Marriage and Illness

A few days ago, a blog I follow featured a story about a man who posted on a Christian advice forum, asking whether or not he should marry the girl he was dating. The problem, he said, was that she had Type I Diabetes, and he was concerned about how this would negatively impact his life, and his dreams. The blogger was concerned that the young man was viewing her illness as a flaw, as something that he had to overcome in order to love her. We all know that marriage is full of glitches and problems – no one is perfect and part of building a lifelong relationship with someone is overcoming those imperfections and becoming perfect as a couple, despite individual flaws. I cannot imagine, though, that a marriage can survive if someone married to a chronically ill person views that person as flawed because of his or her physical limitations. Several of the comments mentioned that certain people don’t seem to be cut out for marriage to someone who is chronically ill, and I just wanted to share my thoughts on this subject.

There certainly are people who cannot handle a chronically ill spouse! I have a progressive chronic illness, and I was very open about it with every single person I dated. I wanted them to understand that it IS more demanding to be with someone who's sick: not because it requires you to physically do or help more (although it can), but because it's emotionally draining. My amazing husband has to deal with the fact that my life expectancy is, well, less fabulous than we'd like it to be; the uncertainty of whether or not I will be physically able to have children (not just to carry or give birth to them but to care for them as well); the difficulty of very rarely being able to plan very far in the future, and even then occasionally having to cancel plans at the last minute; and so much more. Our monetary resources will also always be considerably less than they could be, because at least 1/3 of our income goes to my medical expenses.

I knew that my husband was the one for me shortly after we met, but when did I know that I was the one for him, and that he could handle all this? It would have to be the week (about eight months after we met) when he spent every moment in a hospital room with me, entertaining me during the day and sleeping in a rock-hard reclining chair during the night. I kept telling him to go home, that this wasn't fair to him, and he wasn't having any of it. He would not leave. At the end of the week, he asked me to marry him. He told me, later, that he was already planning on it, but that the week at the hospital solidified it for him, because we still had fun, even through all of that. Two years later, we’ve spent several more hospital stays together, and somehow, we still always manage to have fun. He is continually by my side, making me laugh, and doing whatever he can to help me through every setback. I truly believe that he keeps me sane through all of this, and he is most certainly the person who gives me the strength and the will to continually keep fighting.

We've been married for over a year and a half now, and we love each other more than ever. Honestly, I don't always get it - how could he WANT this life?? It always hurt when people (friends, family members, SOs) couldn't handle it, but I can't say that I blamed them - it's not ideal. I gave him every chance to change his mind; to walk away. And he wouldn't. He won't.

If this man from the advice site is really just asking these questions so that he makes an informed decision, then that is wonderful. However, if he has to question it so publicly and so strongly, I don't know if he would be the right person for her. No "answers" that he can get about what her illness is like and what it entails can prepare him for the reality. Besides, it could (and probably will) get much worse, and he'd better be willing and ready for ALL of it. In my opinion, you just "know" if you're cut out for it. Obviously you shouldn't jump into something like that with your eyes closed, but I believe that for it to work, anyone marrying someone with a chronic illness HAS to want the worst life possible with the chronically ill person MORE than the best life possible without them, if that makes sense. In a way, I think that's true for any marriage or relationship, but it had better be doubly true when marrying someone with a serious health problem.

If he actually views her illness as a "shortcoming" or something that makes them unequal, then he absolutely should not get involved with her. Illness has nothing to do with who she is - it's just something she deals with in her life. He can't be marrying her as his "chronically ill wife," but as his wife, who also happens to have a chronic illness.

There’s another side to this, too. Anyone, at any time, can develop an illness that can be life changing. People experience brain damage in car accidents or lose limbs or are paralyzed. People develop Type II Diabetes or Congestive Heart Failure or cancer. These things happen to even the healthiest people in the world – to marathon runners and Olympians and fitness instructors. Marriage vows are supposed to last forever, and it seems like the world’s worst tragedy that something as uncontrollable and random as illness should end a marriage. I understand that things happen and that divorces are often necessary, but those divorces should be because people at their cores are incompatible, not because of someone’s physical challenges. In a way, it seems that if people question their ability to marry someone who is chronically ill, they might be better served to avoid marriage on the whole – current good health is no guarantee that it will stay that way.

I guess the bottom line for this young man is that if he asks this question and doesn’t receive an overwhelming answer from within himself that he needs this woman in his life no matter what obstacles they face, then he probably shouldn’t be with her. Marrying someone with a chronic illness means that you will go through hell, but you’ll be going through that hell together, which, to me, is infinitely preferable than the possibility of eventually going through it alone.