

“How old are you? Grow up…it’s just a [snake, spider, dog, etc.]“

Depending on the approach you take, you may have figured out that anxiety can be a tenacious beast, and doesn’t usually respond well to gentle encouragement or harsh criticism. Trying to find the right balance, though, can be tricky.

So what can you do if you have an anxious partner?

I remember being somewhat perplexed the first time I met with a client who said they were in my office because of needing “anger management skills.” Of course, I’d heard of something like that, but realized specific skills for handling anger was not something that was covered in grad school.

Did my program have a gap in the curriculum? Was there some list somewhere of what exactly I should be teaching this client?

I consulted with my supervisor, who told me that “anger management” is just another term for “emotion regulation.” I realize that for people who are not therapists, “anger management” may actually seem like a clearer description, but from a clinician’s perspective, what my supervisor was telling me was that clients who present with “anger management issues” really need help in identifying their feelings (which may be anger, but also may be something else) and deciding what the appropriate way to respond to those feelings is.

The part about those feeling being “something other than anger” is also important. Humans feel a range of emotions, but in our society, not all of them are acceptable, especially in public. For example, it’s generally a cultural expectation that men will not cry in public. That doesn’t mean men don’t feel the urge to cry, nor that men never cry in public, but it’s not a common occurrence. As a result, many men channel that sadness into anger. A man yelling or displaying his physical strength in public is much more acceptable, even if it can be unpleasant.

It’s no secret that health insurance is expensive, and paying for mental health services can be outrageous as well. When you and your partner have a large pile of bills to pay, it can make a difficult decision to forgo mental health appointments and psychiatric medications appear–on the surface–to be easier.

No money = No care, no meds. Period. End of story. Right?

Unfortunately, you and your partner may have already discovered what happens when mental health treatment is stopped abruptly. Or if you are considering this possibility, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

The ramifications of not getting appropriate treatment go much further than just a depressed mood or anxious thoughts and feelings. It could result in an untimely death.

Postpartum Support International has declared May to be National Maternal Depression Awareness Month. Has your partner or other loved one struggled with depression, either during pregnancy and/or right after giving birth?

Estimates are that 15-20% of women–that’s 1 in 8–have depression either while pregnant or postpartum. Despite such high numbers, many women do not get treatment because they may feel guilty that they are not happy during what society says should be a joyful time.

They may also not realize the symptoms they are experiencing are in fact depression, or may be waiting to see if they feel better after the baby is born, or once the baby has settled into a routine, etc. because what new mom (and dad!) isn’t tired, cranky, and overwhelmed when caring for a newborn?

The problem is, maternal depression is serious, and there is help out there that can make a tremendous difference quickly. Left untreated, your partner is at risk of developing severe depression or postpartum psychosis, which are mental health emergencies.

As a supportive partner, what do you need to know and what can you do to help?

Nancy’s problems with spending began when her job stress increased. As she felt more anxious and depressed, she found herself turning to shopping as a way to make herself feel better.

At first, the “high” of a new purchase would help her forget her stress, but Nancy found herself spending more and shopping more often. As the bills piled up, she found herself hiding her purchases from her partner, and feeling guilty, too.

We all spend too much money from time to time, but there are some clear signs of compulsive spending:

• Being preoccupied with shopping or spending money
• Shopping when angry, sad, or anxious
• Buying things that are not needed or too expensive for the budget
• Experiencing a “high” after a purchase, but then having a mood crash afterwards
• Having relationship and/or legal problems because of the spending behaviors

Compulsive spending has the double-edged sword of both positive and negative reinforcement. Your partner experiences positive feelings from the purchase, and also relieves the negative feelings that led to the urge to spend in the first place. This can make breaking a spending habit really difficult…but not impossible.

Among the many reasons couples decide to seek therapy—including to learn better communication skills, to improve intimacy, and to heal old wounds—deciding whether or not the relationship is going to survive is the motive for about half.

A recent study from the University of Louisville that studied 249 couples in counseling found that when couples had the goal to improve the relationship, the ultimate outcome was better than those who came to therapy to determine whether or not the relationship could be saved.

Specifically, couples who sought therapy in order to improve their relationship were almost 80% more likely to be together six months later. More than half of those who wanted help deciding about whether or not to split up had indeed broken up six months later.

It is important to know what you want when going into couples therapy.

My client Cathy has a love/hate relationship with her partner, Julia. When Cathy is in a good mood, the world is perfect, their relationship is wonderful, and everything is “kittens and rainbows.” When Cathy gets upset about something—whether it’s related to Julia, work, or something else—everything becomes “doom and gloom and the worst ever!”

Cathy adores her partner, and values their relationship. However, she is very much controlled by her emotions, and allows them to dictate her behavior. She also gets caught up in “all or nothing” thoughts, and needs help with learning how to separate what is real from what her emotions are telling her is the truth. As you will see, those are not always one and the same.

If you have a partner with borderline personality disorder (BPD), the phrase “walking on eggshells” likely defines your life. People with BPD struggle to regulate their emotions, even though the emotions they experience are the same as the rest of us.

The difference is in the intensity of how they feel those emotions. Marsha Linehan, PhD, the founder of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), compares those with BPD to third-degree burn victims: “Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.” What might just be a small slight for you might mean off-the-charts upset for your partner.

In the DSM-IV-TR, four of the nine criteria required for a diagnosis of BPD have to do with how the person handles emotions. These include:

• frantic efforts to avoid real or perceived abandonment
• intense and quickly changing moods, including irritability and anxiety
• inappropriate anger or the inability to control anger
• chronic feelings of emptiness

What does this mean if your partner has BPD?