Redundancy, debt and money worries can all put pressure on your relationship with your partner. Denise Knowles, a relationship counsellor at Relate, offers advice on how to ease the strain.
If you're made redundant, loss of income is the most obvious difficulty, but being without a job can also affect your self-esteem and self-confidence.
For some couples, existing problems are made worse because of the additional pressure they're feeling. For others, coping with a new situation can lead to tension.
Denise says financial difficulties can make people blame each other for their situation. She says, for example: "A wife may tell her husband he has no right to go out drinking with his mates if it means their child has to go without a new pair of shoes."
For some couples, having less money means that they can no longer deal with problems the way they used to.
"It may be that in the past they bought their way out of a problem with a holiday or a present. If that money's not available, they have to develop new ways of coping," says Denise.
Any stressful situation can also have an impact on your sex life: "A lot of people avoid intimacy when they feel under pressure."
How to ease the strain money puts on your relationship
Article provided by NHS Choices
Last updated: 30th September 2025 at 12:33