No matter how good your marriage, chronic illness can cause strains between you and your spouse. But there are practical steps both spouses can take to help ensure that illness doesn’t become a wedge between them. Health professionals offer these tips for keeping marriage strong:
Share information. The person with arthritis needs to inform her spouse, to get him accurate information about her illness and to find support groups that he can join or that they can join together, says Kathy Robinson, PhD, an associate professor of nursing at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville. And the well spouse owes it to himself and to the marriage to empathize. Like so many with arthritis, Meredith Boyd of Atlanta knows getting on the same page is worth the work: “After all, my husband brings me the freedom of independence.”
Be sympathetic, not overly helpful. “If spouses are over-solicitous, the ill spouse can feel demeaned or powerless,” says Robinson, who works with families dealing with chronic illness. “She may be trying to recover from knee surgery, and her husband may simply be worried that she’s going to fall. Their goals clash.” In that case, it may be helpful to see a therapist or join a support group – sources that can help them get on the same page.
Prioritize intimacy. “Set up dates for sex, so that the person with arthritis can prepare by taking pain medication, by not taking on too much during the day and by building a sense of desire,” says Afton Hassett, an Arthritis Foundation-funded researcher who studies the psychology of rheumatological conditions at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J. “You need to make sex a priority and to talk about it.” Therapeutic lotions that reduce joint pain may also help someone with arthritis relax for an intimate date, especially if his or her spouse offers a massage with a loving touch.
Make caring mutual. “It takes ongoing communication and imagination to find ways to have as much give and take as possible, to acknowledge what each individual can do,” says clinical psychologist Barry Jacobs, at Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program in Springfield, Pa. “Sometimes it may be mainly symbolic, but it’s a way to try to balance the scales.” To avoid silent resentment, make direct requests when you need something.
Take a break. If the spouse with arthritis needs a great deal of care, it’s important to acknowledge that and find ways the well spouse can get some respite, says Scott R. Beach, PhD, director of the Survey Research Program at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author of a 2005 study on caregiver behavior. “Use all the available service providers, if possible. Or if you have any family members who can help out for a few hours a day, use them, so the well spouse can get away. Don’t try to do it all yourself.”
First I want to say I hope a cure is found one day for all of you. I have found a web site that is one of the best. Karenandarthritis.com. Karen Ager is an Author of a recent book released called Enemy Within. If you have time to visit her site, read some of the excerpts from her biography and book.
A person in her teens who got RA and in a wheel chair in her 20's.
Grew up in Australia with a dream of coming to Hollywood and instead had a real set back with her disease and growing up years. Karen lives in New York and is an Advocate for arthritis. Go to Meetup.com or info@meetup.com and check out the postings of people with auto immune diseases. Her book is on Amazon.com under Karen Ager since there are a few books with the same title "Enemy Within". I bought and read this book and found that the courage and inspiration that Karen fought back to get out of a wheel chair and become an advocate for others motivated me as it did other people who left comments on Amazon about her book.
All of us have different levels of arthritis. I have been through the doctors office and currently on biologic medicine. If some of us has a marriage that is not as good as it was before your illness, this book is for the caretaker as well as the patient. My wife read this book and I enjoy writing back and forth to some of the meetup group of people and my marriage is right on track.
I am not a salesman nor a doctor, just another person at 56 with severe RA and has put me out of the work force. It was hard for my wife to understand in the beginning but now she is part of my support team thanks to Karen's web site and book. I still have flare ups and pain but now I know how to deal with it.
There is no post or blog I have read that is as moving as Karen's story. Imagine having RA most of your life and losing a dream to come to Hollywood. Karen is also a school teacher in New York and was very near the twin towers teaching at that horrible moment in time.
Sorry if I took a lot of space here but it helps when you get into chat groups with people who have and understand what you have.
Sharing and Caring.
Hope your dreams come true. Blessings
Feel better and take care of yourselves.
Seven months ago I started doing Brainwave Entertainment and it was like night and day. My pain subsided so much that I was able to walk my dog for 1 mile and mow the yard with the riding mower until I broke it and then I finished it with the push mower, all in one day! That had never happened before the BWE's. My recovery time on that day and since is usually on that afternoon and night. The next day when I wake up it's as if I hadn't done any stenous work at all. But unfortunatly it was too late. My husband had given up on living and sex was now out of the question with him.
Last night after we had decided to write up our property division papers, we sat down for the first time in months and talked. We found out that neither of us wants the divorce, and agreed that we have to talk to each other no matter what and put aside our anger and guilt. Intamacy is still not an option at this point but who knows about the future.
My spouse and I are both in our early 40's. She is a wonderful person who has had RA for the past 20 years and has had multiple joint replacements and fusions. We talk about everything, which is makes our relationship strong, so my posting here is no secret.
Its only been the last 5-8 years where all my spouse's energy is in survival and not in intimacy. We have tried many ways to bring the spark back and one suggestion from our counselor was to consider an open marriage (for me at least).
We think we are mature enough to make this a viable solution, and would like your non-judgmental thoughts (and maybe ideas on where to begin!)
Thanks!
Gary and Lisa
It hurts that he doesn't really "Give" into the relationship the effort that I do!
My chronic illness/chronic pain has adversely affected my marriage and it takes much more work to maintain a good relationship. It is really tough when "In sickness and in health" tuns into just SICKNESS.
Thanks again for the great tips,
Jeannette
http://missingmythyroid.blogspot.com/
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