Hello, I have had Relapse Remitting MS for over 9 years. I am a 56 year old guy and I’ve only recently realised that my world is falling apart, I have always deliberately NOT talked to anyone about my MS (except my wife to a certain degree) in any real depth, it’s been my way of living/coping with it. But now my marriage is in trouble and it’s potentially due to my bottling up my problems and not seeking help. So now I need to do the one thing that scares me and that’s talk about it. I desperately don’t want to lose my wife and will do whatever it takes to save our marriage. So this is my l start. Talk you all again soon. Thanks.
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Hi Duncan,
Hat’s off to you. If your usual response is to internalise and you are prepared to try and open up, that shows that you are trying hard to support your partnership. So I’m wishing you all the best.
Mick
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Hi Duncan and good to hear you’re joining us
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Congratulations on being interested in saving your marriage! That’s not really something we hear a lot about these days.
Keep practicing on us. We can listen to anything you want to say.
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Hi Duncan,
Good to hear that you want to start sharing your thoughts. It helps, I find! Wishing you all the best.
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Hi again Duncan. You have a 3 to 1 positive hit rate and you can always ignore stuff that does not make sense. Good luck
Mick
Thank you for sharing this and for making a start, opening up discussions about the difficult pieces in a relationship can be scary, I’ve been doing so recently and have decided that if it enables both parties to be honest with themselves and each other in a non-confrontational and kind way good may come of it. Best of luck.
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Hi Duncan,
I’ve just checked my keyboard and I think that the ‘k’ in there may have an MS Tremor Typo, I make them a lot. I see that cluster of letters is quite tightly packed and that ‘joining’ may have been the intended word.
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Hi you need to talk even though its hard
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Hi Duncan
I can relate to your predicament in that I lived with declining health for years. OK, in my case that was due to misdiagnosis to a considerable degree but you can only explain away your loss of physical ability for so long.
Part of it is denial on your part. By not telling others, it makes it less real. Most people you encounter won’t be bothered by your health - it’s SEP (someone else’s problem), but you really need to be honest with your wife. If she’s like mine, she’ll be feeling that you love her less, want her less and that in turn, she is less desirable to the world generally. It’s not just about us, the afflicted. It’s about our loved ones as well. She needs to know what she means to you, how much you love her and that hasn’t changed. With a faltering body you perhaps can’t show her how you feel in the ways you did before (no, not just sex…), so reassure her. My wife needs constant reassurance and I know it’s tough on her. I’m sure you can do the same for your wife.
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Duncan, i want to echo what George said about the keyboard. Many of the people on here have both hand and vision issues, so sometimes the words they type aren’t quite what they should be. Just skim over what they’re saying, and you’ll get what they intended to say.
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Firstly hi everyone hope you’re all doing good as best you can. Continuing on from my last message, I’m not getting the feeling that my wife really wants to stay married to me. When I was diagnosed we were just 10 weeks from our wedding day and I asked her if it was a good idea for her to marry me with all that could happen down the line. She was adamant we get married, but now nearly ten years later I’m pretty sure she feels like she’s obligated to stay, she’s not a mean spirited person in anyway but I think she’s had enough. She has told me recently she wants to move out and she has told me if I don’t seek help for my mood swings and get help with the intimate side of things then she will leave but I’m taking my meds I’m trying to do as much as I can for us to have a ‘normal’ life. I feel I’m really trying to make her happy and I’m just not and I’m not coping. She used to be so understanding and patient now I can’t seem to do anything right. But
I just can’t imagine my life without her in it.
Oh, dear. As someone who wanted out of my marriage for a long time before I finally told him, I’m not the best one to offer advice. Is it possible that your meds aren’t working and you need to try a new one? Do you have hobbies or interests that would let you work out your frustrations away from your wife? Carpentry, whack-a-mole, a batting cage? Is it possible for you both to take a brief vacation away from the other? Even just something like a weekend in a hotel in the next town.
Hi Duncan
In response to your second note, it sounds as if she doesn’t understand about your condition. MS cannot be fixed and certainly not with magic pills. All we can do is minimise the progress. You will never again be the person she met all those years ago any more that I will be for my wife. It’s the same for all of us here.
If she’s talking about moving out, she must be feeling frustrated and very unhappy, but those feelings aren’t directed at you but the situation. It’s a game changer for her too but you need to get her to see the distinction between you, the person, and your condition/ predicament.
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Hi Duncan…
Its imperative that you talk, talk its a huge worry to carry on tour shoulders. MS steals so much from us but dont let it steal your self worth, your marriage. Everything can be worked around nothing but nothing is beyond working round.
I wish you all the strength that you need to open up to who ever you feel the need to open up to, it doesnt matter who it is, its a start, we all have to make a start somewhere , take a deep breath and start.
YOU CAN DO IT… YOU CAN.
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Thank you for your heart felt message. I really appreciate it.
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Hello Duncan19650
Hats off.
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