Hello,
just started new relationship with man (i am woman).
have told him right off that i have ms and told him where he can find info on it. he said that i can tell him anything he needs to know about it, so he hasn’t bothered looking anything up as far as i know.
i am worried that maybe he is just using me and that is why he is not looking into the ms?
or that maybe he doesn’t think he going to be around for long so that he doesn’t need to know anything?
what do you all think please?
ty
Hi,
Like you, I can’t really tell. I’ve been less than impressed with some of my friends (but NOT intimate friends) who haven’t seemed to make the slightest effort to find out anything about it. I couldn’t help thinking that if the roles were reversed, I’d be researching everything - wanting to understand as much as I could.
I don’t think it’s necessarily anything as cynical as he’s not bothered, because he doesn’t expect to be around for long. But it might indicate he’s just not that interested in other people’s problems.
Then again, the volume of information out there can be quite daunting, and the disease is so variable that a lot of things he reads might not even apply to you, so perhaps he’s just being practical, by saying: “Tell me yourself, if it’s important!”?
On the whole, though, I’ve had more confidence in friends who tried to find out something. I can’t really imagine a friend telling me she had something serious, and NOT getting straight on Wiki about it. Then again, some of my friends never use the internet for anything, so perhaps it wouldn’t even occur to them to look it up?
Tina
Hi
It’s possible it may be a bit of denial. I know when I was first diagnosed, I didn’t want to find out about MS - I didn’t want to see what could be possible. I didn’t want to know that needing a wheelchair or being incontinent could be what lay in store for me in the future, as it would freak me out.
Similarly, the other day I was in a mobiity shop with my wife. She started to look through a catalogue they had with all kinds of products, but she stopped looking through it for exactly the same reason - she didn’t want to think about the kinds of things that can happen to people. Now, she’s not uncommitted in the slightest - we got together after I was diagnosed, and she’s been with me the whole time I’ve gone from being pretty fit & healthy to using a wheelchair & being incontinent.
I guess the only way to really know though is to ask him.
Dan
I think you should just enjoy this relationship and not read too much into things. Who knows he may have had a look but prefers not to let on and just allow you to think he wants to know you for you rather than for what the Internet etc says m.s is and as we know this can scare people and its a very variable disease anyway. Maybe he just wants to enjoy this as it is…he knows what you’ve got and is clearly still interested hun. Maybe he feels he doesn’t need to brief himself in what it is as he is interested in you and this is all part and parcel of you. Enjoy this relationship, and you will soon know by the way he is what he wants from it. Life’s too short to question so enjoy. Xxx