How Traumatic Brain Injuries Affect Relationships
For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. Your wedding vows may never be put to a greater test than that of one partner suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Because a TBI can affect the way a person communicates, behaves, and responds, marriages can become strained and require a lot of work following a brain injury. As a result, marriages are generally impacted in the following ways:
- Relationship changes. Because brain injuries often cause victims to suffer personality and behavioral changes, marriages can seriously be affected due to a victim’s wide range of emotions, angry outbursts, and mood swings. In addition, traumatic brain injury survivors often feel depressed, irritable, and argumentative. As a result, the other spouse may feel like he or she is married to a different person.
- Unemployment and finance changes. Traumatic brain injury victims may not be able to hold down a job and make a living. Additionally, certain therapies might not be covered by insurance. With less money coming in and more money going out for brain injury therapies, it can cause a couple to be financially stressed.
- Household changes. When one spouse cannot do the things around the house that he or she used to, the other spouse often picks up the slack and takes on the injured person’s responsibilities on top of caring for the injured spouse. Having new responsibilities at a time like this can add to the stress of a marriage.
Although some marriages end in divorce due to brain injury-related changes, many couples are able to find the support they need to work through the challenges and rebuild their relationships. In either event, a marriage is never the same after a severe traumatic brain injury.
Contact a Fairfax Brain Injury Lawyer
If your relationship is suffering following a brain injury caused by someone else’s negligence, you and your spouse deserve to be compensated for the way in which the injury impacted your life. To learn about your legal rights, please contact us for a free consultation today at 703-721-4233