Healthy relationships positively influence men’s well-being. Men who are partnered or married live longer lives than single men, and they have better mental health than women and unpartnered men. Marriage appears to offer a protective influence on men’s health, reducing loneliness, depression and suicidality, and is associated with less substance and alcohol use.
Despite these benefits, male suicide continues to be a global crisis. As men’s health researchers, our focus has been on men’s suicidality. Much of this work is motivated by the fact that men complete suicide at three to four times the rate of women, and are known to use more lethal methods (guns, asphyxiation) to end their life.
