This post continues our look at Starks, Hillesheim, Stephenson, and Robles (2023) recent study on policy, relationships, and mental health among sexual minority men. My previous post examined their finding that state-level policy is correlated with whether or not sexual minority men are in a relationship. Here, I examine a second take-away: Relationship quality determines whether being in a relationship is associated with better or worse mental health.

Decades of research indicates that people in relationships have better mental and physical health outcomes than those who are single (Braithwaite & Holt-Lunstad, 2017). Although most of this research has looked at heterosexual people in relationships, findings are consistent in studies of LGBTQ people (Newcomb, 2020).

Most studies on relationships and health do one of two things:

Starks and colleagues did something a little different: They developed an analysis that allowed them to compare partnered sexual minority men to those who were single, and their analysis controlled for relationship quality. (They also controlled for things like relationship length, partner age, and the couple’s sexual agreement.)

When they did that, they found a few interesting things.

Maybe being in a relationship keeps us healthy (a.k.a. experience models; e.g., Beach et al., 1990; Davila et al., 1997). Partners in a couple tend to look out for one another. They comfort and support one another. They........

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