Reimagining Love with Dr. Alexandra Solomon

What To Do When Your Partner Is Struggling (Part One)

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Oct 7, 2025

Explore the challenges of loving someone in distress, from job loss to grief. Dr. Alexandra delves into how such struggles impact relationship dynamics, framing the scenario with vital insights. Understanding the Recursive Relational Framework reveals how one partner's issues resonate throughout the relationship. The episode highlights the emotional labor of the non-affected partner and the significance of mutual support. Validating that it's okay for love to be hard, listeners gain coping strategies to enhance intimacy even in tough times.

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INSIGHT

Staying Or Leaving Depends On Multiple Factors

Caring for a struggling partner raises real questions about relationship viability and boundaries.
Decisions to stay or leave depend on capacity, history, investment, and the partner's empathy.

INSIGHT

Recursive Relational Framework

Problems that live inside one partner affect the relationship and the other partner.
How the couple relates to that problem also shapes the course of the original problem.

INSIGHT

Partner's Mental Illness Has Real Costs

Living with a partner who has depression or bipolar disorder carries measurable impacts on the non-affected partner's income, work, and wellbeing.
These negative effects lessen when the non-affected partner has education and a working relationship with providers.

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In this two-part series, Dr. Alexandra will be taking you through how to take care of yourself and your relationship when your partner is struggling. Perhaps your partner is struggling with a job loss, a health diagnosis, a mental health challenge, the loss of a loved one, family drama, co-parenting with an ex, or something else entirely. Whatever it is, the theme is that there is some scenario that is taking up more of your partner’s bandwidth than usual, leaving less bandwidth for you and your relationship.

In this first part, Dr. Alexandra is going to be contextualizing this scenario and providing lots of validation for the struggle that comes with having a struggling partner. She is also going to discuss factors that shape how your partner’s struggle impacts you. Hard things are just hard, but the ways you’re getting activated in the wake of your partner’s struggle also have a lot to do with your specific wounds, as well as the role you played in your family of origin.

The insights shared in this episode lay the groundwork for a two-part series designed to equip you with effective coping strategies to maintain your well-being while fostering intimacy and connection, even in challenging times.

You’ll come away from this conversation with:

A deeper understanding of what Dr. Alexandra calls the Recursive Relational Framework (RRF).
Research examples that demonstrate that your partner’s struggles affect you and that how you respond can influence their outcome.
Strategies for recognizing and managing your emotional triggers in response to a partner's distress.
Practical tips for fostering personal growth while supporting a partner through their challenges.

Resources worth mentioning from the episode:

Get the FREE Family of Origin Roles Workbook: https://dralexandrasolomon.com/rolesworkbook/
Family of Origin Series Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58WZg044gbmGsL6iPNxXJy?si=bajzkF-kRxG3WL76yJL-qw
Take the Family of Origin Role Quiz: https://dralexandrasolomon.com/rolesquiz/
Managing Back to School Stress on MasterClass: http://masterclass.com/backtoschool
Links to research articles mentioned: https://dralexandrasolomon.com/podcasts/what-to-do-when-your-partner-is-struggling-part-one/

Continue the conversation with Dr. Alexandra Solomon:

Ask a question! Submit your relationship challenge: https://form.jotform.com/212295995939274
Order Dr. Alexandra’s book, Love Every Day: https://bookshop.org/p/books/love-every-day-365-relational-self-awareness-practices-to-help-your-relationship-heal-grow-and-thrive-alexandra-solomon/19970421?ean=9781683736530
Cultivate connection by subscribing to Dr. Alexandra’s newsletter: https://dralexandrasolomon.com/subscribe/
Learn more on IG: https://www.instagram.com/dr.alexandra.solomon/

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