Chronic Illness in a Marriage: How Much do You Discuss it?

"It feels like I'm lying on thumb tacks," I tell my husband as he crawls into bed beside me. "But there is nothing there! I feel so bruised."

"I'm sorry," he offers with a sympathetic smile, but what else is there he can offer me?

"Actually, I sort of feel nauseous too," I share. "It's probably just the drugs. I wonder if I should eat something or if that would make it worse. I'm sure it will pass if I can just get to sleep." I look over and he is already starting to snore.

For many of us, our spouse is our best friend. If our relationship is good, we want to share our feelings with them. Even if our relationship is hurting, we feel that by explaining our pain, our spouse may sympathize and be more loving toward us.

I've never met anyone who desired to be a burden to their loved ones, but it's natural to want to talk about the invisible pain we are going through. When we are hurting we want those who care about us the most to have some idea of what our daily reality is and by talking about our pain, it makes it "real." It's no longer something "all in our head" but rather it becomes validated.

In the Bible we are told "Carry each others burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). Our spouse can play an important role in helping us cope with our illness by carrying some of the burden, but it's wrong of us to assume that our spouse should be fully responsible for carrying it. We need to take our burden to the Lord and talk to Him about it, as well as find a close friend we can confide in.

Although your spouse may not be suffering from a physical ailment, there are still many losses that he is grieving. For example, it is an emotional thing to watch someone you love be in pain and not be able to fix it. He may be suffering as he watches you lose the ability to do things you love. He likely misses the couple outings you once took together when you could do physically active events, whether it was skiing, or just taking long walks together on the beach. He may be frustrated that even his hugs can cause you to wince. Counselors have found that there are three major areas where marriages suffer: money, time and physical intimacy.

When it comes to chronic illness in a marriage, it's not unusual to have all three of these be influential in problems you are experiencing. Chronic illness adds a weighty burden to each of these. How can we learn to "share our burdens" within our marriage, yet also know when to not dish out our burdens one after the other onto our spouse?

<b>Consider your spouse your partner and the illness the third party</b>

It's easy to think of you and your illness "up against" your spouse, but the illness should be the third party, not your spouse. Although you will often feel that your spouse is merely a spectator to the pain you are in, he is feeling his own kind of pain due to your illness. Make him a part of fighting this battle to have the life you want to have in a way that he is comfortable with.