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I get many letters from people, mostly women, about
the fact that their significant other does not want
to talk about the problems that this disease causes.
I just got another letter where a young woman says that
her boyfriend no longer wants to talk to her about this
disease and calls her “diseased.” It saddens
me so to hear this.
I know that sometimes it is very hard to deal with
the complications of endometriosis and all that comes
with it, physical as well as mental. I also know just
how hard it is at times to bite your lip and not say
things that you feel. And I know how hard it is to not
feel anger at the person with the disease because it
feels that we do not have control over our own lives,
endometriosis does.
We are all human, and we all have human feelings. The
key is not to let the emerging feelings out and let
them hurt the one that we love. The hardest thing in
the whole picture is to be honest with your mate and
your mate with you. We are taught not to hurt people
if we can help it. We are taught to not say things without
thinking first. But we are also human and sometimes
things come out during stress or anger or frustration
that we regret. So the hardest part is trying to communicate
our feelings, our needs and our wants without causing
our partner to feel worse because of it.
From what Carey, my wife, has told me, and from the
things that I have read, women with this disease feel
guilty because they are – in their minds –
the cause of the problems. Carey says, “We are
the problem.” But I counter with, “No, you
are not the problem, but the disease is the problem.”
It may not be a real big difference, but I feel that
by placing the blame on the true culprit, it makes me
feel less anger towards the person and more anger towards
the real cause.
I know that my partner is not normally this way but
is acting this way because of the way that she feels.
Chronic pain does things to a person. If she gets short
with me about something, I have to look past that and
see that the pain is talking, not my wife. Doing this
makes it easier for me to get past her anger because
I know that I am not at fault nor did I do something
to cause it.
It took me a long time to learn this and a lot of days
thinking that she did not love me anymore or wondering
what I did wrong. We had to sit down and talk about
what hurt us. It was not done in one sitting, but it
was done. Once we got past that, the rest was easy.
If face-to-face does not work, try calling on the phone
or writing a letter. You have to have ground rules,
such as no yelling, no name calling, etc. Also there
is to be no blame. Both need to understand that it is
endometriosis that is the cause, not the person. And
understand that both of you are human with human needs
and wants.
Remember a little pain now may very well prevent a
lot of pain later on.
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