A cohort study from India involving 76 patients with first episode schizophrenia, followed up for 10 years reported that 70% of patients eventually got married.
Presence of children and being married before the onset of illness has been shown to be a protective factor in the marriage in patients with schizophrenia. Marriage has also been shown to be protective in schizophrenia with lower rates of hospitalization and later relapses being noted in married patients.
The desire for love, meaningful personal relationships, romance, and family is well documented in persons with schizophrenia (Davidson and Stayner, 1997; Redmond et al., 2010; Davidson, 2011), as well as present in the clinical experience.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that can cause significant dysfunction in daily life and in relationships. It does not, however, mean that you cannot have healthy, satisfying relationships. There is nothing about the illness that makes you unlovable.
Schizophrenia Can Strain Any Relationship
Because of their condition, your spouse may: Have delusions, or unjustified beliefs which can be difficult or impossible to speak to them about reasonably. Withdraw from you or from other family members, refusing to talk about their illness.
“People diagnosed with schizophrenia struggle to start relationships and show their emotions. That can make it difficult for them, and later on for their partners, due to the lack of emotional response. Talking to a mental health professional about ways to overcome this issue can help a couple in many ways.”
According to Skopec et al16 most patients with schizophrenia do not differ from controls in terms of actual sexual behavior. On the other hand, relationships of people with serious mental illness are characterized by less intimacy and commitment than in the general population.
Hypersexual and paraphilic disorders have been frequently associated with concomitant psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. A growing number of published cases has recently indicated that hypersexual behavior may also arise in conjunction with treatment with second-generation antipsychotics.
Newman adds that with support, parents with schizophrenia can provide for their children by working, as well as teaching and loving them just like parents without mental health conditions.
The person who has schizophrenia must accept treatment. Left untreated, the condition can cause people to behave erratically, leaving their partners to become subject to verbal abuse, emotional neglect, and delusional accusations. No healthy relationship can sustain these behaviors. Both partners must communicate.
Isolation can also be an issue. Baker says schizophrenia may make you “speak less and desire less social contact.” This can add to the struggle to form connections. The first step to breaking down the barriers, Baker says: “It's important not to blame the person for their illness.”
However, studies from developing countries, especially India reflect that a large proportion of patients with schizophrenia get married. A cohort study from India involving 76 patients with first episode schizophrenia, followed up for 10 years reported that 70% of patients eventually got married.
Schizophrenia is a chronic disorder that may wax and wane in severity, but it does not typically worsen with age. 1 For some people, the symptoms of schizophrenia will improve over time while for others the symptoms will stay the same or get worse.
Your spouse's mental condition will not prevent you from obtaining a divorce, but it can certainly slow down the process. If your spouse has a debilitating mental health issue, the judge may appoint a guardian ad litem to represent them to ensure that the ill spouse's legal interests are represented.
Studies have shown that around 8% of people with schizophrenia will exhibit unusual overt sexual behaviour such as inappropriate sexual advances, disrobing or masturbating in public15.
Schizoaffective disorder.
People with schizoaffective disorder have the same symptoms as people with schizophrenia. But they also have episodes of depression and times when they feel extremely happy or have lots of energy (mania). For more information, see the topics Depression and Bipolar Disorder.
For example, the person may neglect personal hygiene or appear to lack emotion (doesn't make eye contact, doesn't change facial expressions or speaks in a monotone). Also, the person may lose interest in everyday activities, socially withdraw or lack the ability to experience pleasure.
A key to dealing with your schizophrenic spouse is to accept the disorder and educate yourself on it. You cannot argue with it. You cannot reason with it. There is no value in expressing anger or irritation when your spouse is dealing with their symptoms.
People with schizophrenia generally live about 15 to 20 years less than those without the condition. Schizophrenia is a complex disease.
Many people with schizophrenia are able to live independently. However, this is not the case for all people with schizophrenia. There are several things that people with schizophrenia should know to overcome the difficulties of their illness and live on their own: Early diagnosis and treatment leads to better outcomes.
Individuals with schizophrenia usually have difficulty keeping a job and caring for themselves. They must rely on family and friends for help. The disease is often misunderstood, but it is treatable, and in many cases, the individual can go on to lead a productive and normal life.
Moderate to high quality evidence found the prevalence of insecure attachment styles is higher in people with schizophrenia than in people without a mental illness (76% vs. 38%), with fearful attachment style being the most prevalent in patients (38%) followed by avoidant (23%), then anxious (17%) attachment style.
Schizophrenia patients showed lower empathic accuracy than controls, and their empathic accuracy was less influenced by the emotional expressivity of the target. These findings suggest that schizophrenia patients benefit less from social cues of another person when making an empathic judgment.
Research suggests a combination of physical, genetic, psychological and environmental factors can make a person more likely to develop the condition. Some people may be prone to schizophrenia, and a stressful or emotional life event might trigger a psychotic episode.