Love & Marriage...and Chronic Illness

As I mentioned yesterday, watching the Royal Wedding last Friday got me thinking about a lot of different things. So today I want to talk a little bit more about love, marriage and chronic illness.

In Sickness and In Health

As I listened to Prince William and his bride Kate recite their wedding vows, I thought about the words Robert and I exchanged at our wedding. I actually went searching for the vows we decided to use for our wedding and found them tucked away in a box of memories from that time, almost 13 years ago. Here are the words we said to each other on our wedding day:

I take you to be my spouse, in equal love, as a mirror for my true self, as a partner on my path, to honor and cherish, in sorrow and in joy, till death do us part.

I also discovered the words the officiant at our wedding, the captain of a Hornblower Dining Yacht out of Marina del Rey, said to us:

Robert and Selena, you have come here today to fulfill the promise you have made, each to the other, before your family and friends. You come to combine your two separate lives into one.

As you begin to share your lives together, never forget you are two separate people. Cherish and affirm your differences. Love each other. Keep your commitment to each other and your marriage. Together you will share what life brings to you: joys and sorrows, sickness and health, prosperity and scarcity.

Back then neither one of us knew that chronic illness would become part of both of our lives. Even though I am the one that is sick, my chronic illnesses have a profound impact on my husband and our marriage. Because of chronic illness, both of our lives have been disrupted and we have needed to make changes on many different levels. Fortunately, we continue to learn to share what life brings us and do our best, separately and together, to cope with this difficult situation.

Live, Love, Laugh

Much to my surprise, I also found words of wisdom amidst the program from our wedding. The officiant said the following things to us as well:

To ensure a healthy, lasting marriage, always, always value each other. Although you may disagree, remember to respect each other's feelings, needs and wants. And above all, do not lose your sense of humor. Remember to continue to grow, sometimes together, sometimes separately. Love and life are always changing, always new.

Marriage is intended not to provide haven from pain, anger and sorrow. Instead, marriage is intended to provide a sanctuary safe enough to risk loving, living and sharing from the center of one's self. Marriage is a covenant that says: "I love you. I trust you. I will be here for you."

Although neither one of us remember these words spoken almost 13 years ago, they nevertheless are words that we continue to live by. I am truly lucky to have a spouse who is there for me, no matter what. It's not always pretty, but at the end of the day we do value and respect each other and certainly have not lost our sense of humor.

We know firsthand that life is always changing. Separately and together, we grow to meet the challenges.

Partners on the Path

As exciting as weddings are, they are but a moment in time. As I watched the Royal Wedding on Friday, I couldn't help but wonder what lies ahead on the path for Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge. Beyond the fairytale, I can see that being married to a member of the nobility is quite a challenge indeed. For all the perks, I am sure there are some pretty high prices to pay.

In my own situation, I can see that chronic illness exacts a price on my own marriage. It certainly is a reminder that life is not fair. So far, the partnership I share my husband has been able to weather the storm.

The truth is no one knows for sure what lies ahead on our paths in life. Having a partner to share the pain, anger and sorrow, whether that be a spouse, a family member or a friend, can certainly make the journey more bearable. We all need people in our lives to love and nurture and support us and I am fortunate that my husband is committed to being one of those people.

Marriage + Chronic Illness = Guilty As Charged

Image by jcoterhals via Flickr
I have been married for over 12 years now. It goes without saying that you can't be married for this long without having some ups and downs, getting into some fights, feeling both love and hate, offering lots of apologies and making lots of compromises. It's a journey, a process, a dance, a work-in-progress...

But what happens when you throw chronic illness and disability into the mix?

Well, this is the experiment my hubs and I have been living for the past 6 years...

In many ways, it has probably been easier on me to adjust and change. My hubs can only watch from the sidelines, upset about the impact my illnesses are having on me and our life together and frustrated because he can't "fix it". I know he has really struggled to get to a place where he accepts that his wife isn't getting better for the foreseeable future.

During this time of upheaval, changing roles and loss, all the normal things that happen in a marriage continued to happen, but with new added layers of subtext courtesy of my chronic illnesses.

For example, not working is my husband's idea of nirvana. When he thinks about me being home all day, he thinks about how much he would enjoy being able to stay home too. His work can be stressful and demanding and when he is tired and wanting to escape his reality gets a bit resentful that I get to stay home and he doesn't.

Then he comes home, tired from a long day at work. His wife is home all day, so he is thinking somewhere in his sub-conscience mind that since I stay at home, I should have the time and energy to take care of things around the house. This of course contrasts with the reality of me asking him for his help because my moderate to severe chronic pain and chronic fatigue make it very difficult for me to get anything done.

Along the way, I have been accused of many shortcomings, failings and deficiencies by my husband. It hasn't been pleasant and it's resulted in some pretty big arguments. After the proverbial good hard look, I know the root of these problems is my chronic illnesses.

But you know what? Beyond the excuses, legitimate as they may be, I concede that I am guilty as charged.

You see, if I was a "normal, healthy person" I absolutely would be doing lots and lots of things around the house, all day, every day, if I was not working full-time. Even when I was working full-time, I wasn't someone who sat around all weekend. I willingly spent some of my free time cleaning the house, working in the yard and making our house into a home.

As for the fights, I can see now that they have served a purpose. Change is never easy, especially when it is forced upon you by circumstances beyond your control. My hubs is healthy and I pray he remains that way always. He is in unfamiliar territory dealing with his wife's illnesses and I know that he is struggling to adapt. Somehow fighting has allowed us to get to the heart of the matter and move beyond things like denial, anger, false hopes and disappointment.

I can deal with the disagreements because, in all the important ways, he still freely gives me all the things that attracted me to him in the first place: his love, devotion, loyalty and friendship. Honestly, getting him to help with chores around the house was a sticky subject before I got sick. Chronic illness made this topic a more important one to tackle and our arguments about it, in the short run, have been more heated.

Reviewing the past six years, I can see that my hubs is changing. He likes the slower pace our life together has taken on, which fits better with his natural pace. He can now see how much I really do try to do as much as I can do and even comments when he sees me trying to do too much. He offers to help me more. In the past year, I started cooking more at home so we could get our food budget under better control. Maybe it's all that good home cooking that has made him better at pitching in and helping with chores around the house.

Of course, I always try and reinforce his good deeds with a "please" and "thank you."

In the past six years, I have felt guilty that chronic illness makes it difficult for me to live up to my husband's expectations of me. Thankfully, I can see his expectations changing to reflect my changed circumstances. Together, we are learning to resolve our differences and start moving forward again.

What can I say? I truly feel we are living this quote:

More marriages might survive
if the partners realized that sometimes
the better comes after the worse.

~Doug Larson

Related articles

• Question of the Week: How has chronic illness impacted your marriage? (ohmyachesandpains.info)
• Love and Marriage With Rheumatoid Arthritis (everydayhealth.com)
• Is Your Marriage Affecting Your Health? (blogher.com)