Depressive symptoms, stress, and poorer emotional support when needed by intimate partners

Intimate relationships are a principal source of emotional support, which fosters recipients' health and well-being. Yet, being in a position to provide support can be stressful, particularly if people are burdened with their own emotional difficulties, and such stress may interfere with people's ability to behave in emotionally supportive ways. Three dyadic studies tested whether greater depressive symptoms were associated with experiencing stress when in a position to provide support to intimate partners, and whether greater stress in turn predicted partners receiving less emotional support. Greater depressive symptoms were associated with experiencing greater stress during couples' discussions about partners important personal goal (Study 1) or significant personal challenge (Study 2) and on days when partners reported needing greater support (Study 3). Greater stress when in a position to provide support to partners was, in turn, associated with partners reporting they received lower emotional support (Studies 1 through 3). The results replicated when examining providers' own reports of emotional support (Studies 1 through 3), were specific to depressive symptoms and not due to other factors shown to undermine support (low self-esteem and higher attachment insecurity; Studies 1 through 3), were not simply due to low mood or sadness (Study 3) and occurred irrespective of the importance or severity of the topic discussed (Studies 1 and 2). These results highlight an important emotional process central to effective support provision: being in a position to provide support can be stressful, especially when people lack the emotional resources and capacity to be emotionally supportive toward their partners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).