Over the years, I’ve shared my mental health journey openly. What’s been harder to talk about — but feels just as important — is how mental health impacts the people we love most.

Mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It affects marriages, families, friendships, and the dynamics we once thought were solid and unshakable. When my diagnosis arrived in my mid-thirties, it didn’t gently ease its way into our lives. It blindsided us. It shook my marriage, my family, and the people closest to me. No one saw it coming, and we didn’t have a roadmap for how to navigate it.

What people don’t talk about enough is how mental health impacts relationships over time. Not just in the obvious moments of crisis, but in the quieter accumulation of pain. Trust can shift. Communication can break down. Hurt can linger. And when that pain doesn’t get fully addressed, it doesn’t disappear — it waits. It shows up later in moments of stress, fear, or misunderstanding.

That has been part of my story too.

And to be clear, it wasn’t only mental health. Life has been lifey. Hurt has happened. On both sides. Not because of a lack of love, but because we didn’t know what we didn’t know at the time. We did the best we could with the tools we had — and sometimes those tools weren’t enough.

One thing I want to normalize is this: needing help doesn’t mean your relationship is failing. Sometimes it means you’re brave enough to say, “We want to do this better.”

Over the years, my husband and I have sought counseling during times of crisis and calm. Right now, we’re again making it a priority — not because things are broken beyond repair, but because healing isn’t a one-time event. We’re still learning how to notice triggers sooner, communicate more clearly, and repair instead of retreating. Recovery — whether individual or relational — requires skills, and skills can be learned.

There is one moment in my journey I never want to gloss over.

When I was in the deepest depression I had ever experienced — exhausted, hopeless, and completely empty — I could not see a future. I didn’t believe things would get better. I was done trying.

My husband held hope when I couldn’t.

He said, “I promise, if we just keep trying things, we’re going to find something that will work.”

He didn’t say you. He said we.

That mattered more than he will ever know.

He didn’t have answers. Neither of us did. But he stayed. He believed when I couldn’t. He reminded me that continuing — even without clarity — was still worth it.

I’m not cured. I don’t have a magic solution. Mental health recovery doesn’t work like that. What I do have now is experience, perspective, and a much fuller toolbox. I know that when new struggles show up, trying something new is part of the work. I know that setbacks don’t erase progress. And I know that love doesn’t require perfection — it requires commitment.

I share this because I know how many people are quietly carrying similar weight. Behind the polished photos and smiling posts, so many are navigating mental health challenges alongside marriage, family, illness, grief, and unmet expectations.

Marriage is hard. Relationships are hard. Mental health adds layers.

And still — healing is possible.

If you’re in a season where hope feels heavy or hard to hold, know this: you’re not weak for struggling, and you’re not alone for needing support. Sometimes recovery looks like holding hope for yourself. Sometimes it looks like letting someone else hold it for you — until you’re ready again.

And that, too, is part of the journey.

— Kylee Wiscombe

Founder, Gr8ter