I was diagnosed in July. I had been seeing my boyfriend 4 months prior to my diagnoses. From day 1 I was honest with him…they thought I had MS. It wasn’t an issue, it didn’t affect our relationship at all. We got to know each other and got close.
After I was diagnosed, we had a long chat about my treatment options. Again, other than a few initial concerns that we spoke about at the time, we were both happy with each other. We both said as long as we talk to each other about how we feel and communicate we would be ok, and we were.
3 weeks ago, he broke up with me. His words; “If you become disabled in 20 years time I don’t want to look after you. It might ruin my life”
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go from here. There was absolutely nothing to indicate this was how he felt. He told me he was happy. On the other hand, I can appreciate if he had concerns, this can’t be easy for him either. But I am so angry at how he handled the situation. Apparently he had felt this way for over a month but didn’t say anything. So much for communicating.
I wish he knew what this has done to me, for my confidence. I constantly worry about spending my life alone now. If I meet someone, at what point do I tell them I have MS? If I tell them right off, it might seem like it’s a big deal…I don’t let MS rule my life. But if I wait until we get to know each other, I run the risk of the same thing happening again. I don’t even know how I would go about meeting someone again.
I have never been rejected in this manner before.
I’m not looking for answers…I just needed to get this out there.
Being diagnosed is difficult enough without losing support from someone you were close to!
But hey he wasn’t worth knowing - and for him to make such an unbelievable stupid comment he isn’t worth giving another thought to!
You will know your true friends as they wil give you support and you will learn more about MS together.
My first husband, who i’d been married to for 7 years before diagnosis was similiar! Not long after I’d been diagnosed he walked out on me and my 2 x children. Buy hey I decided I owed it to myself to pick myself up. He was the loser not me!
Things haven’t been easy but I’ve had good times.
Then about 5 years later, through friends, I met someone who was amazing and wanted to help me through my MS ups and down.
We’ve been married 10 years now and we make a fab team! I didn’t tell him about my MS straight away but it came out after a couple of months and he was “so what’s the big deal!”
People are so different Amanda and you will meet kind and helpful people throughout life.
Please don’t beat yourself up over this loser - you are worth so much more!
Take care and keep visiting this site as we can get through things together.
Thank you so much for that. My friends have all said the same…he is not worth the time of day…but there was a part of me that said they are going to say that they are my friends.
Thank you so much, you have honestly brightened my evening!
I am sorry to hear about your first husband, but I am so happy for you now! You sound like you have someone truly special who cares for you.
We are strong when we are together and helping each other
Now you probably know what I’m about to say, but here I go…
This poor excuse for a man has done you a huge favour…how could he convince you that your MS made no difference to you relationship?
Of course he has left you reeling…you had no idea what he was really thinking. He has proved himself to be a rat… A selfish rat who will get his comeuppance one day!
I know none of this will make you feel any better now…but, I promise you, one day you WILL meet that one man who will love and want you for who you are.
Don’t try to hard when meeting new men…it’ll happen naturally. Thousands of us with chronic conditions have done so.
Look after yourself and never beat yourself up for what’s happened… You are a special person deserving of better.
If he’s the right person for you, it doesn’t matter when you tell him; he will find a way to deal with the news because he loves you, and that’s the kind of man he is. If he is the wrong person for you, he will head for the hills whenever you tell him.
I am only half-joking when I say that MS - even if it does nothing else useful - does at least sort out the men from the boys in no time at all.
Oh you poor love. As if it’s not enough to deal with having an MS diagnosis. And what a sod for not being honest all along. But, having said that, it’s actually better to know now rather than later, when you are even more involved.
I was diagnosed with MS about 8 months after I met my husband, and I’d actually had it for 5 years by then (I’d had tests and been told it wasn’t MS; I then ignored all the relapses until I couldn’t any more). To be honest there’s a tiny bit of me that wonders what I’d have felt were the roles reversed. If he had been diagnosed with MS, would I have been the tower of strength he has always been? Obviously I’ll never know, but I do sometimes wonder. We’ve now been together for 14 years and married for 10.
I’m lucky in that I don’t know what it’s like to meet a new man and have to wonder when to disclose my MS. I can only think that you talk about things like that when you start to get serious about each other. Or you drop it into casual conversations, like its nothing (when you drop something: ‘oh that’s my MS letting me know it’s there’, kind of thing) and don’t let it rule your life.
Do yourself a massive favour and have the best life he missed out on.
“Do yourself a massive favour and have the best life he missed out on”…those words ring so true…thank you! Sometimes you just need to hear someone else say it x
Your experience mimics mine, dx in July also, was engaged then in September I decided to leave as they told me they didn’t want to care for me financially or physically if I became disabled. Made our whole nearly 3 year relationship a sham and I am still really angry and frustrated with them. I cannot remain friends, I don’t need that kind of person in my life and too much water under the bridge.
MS certainly does sort out the weak from the strong when it comes to partners!!
I was at an MS community centre and I was speaking to a lovely man, he didn’t have MS but his wife did and he’d given up work to care for her and had dedicated his free time to raising money for this centre and MS charities. He humbled me and bought a tear to my eye as he told me of how caring for her had affected his life, he showed no resentment only love and warmth, even to me a total stranger who is a bit resentful at the moment. So the point of that is there are kind and accepting people out there.
That advice to live life…I’m taking that opportunity too!
Hope you start to feel better and thank you for sharing, I don’t feel so alone with my situation
It would have been worse if the only reason he stayed with you was because he felt sorry for you. He would have become increasingly resentful. Difficult as things are for you at least you know where you stand.
I’ve a friend with m.s. whose partner has told him he will stay with him as long as ‘the m.s. doesn’t get worse.’
I think we have to accept there are people who walk the other way when m.s. is mentioned -
To avoid any chance of this happening again I would tell any future partner right at the start of the relationship.
I can’t believe your friend will put up with being told the relationship only lasts while MS isn’t too bad. I hope he dumps his partner and find someone who will be there for him in spite of the MS. After all, we never know what we’re getting at the outset of a relationship. Anything can happen to any of us and although I don’t believe in the old version of the marriage vows (ie. till death … honour and obey … etc), there is something to be said for ‘in sickness and in health’.
Two salient points (from my opinion and nothing more):
your fears for the future (loneliness etc) are part of the human condition. fear of the unknown has nothing to do with MS.
similarly, your ex-boyfriend leaving also has nothing to do with MS; it merely provided a convenient excuse.
the path of your future life, 10, 20, 30 years down the line is no more assured than that of able-bodied, Parisian concert go’ers. So concern yourself with that which is within your realms of control and pay as much mind to the optimistic view that your form of MS will never result in anything significant, as much as you do, that it might become bloody awful.
do not rush into a sense of feeling as though you have come to terms with your diagnosis. but do presume that your boyfriend buggering off now, is a blessing in disguise. irrespective of the promises broken and the words yelled, he simply was not ‘the one’.
Im going to be really honest! I was diagnosed with PPMS 14 months ago after 3 years of worsening symptoms. I have a partner of 24 years and 2 young children. I sometimes think the diagnosis or the disorder is more frightening for our partners than us (well was in my case). My partner sobbed when I was diagnosed, me, well I said “oh that’s a bit shit!” But actually as the last year has unfolded I get where she’s coming from. She will be really sad and when I ask what’s wrong it feels likes she’s grieving for all the things we won’t do as a couple in the future. She has to do more than she used to, to make if for my failing body around the house, she works longer hours, she then has to cope with me when things are really bad! If I’m honest, and I knew what I know now, having MS, and I was at the beginning of a relationship and they told me they had MS, would I stay? I just don’t know, I’d like to think I would but it’s hard to say unless your in that position. I think it’s easy for us with MS to diss these people that leave but I don’t think it’s easy for them, just as having MS isn’t easy for us! Those of us that have partners that stand by us, we are lucky, that’s true, but let’s not forget that we are worth staying for, we give them lots of stuff too! We are just as worthy of love now as before our illness. So Amanda, you have a right to be angry and hurt and most probably this guy wasn’t the right man for you, but, try to understand your illness probably scared him more than you and he just wasn’t capable of dealing with that. But you will find someone who will love you for you and then he will be able to deal with your MS because he will see the woman not the illness!
My love goes out to all of you on this site!
I hope my post doesn’t offend or upset anyone, this is just my perspective, and we all have different views, that’s what makes the world such an interesting place.
I agree - I am not as harsh on him as perhaps others have been.
I think four months is extremely early in a relationship - it’s hardly an engagement (although I know people have got engaged after less). I think it was still in the “wait-and-see” stage (of the relationship, not the disease), and to have to contemplate a future with someone with serious illness, after just four months with them, must have been extremely scary - especially as most people would not be thinking of a lifetime commitment, after such a short time, but this has forced him to consider things he wouldn’t normally even be thinking of this early - which is scary in itself.
I’m also not sure he has been intentionally deceitful. He may simply have thought it would be unwise to come to any snap decisions, and that he might be able come round to the idea - if it was confirmed - but then found he couldn’t. I don’t think this was lying - I think it was making sure he didn’t bail without thinking carefully.
I don’t think any of this means he is/was a horrible or worthless person - just that he wasn’t the right one.
I reckon a lot of people couldn’t deal with confirmation of a partner’s life-changing illness just four months into a relationship. Some people can’t deal with it 20 years in!
I do think he was tactless in the way he worded it. He could have said: “I don’t think I can live with the uncertainty”, or something like that, not: “It might ruin my life!” (obviously the same concern, but more delicately put). However, there’s many a man not gifted with delicacy.
