Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness and Marriage

by Sarah Griffith Lund

Can people with mental illness still live happily ever after?

Mental illness impacts at least a quarter of all blessed unions. In this new book by the author of Blessed are the Crazy, Sarah Griffith Lund opens up about depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in her own marriage and shares stories of other couples who have been impacted by mental illnesses such as addiction, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, postpartum depression, schizophrenia, suicidality, and more.

Using traditional marriage vows as a framework for the book, Blessed Union explores the challenges of loving in the midst of mental health challenges, why it happens, what we can do about it, and how our faith is connected to mental illness. This book reminds us that we are not alone and invites us to break the silence around marriage and mental illness.

Book includes a guided journal section, with a dozen blank pages and prompts for deeper reflection.

160 pages, Paperback

Published February 9, 2021

Reviews

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been searching for a book on intimate relationships and mental illness. This book was a nice addition to my journey. As a married woman with bipolar disorder, I often am overwhelmed with my illness and my feeling of inadequacy in my marriage. The story telling in this book was powerful, and I learned more about how to be gentle with my personal expectations for myself. I'm glad it was written as a step in breaking the silence around mental illness.

[Jeffrey Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am in a marriage that includes mental illness. Both my wife and I have standing refills for prescriptions that help balance our minds, and each of us have been in and out of therapy. I could name many moments over the years when each of our afflictions have impacted not only ourselves, but our relationship to each other, whether we (mostly me) have known that there was something more at play within us going unaddressed.

Given my own experience, I wonder how often an undiagnosed mental health issue has affected marriages so deeply that the window for healing has lapsed. What if one or both in a relationship could have the awareness, courage, and support (and, at least in the U.S., the availability and funding) to receive help for one's mental wellness? How many such marriages could be brought back toward a journey of mutual health as a result?

These sorts of questions are at the heart of Sarah Lund's Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage. Sarah has been a longtime advocate for mental health issues borne from her personal experience. It has been a cornerstone of her ministry as both a local church pastor and as Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health for the United Church of Christ, as well as author of her previous book, Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church. Her experience and work has brought her to focusing in this new volume on how mental illness affects marriage specifically.

(As you may be able to deduce from the previous paragraph, she's also a friend and co-worker. Just giving full disclosure.)

The bulk of the book is organized according to the Declaration of Intention part of the marriage liturgy (i.e., the part where the answer is "I do"), and supplemented by verses from 1 Corinthians 13, the most familiar scripture passage read at Christian weddings. Lund reflects on what it means to promise, love, comfort, honor, keep, and be faithful in a marriage where one or both are wrestling with mental illness.

In addition to these stated themes, Lund introduces the reader to a married couple in each chapter who has navigated (not always successfully) the issues that mental illness has introduced into their relationship. These stories come with an honesty that helps put real names and circumstances to these issues, and that refrains from glossing over how much of a struggle this can be.

The book also does not take for granted that the reader may already be familiar with terms, diseases, and larger issues of justice that mental health involves. Lund is careful to provide some general guidelines about what she means when she uses the term "mental illness" at the beginning, as well as a chapter on the larger societal reality that serves as a backdrop for how well a couple may be able to access the resources that they need. Whenever a new term is introduced in a particular chapter, Lund pauses to provide a brief explanation of what it is and how it affects one's mind.

Each chapter also provides a few discussion questions and a prayer to help move the reader from becoming more informed to practical application. This is further encouraged by a small space at the back for journaling in response to each chapter.

All in all, Blessed Union is well-organized, theologically rich, and has a pastoral sensitivity for the reader. It presents an honest assessment of the affect that mental illness may have on a marriage while balancing it with hope and suggestions for how to seek help. A couple seeking such a resource for themselves will find it here.

[Richard Propes · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the end of page one of "Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage," I had disagreed with author Sarah Griffith Lund, an Indianapolis-based United Church of Christ Pastor and the Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice for the denomination.

By the end of page two, quite literally, I had shed a tear.

And so it would go. And so it should probably go because "Blessed Union" is, indeed, a demanding book because it, in essence, calls us into its very title - breaking the silence about mental illness and marriage.

In full transparency, I am something resembling a friend/acquaintance of Rev. Dr. Griffith Lund having attended her church, attended her installation service at her current faith community, and having gathered with her at a nearby coffeeshop to discuss our mutual passion for disability ministry.

Griffith Lund has devoted a good amount of her professional life to the issue of disability and mental health justice and, as we learned in her first book "Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family, and Church," she's also spent much of her personal life having mental illness be a part of her developmental, emotional, and physical journeys.

I approached "Blessed Union" through both professional and personal lenses having both worked in the fields of mental health and ministry and also having lived my entire life with physical disabilities and a good majority of my life with neurological and mental ones. Additionally, my brief marriage in my early 20s was, indeed, impacted by mental illness when my wife of less than a year ended her life and that of our newborn.

The truth is that I both loved "Blessed Union" and occasionally disagreed with it, a fact that is likely expected given the fact it's nearly impossible to be involved in justice work and always agree on anything - even choosing a place for lunch can be difficult.

In "Blessed Union," Griffith Lund utilizes traditional marriage vows along with 1 Cor. 13, the "love" chapter, to build a framework for an important discussion the church, to this day, all too frequently refuses to have. As Griffith Lund points out, mental illness impacts at least a quarter of all "blessed unions." As she does so beautifully throughout the book, Griffith Lund clearly and concisely explains exactly what she means by both "blessed union" and by mental illness. While "Blessed Union" may prove to be fundamental for some, myself included, the truth is I think it recognizes that churches, even the most progressive ones, are still mostly in the infancy of anything resembling true disability and mental health justice work.

A relatively short book at barely over 100 pages, Rev. Griffith Lund (Have you noticed I've referred to her in like 3-4 different ways? What can I say? I'm indecisive and Libran) wastes no space in exploring the challenges of living and loving with mental health challenges. She looks at why it happens, what we can do about it, and how our faith is connected to mental illness.

Rev. Dr. Griffith Lund reminds us time and time again that we are not alone and, perhaps just as powerfully, enfolds herself and her own blessed union into this framework. She invites us to break the silence about mental illness in marriage, partly by sharing her own testimonies and partly by, with each chapter, sharing the stories of other blessed unions that have been impacted, at times quite tragically, by mental illness.

There are no histrionics here. The dramatic moments in "Blessed Union" manifest with simple honesty and transparency rather than the usual dramatics we may find in this kind of material.

Throughout "Blessed Union," Rev. Dr. Griffith Lund (I think I've decided I like "Rev. Dr." because it's true and she's worked too hard for it for it to be dropped) brings us back to a realistic hopefulness grounded in prayer, practical applications, reflections, and the honest truth that while a blessed union impacted by mental illness may be challenging it is far from hopeless.

"Blessed Union" includes a section where we the readers are invited into deeper reflection on our own lives with a dozen blank pages guided gently by Rev. Dr. Griffith Lund's wisdom, insight, compassion, and steady presence.

In some ways, I wish "Blessed Union" had gone even further beyond its immensely valuable discussion. Yet, "Blessed Union" is as it needs to be and is as, I believe, the church at large is ready to hear.

"Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage" is an important book. It's a necessary book about a subject impacting the lives of church members and church communities. It's a book that encourages deeper discussion, yet it's also a book that doesn't run away from eyeballing the stigmas, biases, and outright discrimination that keeps us from having these discussions.

Some churches are having these discussions.

Many are not.

Some churches embrace those with mental illness in their pews and preaching at their altars.

Some consider it a sign of sin.

These are conversations that Rev. Dr. Griffith Lund has spent her entire adult life and professional life having and for that, I say without hesitation, I am so incredibly grateful.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for couples or clergy (teachers?), because families and congregations have many people who are dealing with mental illness in their marriages, and mostly I think we don't understand what weight, usually invisible, that can add. I worked with adults with serious mental illness for two years after college, now over two decades ago. Seeing their acute but mostly hidden pain - the ways their own brains tripped them up - stuck with me. Both Lund's books have impressed me (her first is about mental illness in the church), but this one seems especially important, since mental illness means a marriage is a completely different equation than even the normally complex algebra of a long term relationship. She points out the ways marriage-help books assume both spouses are of normal mental health, which is strange, because mental illness is not rare by any stretch of the imagination. This book shares the experiences of a diversity of couples (though I was sad not to see any same sex couples) including, very vulnerably, her own marriage, dealing with the ways mental illness, from schizophrenia to depression to eating disorders to suicide, have made unions so difficult, but also so often, still blessed.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are very few books that address mental illness within marriage or committed love relationships. There are even fewer that address it through a religious or spiritual lens. Sarah Griffith Lund uses her personal experience and stories from other couples, together with spiritual resources and practical, up-to-date psychology, to give readers tools for understanding how mental illnesses affect couples throughout the lifespan of the relationship and the illness.The practical tools and journal/discussion prompts make it an important resource for couples living with mental illness.

Stylistically, I found some of the writing stilted or awkward. It's possible the e-book format intensified that, and the usefulness of the book is in no way diminished. The uniqueness of this book makes it a must-have for pastoral care providers, at least in Christian settings. I will keep a copy on my shelf for personal reference, and I'll recommend it widely.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Chalice Press for the chance to read and review this book.
#BlessedUnion

[Janis Montgomery]

WOW. Chapter after chapter of personal stories of marriages that are living with Mental Illness. It was fantastic read. Each chapter you learn the definition of the mental illness that was spoken about in that chapter. We learn how 1st Corinthians 13 which speaks about love and is often times read at weddings and how it works into our marriages even as we live in both our marriages and our mental illness. This was a good read to see that our happily ever after might not look the way we expected it to when we say I DO. Each chapter gives you some steps to work towards after each chapter. The chapters would end with a prayer which leaves you grounded after the hard and heavy work of the chapter. At the very back is a section where you are able to journal what you learn and do the hard gritty work of living your best marriage with mental illness. This was a fantastic eye opening book.

[Martha C · Rating 5 out of 5]

As she did in Blessed Are the Crazy, Sarah Lund has called on her own life experiences and those of others to shed light on the problems mental illness can bring to a marriage.

Blessed Union not only shares stories but also strategies, and, most importantly, hope for those who find themselves dealing with mental illness within a marriage.

As a pastor in the United Church of Christ, Sarah writes from a faith perspective but is never dogmatic.

This is an in excellent resource for the individual, counselors, family and for study groups.

[Michael Erwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such personal insight matched with professional sensitivity.