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Relationships Change

Brain injury is a physical injury, but it can change every aspect of a person. This includes how a person functions physically, reasons cognitively, interacts socially, relates to others emotionally, and carries out tasks behaviorally. It affects a person’s closest relationships, especially partners and spouses.

Couples generally know very little about brain injury initially. They are often shocked when doctors discuss a rehabilitation timeline of years, not weeks or months. Other couples feel comforted by this longer timeline, believing there is plenty of time for rehabilitation.

Medical care tends to focus on the survivor, often to the exclusion of the couple relationship.

“The doctors at the hospital told me I was okay to return home. But no one prepared us for the changes in our relationship. They taught me how to walk and talk again, but no one taught me how to be a husband again.”

Both partners may wonder about how to relate as a couple. Just like learning to walk and talk again after a severe injury, couples often have to learn how to be a couple again. You may not be able to do the types of things you did before.

“My wife is so different since her injury. Things we had done in the past were no longer enjoyable for her. We had to learn to get along together in a new way.”

Myths and Facts about Couples

Check your knowledge and see if you can tell myths from facts about couples after brain injury.

Myth or Fact? After one partner has a brain injury, 50% or more of couples end up divorced.

It’s a Myth: Research on marital breakdown, divorce or separation after brain injury shows a wide range from 8 - 78%. Reasons for divorce or separation after brain injury are complicated.