It can steal away from you so many of the dreams you have planned out together and reduce them into living one day at a time instead, trying to cope with each trial the illness brings with it. It can also test the metal of each spouse’s value system and character traits in what they will be willing to do, in order to help their ailing partner.
“Marriage is two people traveling together, each one more concerned with the other’s well-being than with his or her own” (J.L. Hardesty)The Bible says in Philippians 2:4, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” It also says, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others” (1 Corinthians 10:24).
But when the strained dailiness of living with a very ill partner hits your home, it can be the last thing that comes to mind as far as continually “dying to self” and dying to dreams and “normalcy.” Yet, that is what the vow you gave “to have and to hold in sickness and in health” demands, when illness intrudes upon your marriage.
To help you to grow closer to each other rather than allow illness to separate you as a married couple, you may find it helpful to do something Helena Madsen advices:
“Change your vocabulary. Facing and dealing with chronic illness has never been limited to just the chronic partner. Chronic illness always affects both parties in a marriage. Use the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ when talking about the illness. Notice your level of connectedness and how your emotional intimacy grows.”Something else Helena advices is the same thing we tell couples continually —whether you’re dealing with an illness or not:
“Remind yourself that divorce is not an option. When you close the door to certain options such as divorce, your mind won’t ‘go there’ when stress or difficulties arise. Close the door to divorce and keep it shut.” (To read more advice, please click onto the Growthrac.com article, “When Chronic Illness Enters Your Marriage“)It is our prayer that there is “such a oneness between you in your marriage that when one of you weeps, the other will taste the salt.”
It is also our prayer that when illness attacks your home, you will pull together, rather than letting it rip you apart as a marital team. We pray that when each of you is tested through the invasion of sickness, you will grab onto the strength that God can give you to do what needs to be done for your marriage partner.
“Sometimes ‘sickness’ can be the most ‘healthy’ place to be if God is present, because He can change us there” (Myrna Pugh).To help you in this journey to “health” we have a few links to articles that we pray will minister to your spirits and your marriage. To read, please click onto the Kyria.com web site links provided below:
When someone in the family gets seriously ill, he/she might be the one infected, but the entire family is affected. Whether it’s disease or chronic pain that has changed your relationship with a loved one. Related to this issue, some good advice that Dr Phil gives is:
“Don’t let the disease become your identity. You can manage an illness, or it can manage you. Are you becoming a full-time patient instead of a human being with a disease to manage? Investigate every avenue of rehabilitation and create the highest quality of life. Don’t let the limitations of a disease become as handy as the pocket on your shirt. Do 100 percent of what you can do.”That’s advice that is difficult to do, especially when the illness or disease is debilitating and/or is consuming so much of your time as you try to manage it the best way you can. But it’s important. Don’t allow this illness to erase who you are and all that God can still do through you —illness or not, by giving it more power than you should.
To learn more advice that Dr Phil has to give, please click on the web site link below (this is not a Christian web site, but it has very good, common sense principles in this document) to read:
This article was written by Cindy Wright
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