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Home / Thoughts / Interacting with my partner as a wheelchair user

Interacting with my partner as a wheelchair user

Written by Sean on Monday, November 27, 2006

The other morning, I was working at the computer when my partner woke up and walked in our home office. She usually wakes much later and I end up waking her up. Because I walk in the house rather than wheel (not my choice), I very rarely interact when she’s standing up and I’m wheeling.

Wheeler interacting with someone standing.

But that morning, she stood by the door to the office, and I just turned my wheelchair around, and remained seated there while she stood. And it felt right. I was having an interaction with her from my perspective as a wheelchair user. Yeah, it felt right.

Usually when we’re both in the office, I’m in my wheelchair, she’s in her office chair, we’re on the same level. The wheelchair seems to have become much more of a funky office chair than it is a wheelchair.

It felt good, and right, to interact with my partner from a seated position, as a wheelchair user. It really brought home the fact that this is how I feel most comfortable. It also made me realise that we very rarely interact outside the home together, with me as a wheeler. In fact, we haven’t been outside together in over a month, and it was another month if not more before that.

I can’t help wondering why that is? Is it that she can’t stand my using a chair around her? Or is it just the way it happened, that we just happened not to go out together? Ok, to be fair, this last month she’s been sick. But overall, we do rarely go out together. And one would think that two people in a relationship would go out together once in a while.

But that is an issue for another post at some point, maybe. The important thing here is that I did have this brief interaction with her as a wheelchair user and the feeling of "right" was intense, if short-lived.

[tags]Wheelchair, Office, Interaction, Partner, Relationship[/tags]