Relationships are rarely ever easy. The healthiest ones require effort, dedication, and a true committment to not only the other person, but also to…maintaining your own personal health and happiness.
Here are five common health problems that you might not have considered their impact on your relationship:
5 Health Issues that Ruin Your Relationship
1. Premature ejaculation
Premature ejaculation (PE) is a very common condition affecting many men. For the average male, the time from insertion to ejaculation is less than three minutes. The definition of PE is ejaculation that occurs prior to when a man wishes or occurs too quickly during intercourse to satisfy his partner.
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It’s thought that PE at least partially originates during the late adolescent to late teenage years, when young men often experiment with masturbation. During those younger years, they essentially need to please only themselves. As a result, they learn to do it quickly. Additionally, they often had to “speed things up” in the bathroom while masturbating because they surely did not want to be busted by the home police (a.k.a. mom or sister).
This learned behavior is often very difficult for men to change and can lead to sexually dissatisfied partners. A sexually dissatisfied spouse is vulnerable to temptations outside of the marriage, which can lead to very complex and often irreversible problems. An adage states that “bad sex” has a much greater impact on ruining a relationship (up to 70%) than “good sex” has on improving it (15%).
What You Can Do About It:
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Thankfully, there is help for men with this condition. Essentially, men must learn to control their pubo-coccygeal (PC) muscles, which originate from the pubic bone, go under the genitals, and attach to the tailbone. A man can discover these muscles by attempting to stop his urine flow midstream. Men with this condition need to go to reputable websites and talk to a doctor or other qualified health professional about how to gain more control over these muscles to stop PE.
When it comes to strengthening a man’s kegel muscles, you can:
1. Start With a Simple Routine
Beginner Routine (Daily)
- Contract for 3 seconds
- Relax for 3 seconds
- Repeat 10 times
- Do 3 sets per day
This builds basic strength and control.
2. After 2 weeks, increase to:
- Intermediate Routine
- Hold 5–10 seconds
- Relax the same amount of time
- Do 10–15 reps
- 3 sets per day
This greatly improves endurance and sexual stamina.
3. Add Quick Contractions
- Quick, rapid squeezes train pelvic speed and stamina.
- Fast Kegels
- Squeeze and release rapidly for 10–20 repetitions
- Do once or twice daily
2. Chronic, loud snoring
Chronic, loud snoring is often due to a condition called obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). OSA is caused by a collapsing of the upper air passages during sleep, causing a blockage of air to the lungs, which results in low blood oxygen and disrupted sleep.
People who leave this condition untreated can suffer from many complications including depression, loss of sex drive, hyperactive behavior, leg swelling (if severe), heart arrhythmia, heart failure, high blood pressure, and stroke.
In addition to all the above serious personal health problems, the spouse of someone with OSA suffers a great deal too. The non-snoring spouse may be forced to sleep in a different room or may endure many sleepless nights in the room with a snoring spouse. Either way, OSA may be the source of lots of stress in a marriage and can potentially lead to many serious marital problems.
What You Can Do About It:
Thankfully, there is a solution to this common health problem. The fix for most people is to get a doctor-prescribed sleep study and likely wear a CPAP device (a small machine attached to a facial mask that blows air through the nose and/or mouth while you are asleep). Be sure to talk to your doctor or your spouse’s doctor about this condition so you can both sleep happily ever after in the same bed! Here are 4 other options you can do.
1. Change Your Sleep Position
Snoring is worse when you sleep on your back because your tongue and soft palate collapse backward.
Try:
- Sleeping on your side
- Using a body pillow
- Elevating the head of your bed 3–4 inches
2. Lose Excess Weight (If Applicable)
- Extra tissue around the neck and throat can narrow your airway, causing snoring.
- Even losing 10–15 pounds can help reduce snoring intensity.
3. Treat Nasal Congestion
If your snoring is coming from the nose, opening the airway helps.
Try:
- Nasal strips (Breathe Right)
- Nasal decongestant sprays (short-term)
- Saline rinses
- Humidifier if air is dry
6. Strengthen Your Throat Muscles
Yes—mouth and throat exercises reduce snoring by tightening the tissue in the airway.
Try these daily:
- Say each vowel (A-E-I-O-U) loudly for 3 minutes
- Slide your tongue backward along your palate 20 times
- Press the tongue to the roof of your mouth for 5 seconds (repeat 10–15 times)
- These are clinically proven to reduce snoring.
3. Untreated depression or other mental illness
The time has come for all of us to start recognizing mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder as true medical conditions — just as we recognize high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. As a physician, I can tell you that some people are just born prone to depression or to some other mental illness.
Read: Natural Remedies For Depression
Most common mental illnesses have a biological basis, not just an emotional or spiritual basis. Most are due to either overproduction or underproduction of certain neuro-hormones in the brain. For example if your brain is significantly under-producing serotonin (the cause of clinical depression), there is nothing you can do about it other than seek treatment. Think of it like this: If your blood pressure were too high and you tried different self-treatments without success, it would be time to start formal treatment options.
When someone has an untreated mental illness, essentially this person is not himself or herself. It is very difficult to maintain any relationship, let alone a marriage, if you are not “yourself.” People with untreated mental illness often come back to themselves after starting treatment and realize how many past relationships they inadvertently destroyed while they were just not themselves.
4. Obesity
Obese, how dare someone call you that! For many people, being told they are overweight or obese seems downright insulting. But it is important for people to know that the term obesity is not a social judgment; it is a medical term that health care providers use to define how much fat is in a person’s body.
Obesity and being overweight can make a person sick in many ways, including serious conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. In addition to the obvious potential health problems, letting yourself go physically may lead to your spouse finding you less attractive, and you may have less energy for the things that you used to love to do with your spouse.
Keeping your temple/body as fit as you can will not only make you more attractive to your spouse, but will also help you avoid the obvious health problems that can easily derail whatever ambitions you may have for yourself, your spouse, and your family.
What You Can Do About It:
• Get 30 to 40 minutes of physical activity three to five times a week. Start out by walking (walk like you’re running late).
• Never try to lose more than one to two pounds a week. Lose more than this and you will likely gain all the weight back plus extra because you have tricked your brain into thinking there is a “famine” in the land (a reflex from our ancient past).
• To lose one pound in a week, you’ll need to burn an extra 3,500 calories a week, or 500 calories a day.
Remember, being fit is not just about being thin; it is and should be about being healthy!
5. Female sexual dysfunction (FSD)
FSD involves several female sexual symptoms, including pain during sexual intercourse, not finding sex pleasurable, lack of desire for sexual activity, an inability to orgasm, and/or a lack of vaginal lubrication (arousal). It’s been estimated that 43 percent of women complain of some type of sexual dysfunction.
While the causes of FSD are not fully known, they likely involve complex interactions between women’s emotions, hormones, stress levels, certain medication side effects, and certain diseases. A number of health problems can interfere with a woman’s ability to enjoy sex and feel pleasure, including:
• Chronic health conditions (e.g., depression, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol) can affect sexual function in a variety of ways.
• Pelvic surgeries (e.g., hysterectomy) can damage and narrow blood vessels and prevent the flow of blood to genital tissues, thus reducing arousal.
• An underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroid) can reduce a woman’s sex drive.
• Genital and urinary tract infections can cause discomfort and sometimes painful sex.
• Vulvovaginal atrophy is common due to the loss of estrogen production associated with menopause and other conditions (e.g., postpartum), which leads to atrophy of the vulva, vagina, and urinary tract.
Although researchers have yet to determine the exact causes of FSD, many symptomatic treatments exist, so it’s important for a woman suffering from any sexual dysfunction to bring it up to her primary care provider or ob-gyn. Women should enjoy sex just as much as men do!
By Dr. Jeffrey Brown, BDO Medical Expert
Jeffrey Brown, M.D., is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and licensed in the state of Maryland. As a physician, author, and professional speaker his central goal is to help bridge the gap between what doctors know and what patients understand.
Since his residency training at the Johns Hopkins University/Sinai Hospital Program, and throughout his years working in emergency rooms, hospital wards, and in clinic settings from Johns Hopkins Hospital to Harvard’s Mass General, Dr. Brown has encountered thousands of patients who have little knowledge of their personal health history and chronic illnesses. As a result, he has been on a path to fill the knowledge gap that exists between physicians and their patients, spending much-needed time with patients explaining their health problems in simple, plain language.
In addition to authoring Health Power 101: the Complete Guide to Patient Empowerment , Dr. Brown is also the founder and president of Health Power 101 Seminars, LLC, which has been created to empower patients, caregivers, and health-conscious individuals to take charge of their health.
For more information, visit Dr. Brown here.
