I would say to Mary that I understand the feelings of guilt, desperation and the feeling of being a burden. While I cannot pretend to understand how difficult Mary's life is living with MS for 30 years, I can say that when I relapse or am having a lousy MS day, I feel more emotional need than I know what to do with. I am little help around the house and my partner has to pick up my ‘slack'. Even though my partner loves me and cares for me, I feel guilt. Guilt then leads to a feeling of needing my partner even more which leads to frustration that she isn't providing what I need. I've come to realize that sometimes I require more than she has to give. She does all that she can to understand but sometimes her way of showing love is to just buckle down and do the hard stuff like all the house work, lawn work, helping with my grandchild, driving, cooking, etc., etc., but when I talk to her I realize that all this takes a lot of her too and then I am pulling with even more emotional need than I had before. So it becomes an icky cycle of me getting sick, her stepping up, me getting needier and then me not feeling heard or understood. The truth is my partner can never understand this as much as she tries and she can never be enough to fill all my emotional needs.
So, I have started seeing a counselor and I now reach out to other friends. I visit this site often and I write about experiences. It takes the pressure off of her to be ‘everything' to me at all times.
I don't have the answers for Mary but I know how some of that feels and how much better I feel reaching out to others and getting support from a wide variety of sources rather than expecting my partner to just ‘get me'. This has helped our relationship tremendously. While I realize that I am a woman in a relationship with another woman, I know that there are men in relationships with women who must feel the same way as my female partner...that sometimes showing love is buckling down and doing the hard stuff without complaining and offering all the support they have the energy left to offer. My partner also now realizes how my needs increase with this crap and tries a little harder to support me. It helps to talk about it and it helps to bring in a third party like a counselor.
My heart goes out to Mary. Mary, if you are reading, I hope you find a way to be gentle with yourself. It's okay to have these feelings and it's okay to ask for help. Good luck.
Kathy Flores
re: How could I forget....
I would say to Mary that I understand the feelings of guilt, desperation and the feeling of being a burden. While I cannot pretend to understand how difficult Mary's life is living with MS for 30 years, I can say that when I relapse or am having a lousy MS day, I feel more emotional need than I know what to do with. I am little help around the house and my partner has to pick up my ‘slack'. Even though my partner loves me and cares for me, I feel guilt. Guilt then leads to a feeling of needing my partner even more which leads to frustration that she isn't providing what I need. I've come to realize that sometimes I require more than she has to give. She does all that she can to understand but sometimes her way of showing love is to just buckle down and do the hard stuff like all the house work, lawn work, helping with my grandchild, driving, cooking, etc., etc., but when I talk to her I realize that all this takes a lot of her too and then I am pulling with even more emotional need than I had before. So it becomes an icky cycle of me getting sick, her stepping up, me getting needier and then me not feeling heard or understood. The truth is my partner can never understand this as much as she tries and she can never be enough to fill all my emotional needs.
So, I have started seeing a counselor and I now reach out to other friends. I visit this site often and I write about experiences. It takes the pressure off of her to be ‘everything' to me at all times.
I don't have the answers for Mary but I know how some of that feels and how much better I feel reaching out to others and getting support from a wide variety of sources rather than expecting my partner to just ‘get me'. This has helped our relationship tremendously. While I realize that I am a woman in a relationship with another woman, I know that there are men in relationships with women who must feel the same way as my female partner...that sometimes showing love is buckling down and doing the hard stuff without complaining and offering all the support they have the energy left to offer. My partner also now realizes how my needs increase with this crap and tries a little harder to support me. It helps to talk about it and it helps to bring in a third party like a counselor.
My heart goes out to Mary. Mary, if you are reading, I hope you find a way to be gentle with yourself. It's okay to have these feelings and it's okay to ask for help. Good luck.
Kathy Flores