Having a fair amount of chronically ill people in my life already, it would be tough. But if someone was super compatible with me such that we felt like soulmates I could probably overlook certain things.
It’s hard to imagine though, dating someone long enough to be engaged and not having already gotten an idea of how I feel. Unless the situation has some how suddenly gotten a lot worse, I’d think I would know how I felt about it within the first year.
It would also depend on their independence. If they effectively have a disability, but they can drive, and have their own source of money, it’s not as much a burden.
And really, everyone is going to have flaws of some kind. Are they the flaws you can deal with or the ones that are deal breakers.
Personally I would love to be with someone who has some sort of flaw that most other people can’t deal with but doesn’t phase me.
As Dear Abbey (or her twin) says, better off with or without?
It’s something which can be an enormous issue; I agree that if you find it to be a deal-breaker, the sooner you break the deal, the better, but only you can tell whether it is or not. There’s some illnesses that would be a deal breaker for me, others which wouldn’t.
My mother is chronically ill, but that wasn’t anywhere near as much of a problem for me and the bros as her personality problems. Mom can’t lift heavy weights? OK, so what, I can. Mom can’t be trusted to tell the truth about anything? That’s more complicated to solve
Her health issues also interfered with my parents’ sex life at one point, but Dad’s refusal to have any kind of sex which wasn’t French kissing (which hurt her cervicals if it went on for any length of time) followed by the missionary (which just plain hurt, specially once she’d had back surgery) was much more the problem.
My sister in law (let’s call her Jill) is a doctor. She’s also a control freak (partly by nature, partly from being a cop’s daughter) and one of those people who always, always think of the worst possibilities first. A cousin of her father’s has a mild case of a degenerative disease; she was terrified that she might transmit it to her children. Not only were my brother (let’s call him Jack) and Jill combining three anti-baby methods, she got terribly tense whenever they had sex, which along with her other hangups didn’t help their sex life (that conversation where Mom and I explained, in a public place, that there are positions other than the missionary which are also PIV was one of the most surreal moments of my life). Eventually a genetic test came up for her relative’s illness, she was able to have it and it came negative: hallellujah! As soon as she had the results, she had the IUD removed and called Jack to inform him that Lt. Condon and the Pill were getting shelved.
What kills me is that Jack has health issues which are known to be genetic. Not a chronic illness, but there are a lot of things he has to be careful about. But Jill didn’t mind these, she was worried about the one she was worried about, period. Given that I love spending time with my nephew and niece, I’m not going to complain!
Again, only you can tell what’s a deal breaker for you.
If you really feel the need to have genetically-yours babies, get genetic counseling. It sounds like you’re not entirely sure about what she has to deal with.
Alternately, adopting or not having children at all may be an option, depending on how you feel. (It also may be something you’re forced into thinking about regardless of who you marry.)
love her till the day she dies we have no way of knowing you might die first get hit by a bus random acts ect if your worried about your kids having the same problems use some one else eggs or hope your gene wash out her bad ones and if it is likely that she will die young have her start keeping a diary for each child a letter for each important day with a few random ones each year ie today is your first day of school today you got your first car and so on but if you love her love her always you may never find other like her again and then you will spend the rest of you life alone
That’s a good point.
I’ve had two male friends who just dropped dead before their 45th birthday, one with absolutely no warning. Or you could get hit by a truck. Life, unfortunately, is a crapshoot.
On the positive side, one of my relatives had had rheumatic fever and been weak her whole life. Did have a single child, at great risk. She went on to survive breast cancer and die peacefully at 80.
But if you decide against this, do so soon. Don’t get to the point where she’s shopping for bridal gowns and pricing invitations.
When my mom was growing up, her father was the healthy one. Her mother was in and out of hospitals all the time. Her father never really had more than an occasional cold. He dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 58. Grandma lived to the age of 89. It goes to show that you never can tell.
I married a man who was dying. I never knew him when he wasn’t dying, it just varied whether he was dying fast or dying slow. We were married for 11 years, and it was incredibly stressful and heartbreaking. Then he died, and I knew it was worth it.
I don’t think this is a matter of how much you love someone, or whether you are “soulmates,” or even whether the person is super or annoying or, as in my late husband’s case, a mixture of the two. What matters is who you are and how you deal with things. If you’re a resentful person, you will resent the hell out of her. If you have to fix everything, well, you can’t fix her. You’ll want to. You’ll dream about being given one wish and knowing you’d spend it making her whole. But you won’t have that wish. It will never come true.
We all have things we can and can’t live with. I’m not a fantastic person because I chose to marry a very sick man. It says nothing at all about my character, just my personality.
When Steve died, I was both hurt and unburdened, both broken and free. I loved him and it was complicated.
Humans are fragile things. We all die of something, sometime. It’s completely natural to be thinking like this as the time to make a commitment approaches, but the sooner you come to grips with how you feel about this, the better for you both.
The first step should be to encourage and help her to find out what is going on with her health and then to do what it takes to fix or improve it. If she’s getting chronic infections, that’s a sign of many problems, and needs attention asap. For the record, most autoimmune diseases are not passed genetically. I have MS, and while there is a minutely higher chance any children I have will develop it (only because they would inherit half of their genetic makeup from me, and my genetic makeup allowed it to develop in me) it remains fairly random, as far as we can tell.
The only other thing I would say is that you need to decide whether you love HER or the idea of a wife and mother for your children. There’s a huge difference.
My wife has Rheumatoid Arthritis. I would have loved to have known before we got married, just so I could have the information. I would have paused and thought about it, but I still would have married her. Her ability to get around is only going to get worse, we enjoy ourselves now, with the knowledge that it could all be taken away when she wakes up tomorrow morning. Health issues will arise with everyone, but in our case, we have a pretty good idea what it’s going to be like. In one way, that’s a positive. I know what to expect and we’ve planned ahead as much as we can, many people don’t have that ability. Surprises will still pop up, long term partners will ultimately have to take care of one another, no matter the circumstances. It goes with the territory of being together.
I would marry someone with a chronic illness and, lucky for me, my husband did. I have severe chronic depression which does result in disruptions to our lives at times. I’m also just a sickly person in general, always have been. I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t something going on with my health. He doesn’t regret his decision and we’ve been together 9 years.
We have decided to adopt.
I mean this with 100% honesty and not at all in a judgmental manner - I can’t imagine how you could feel so strongly about your future wife but have reservations about taking care of her. Then again, I’ve never had to make such a decision so maybe it’s not as straightforward as I imagine it to be. As for me I wouldn’t hesitate to take care of my husband if that’s what it took for us to be together.
I’m not jsgoddess or broomstick. I wouldn’t go into a lifetime of it willingly. I know myself and I’m a different person with a different personality. I’m too selfish, too impatient and I crave security - those are things that its hard to be when you are married to someone who is chronically ill. But that’s also part of me - I wasn’t likely to fall in love with someone chronically ill to start with.
However, now that I am in love, if my husband were to become chronically ill, I would shoulder that burden. At this point its love, commitment, twenty years, kids, house, dog and white picket fence - we “owe” each other the inconvenience
Loving someone will compensate for a lot. And I am very happy you had the time you did with Steve - I’m sure you still feel his loss. I remember.
I say something similar when people talk about adopting outside of their race - which I did. Racism is alive in the United States. Being a multiracial family brings its own challenges. Its been worth it FOR ME - but do THINK ABOUT IT. Don’t go into it saying “it doesn’t matter” or perhaps worse, not even thinking about if it might. Saying “I’m not up for that” does not make you a racist.
Or it’s still termed "auto immune NOS (not otherwise specified) by her md(s). Getting an autoimmune disease diagnosed can still be a really difficult thing.
When we decided we would adopt our second child, this subject came up. I have a low tolerance for racism, and thought it wasn’t a good idea. I began to reconsider, but things turned out in a way that didn’t require making a decision. I don’t think the OP is wrong in considering illness as a factor in a long term relationship. People deal with things in different ways, and if you aren’t good at dealing with some things, it’s a good idea to avoid them if possible. But adopting an indeterminate child is different from the question of someone you’re already in love with. I’m sure the decision can be very difficult to make, and really dependant on the people involved.
You need to have a little talk with your fiancee about this to get more information. Obviously, don’t phrase it as “so, I was thinking about dumping you, and wanted to ask a few questions…”
Instead, say “I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how you sometimes wind up going to the hospital once or twice a year, which is a little unusual for someone our age. I was wondering if there’s anything more you can tell me about these illnesses, or whether there’s any condition or diagnosis that you can share with me.”
Then shut up and listen. And then come back here and tell us what she said.
Of course, the financee might not know what’s causing her problems. Not all conditions are easily diagnosed. Auto-immune disorders are tricky.
Of course, if it’s not diagnosed it’s still worth the two of them having a frank discussion. My spouse insisted we do so, and I’m grateful to him for it.
I can imagine feeling very strongly about someone and still not wanting to be their caretaker for the rest of our life together. Mostly because that would be a very different relationship than the one I’m looking for.
If I was already in a relationship and my partner got sick I would be there 100%, but I would never enter into a long term relationship knowing that a chronic illness was already happening. I don’t think I would even get past a second date with someone who was chronically ill.
I’ve already taken care of enough people in my life, I’m not volunteering to do it again.
