3 Ways The Recession Could Impact Your Relationship

Financial stress can make even the strongest of relationships feel shaky. Here's how recessions can exacerbate this.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | April 30, 2025

The world feels especially heavy right now. Global economic instability, rising costs of living, job insecurity — couples around the world are facing real and growing financial stress. And with the looming 60% likelihood of a global recession, many people will soon learn that economic hardship can affect so much more than just your wallet.

Financial stress has a particular way of getting under the skin. It can make even the most "put together" partners feel distant, frustrated and overwhelmed. And while some couples may find strength in adversity, others may find that financial pressure exposes cracks they had no idea were even there. This is the "recession effect."

Fortunately, research has taught us much about how money troubles impact relationships — and, even better, what helps. There's decades of psychological insight regarding economic stress and its relation to emotional wellbeing, communication patterns and even the level of support partners show one another.

Here are three ways economic hardship can affect your relationship — and, more importantly, what you can do about it.

1. Beware Depression And Emotional Withdrawal

A landmark 1996 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology followed over 800 couples during a period of unemployment. The researchers found a clear pattern: financial strain significantly increased depressive symptoms in both partners.

In turn, when either partner became more depressed, they were more likely to pull away emotionally, offer less support and even become more critical or undermining toward their partner.

In other words, when one person starts to sink emotionally, both partners start to feel it. This gives rise to a painful feedback loop: you or your partner may not mean to be distant or irritable, but the stress and sadness may start to weigh you down. Conversations become shorter. Affection fades. Patience runs thin.

Eventually, you both might feel a bit more alone in the relationship — not because you've stopped loving each other, but because you're each trying to survive the emotional toll of financial stress.

Unfortunately, this kind of emotional withdrawal is often mistaken for disinterest or resentment. In more cases than not, couples fall apart when financial stress goes unspoken and unmanaged; they're rarely the sole cause of the trouble, but rather the catalyst.

The profound influence that economic and financial pressure can have on your emotional state cannot be overstated. It's more than likely that this emotional shift will play out between you and your partner. Fortunately, the 1996 study also highlights that these patterns are behavioral — which means that they can and should be interrupted.

If you recognize that financial strain is making one or both of you more withdrawn or reactive, that awareness alone is a powerful first step. It gives you the power to name what's happening, instead of merely personalizing it or turning it into a source of blame. The next step may be harder, but it's just as crucial: talking about it.

2. It's Still Better To Struggle Together

Financial stress may be painful, but facing it alone is bound to be even harder. Surprisingly, research suggests that being in a committed relationship can actually buffer some of the psychological fallout of economic hardship — even though it comes with its own set of complications.

A 2017 study published in WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation looked at people who experienced unemployment during the economic recession in Southern Europe, and the findings were striking. Partnered individuals reported higher life satisfaction compared to singles, even when facing similar levels of financial strain.

This isn't to say that couples were thriving; they were far from it. Life satisfaction was lower across the board for everyone facing economic stress. But being in a relationship seemed to provide a kind of emotional anchor for many individuals — perhaps as a reminder that they weren't in it alone.

Of course, there are always caveats. The same study also found that certain circumstances made things much harder for couples.

For instance, partnered men with children experienced a significant drop in life satisfaction — likely due to the added pressure of being unable to provide. Partnered women, on the other hand, were especially vulnerable when they were living with an unemployed partner and lacked social support or opportunities for meaningful activity outside the home.

We can surmise here that simply being partnered won't automatically protect you from the mental and emotional toll of financial hardship, but it can help. This is especially the case when both partners feel supported and have access to connection beyond just each other.

In other words, even if you're caught in the throes of financial struggle, the partnership itself can be a source of resilience — but only if you nurture it. That might look like checking in with one another more intentionally, leaning on external social support or actively making time for joy or routine in spite of uncertainty.

If you and your partner are both feeling the pressure, remember that, unfortunately, there's no way you can fix everything overnight. Your goal now, more than ever, should be to hold the line together. To remind each other that it's not you versus them, or even you versus the bills. It's you both versus the stress.

3. How You Handle Money Matters More Than What You Have

When times are tight, it's easy to believe that happiness in a relationship depends on how much money you have. But surprisingly, research suggests otherwise.

A 2013 study published in the Journal of Financial Therapy echoes the findings of those mentioned before. Financial downturns aren't the real relationship killer, but rather the emotional symptoms thereof. The difference, however, is that participants only reported a drop in relationship satisfaction when they felt a strong sense of economic pressure and struggled to manage their finances effectively.

In this sense, sound financial management behaviors are an essential protective factor: things like budgeting, tracking expenses, communicating about spending and working together toward financial goals. Couples in the study who maintained these habits were more likely to stay satisfied in their relationship, despite how tight money was.

These behaviors alone seem to be enough to soften the blow of financial decline — likely because they offer couples a sense of shared control.

This means you don't need to have everything figured out, and you certainly don't need to be rich either. What matters most is the manner in which you and your partner respond to financial stress. Are you facing it together, making plans and having proper conversations about your priorities? Or are fear and avoidance taking the wheel?

Even the smallest of steps toward mindful money management can make a big difference — to your finances and your relationship. That might look like setting aside one evening a week to check in about your finances, choosing a budgeting tool together or even just agreeing on spending limits for the month. The exact system you use shouldn't matter, so long as you're building a sense of collaboration and camaraderie.

Has economic instability left your relationship feeling unstable too? Take this science-backed test to learn more: Relationship Satisfaction Scale

A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.