Question:
I just keep wondering Would he be better off without me? And, though I know he loves me, The answer is always yes. And I’m afraid he’ll wonder it, too. He’s too good to leave me. I’m too weak to leave him. There’s only one solution. But that wouldn’t be fair to him, either.
Response:
Dear Lisa, My mother had some undiagnosed illness that included arthritis, mood swings toward hateful, fatigue, etc. It just about destroyed the family. One brother spent time in a mental hospital and both of them escaped into drugs. I developed depression that became serious later in life. It was just like an alcoholic family. I am 48yo. I married a woman who was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus E., arthritis, depression ( or at least is prescribed antidepressants ), some sort of irritable bowel problem, fatigue, etc. When we first married, one of her daughters sat on the floor and beat her head against the wall. She cried when she woke up, and complained that food and various activities hurt her stomach. She was diagnosed with a duodenal ulcer, Systemic Lupus E., and depression. There may be other conditions that I have forgotten. The elder daughter had emotional problems that caused her to wreck cars, drink, etc. One night she came home, went to sleep and slept in her vomit. It was a bit more serious than the usual teen age stuff. The elder daughter left to live with her recovering alcoholic father. She has since pulled it together and found a job where she can support herself. She did not expect the discipline that her father imposed and she resented it. In retrospect, is almost seems like a divine plan because I lacked the tools and under- standing to deal with it. He was coming out of alcoholism just in time to take her on as an added responsibility. The daughter with the Lupus is doing reasonably well with life on her own. Neither is rich, but they are alive and not too much worse for the wear, at least as far as I can see on the outside. The wife has significantly recovered after several years of suffering. I am handling the depression a little better than a few years ago. She no longer has to fear the emotional condition that I will be in when walking through the front door at 5:30pm. We actually hold civil conversations. Medicine has advanced considerably since I was a child. It has meant the difference between the suffering that our entire family experienced when I was a child and the recovery and coping that my family experienced twenty years later. Some of it was refusing to follow the script that life wrote for me during my childhood. However, those pills made it all possible. You may be able to pull through with good fortune and good physicians. With luck you may be able to provide others with an example of how to beat the disease. I am not there with you and am not aware of your situation, so please forgive if what I have written does not apply. Sincerely, Albert P. Will, Jr. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I just keep wondering Would he be better off without me? And, though I know he loves me, The answer is always yes. And I’m afraid he’ll wonder it, too. He’s too good to leave me. I’m too weak to leave him. There’s only one solution. But that wouldn’t be fair to him, either.
Response:
The answer is "No", Lisa. Either that, or 42, I’m not always sure… ((((((((((((((( Lisa )))))))))))))))) —– When I works, I works hard; when I sits, I sits loose; and when I thinks, I falls asleep.
Response:
You may be able to pull through with good fortune and good physicians. With luck you may be able to provide others with an example of how to beat the disease. I am not there with you and am not aware of your situation, so please forgive if what I have written does not apply.
Thanks. My doctors are some of the best. They’re doing all they know how. I’m also thankful that, unlike your wife, my children are both boys. Much less likely to have autoimmune problems themselves, though I worry about the daughters of future generations. And I know that medical advances have made a big difference, and that there are new breakthroughs around the corner. I just have to keep reminding myself of this. It might not be forever. Just 50 years ago, I’d have had a 30% chance of dying of this disease. Now it’s about 3%. -Lisa
Response:
I just can’t stand the thought of putting him through this much longer. It’s not that I can’t accept his love, just that I can see all the energy and patience being sucked out of him. If I knew how much longer this will go on, it would be easier. -Lisa
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" <HTML I hope you can learn to receive love without feeling guilty. <PLove is Patient and Kind <P– <BR"The miracle of love is that it is given to us to give to one another . . . " <BR </HTML
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