Tag: chronic illness

Communication. It’s one of those words that cannot be ignored when talking about how to create and nurture a good relationship, and certainly a nonnegotiable in a marriage. But when health issues, ranging from a headache to a chronic illness, come into play—communication becomes that much harder, and that much more important.

I get it: it’s boring to talk about communication. It’s certainly not a novel idea and for the most part it seems simple. Listen. Don’t yell. Don’t point fingers, and so on. What makes marriage different from dating though, is that marriage is the ultimate partnership.

I have lived most of my life with a chronic autoimmune disease. I was a teenager when diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. My normal childhood was shattered with a sudden inability to walk or raise my arms to brush my hair and doctors used haunting words like "chronic" and "deterioration" that scared me. At the young age of 14, I knew my life would never be the same.

It came to me after a short time of living with this crippling disease that I have a relationship with this illness, just like I have relationships with everything else in my life. However, this relationship was perhaps my most intimate relationship because we share the same body. I figured out that I better become friends to the best of my ability with my disease and limitations because we probably have a long life together.