We ended up having to skip, and we found we were sad about it - not because we were ashamed of him, or unhappy with him, but because it was something we couldn’t share with him. He was willing to wait while we went in, but … it was something we wanted to do with him.

Robin does use assistance devices, and also has a lot of trouble with stairs. We haven’t been out with her when she’s wheeling, but are used to her using her crutch. She’s always used it as long as we’ve known her (actually, not true she didn’t use it when we met her, but it’s burned into our mind as just part of her), and to see her not using it (she tends not to at home, clinging to walls for support instead) is really odd to us.

Yeah, there are things we’d like to be able to do with her, but … we’re not ashamed of her. It’s who she is. We’d actually like to see her using her chair, as we never have, but we also disagree on her need for her crutch. She’s not convinced she needs it for physical reasons. We think she does, although that doesn’t change anything. It’s part of who she is.

Of course, we are here and reading this, which makes us different from many partners right there. :-/

People see the outward symptoms of mental illness, typically an individual’s behaviour. The person is perceived to be doing this on purpose, and the healthy onlookers say to themselves, yes, I can behave like that also, but I choose not to…Why can’t this person just give their head a shake and straighten up?”

We know it is not that simple.

Those who do not understand nor wish to understand will perceive our behaviour as simply some sort of weird behaviour, an out of season Halowe’en costume, a sexual hangup, or simply attention getting or some other such nonsense and totally not necessary.

As for suffering from a terminal illness or beocoming disabled due to an accident or sickness, nobody normally suspects the victim to have intentionally brought this on themselves. If that was the case, there would cetainly be a differnet reaction toward the patient.

“If I had contracted cancer, I would expect that he would be there to bear me up…”

I’m afraid we can’t be really sure of these things until they actually come to pass. By then, it’s either a pleasant surprise or the worst disappointment of your life.

A friend of a friend became a quadriplegic and she was enormously relieved when her husband left her. She knew he resented taking care of her; not too long after her injury, she realized he just wasn’t the sort of person who could cope with a life like the one she was going to have to deal with.

Yes, we do expect our partners to do all the good things we would do for them if they became ill or injured. But everyone has a place, a sticking point, where they just can’t go. You may not realize you have a sticking point, but we all do. I found mine and the hardest thing about it was realizing that it was there and I couldn’t get over it.

I hope things work out for you. Truly, I do.