To My Future Partner, Who I Hope Won't Leave Me Because of My Disease

Dear future partner,

We haven’t met yet, or maybe we have and time wasn’t ready. We need to talk. Now. Before I fall in love with you, before you fall in love with me.

Because I don’t want my disease, ankylosing spondylitis, to cause you to leave me.

Too often I see sad posts in online support communities for severe disease groups. Like this one:

“My spouse just asked for a divorce after 25 years of marriage. She said she could no longer handle being married to my condition. I work full time, I do chores, I am a great partner and parent. I just can’t hide when I’m having such bad pain. I feel so alone. Can someone share how they got through this? How can I be in another relationship if I know my disease could cause someone to leave?”

These posts wrench my stomach. I cry, “Another one?” And I have two reactions: hope and fear.

Hope. Hope that I’ll be one of the fortunate ones; that I’ll beat the odds and my marriage vows won’t turn into, “‘Til disability do we part.”

Fear. Fear that I will not find a partner to embrace me, disease included, for the rest of our lives. Fear that I’ll fall head over heels in love with someone who will look at me one day with eyes that can’t see past my disabilities, and give up on me.

Who will want me when I’ve been dumped? When my health will be worse and my market value has plummeted beyond repair?

Dear future partner,

I will push you away before I allow myself to trust that when you say “in sickness and in health,” you truly mean it. I am filled with self-doubt because I have no way to prove that you won’t leave me. Evidence shows that it is harder to maintain a relationship when one of us is sick with a lifelong disease or disability.

There is also evidence of miraculous love stories of two people overcoming impossible obstacles to be together. These stories deserve every praise that exists — but they are rare.

I want to be rare.

I am not like other people. I know I am amazing in a lot of ways, one being that I am a survivor. While I have no choice but to fight to survive (the essence of which defines my amazingness), it gives me the strength to believe that one day I will find someone who will fiercely and tenderly hold me from day one through infinity.

I’m fiercely independent. I’ve always taken pride in being self sufficient. I am stubborn to a fault. I’ve had to be — it’s a survival mechanism. You will tell me not to do things, but time and time again I will do them anyway, even when I agree with you that I shouldn’t. You will say, “I want to protect and preserve you so I have you for as long as possible.” Thank you for being selfish, in advance, because it could save my life one day — that is, if I listen to you.

But one of the most important things is for me to be selfish, too. While you are thinking I shouldn’t do this thing, I am thinking the reverse. What will life be in five, 10, 30 years if I look back and realize every decision was an effort to protect me from myself? I don’t want to simply survive, I want to live! What will carry me forward if I have taken no risks, if I haven’t pushed beyond the bubble of safety? Caged chickens deserve a glimpse outside their walls even if their legs are too weak to go far.

I’m sorry, partner, that after I do what I shouldn’t and I am in bed crying in pain, I will expect you to hold me. You won’t understand, but you’ll bite your tongue instead of saying, “Tsk, tsk, you should have listened to me.” You’ll let me cry until the neighbors think someone died. You’ll let my snot run all over your chest and you’ll tell me I am beautiful even if my eyes are so puffy I can’t see your face. You won’t understand, but love doesn’t require understanding to be unconditional.

I will need you more than you will be prepared to give. Our relationship will look different than our dreams. It may sometimes seem that you live alone, except then there’s me in the recliner while you wash dishes. You’ll feel more like a nurse or doctor sometimes, giving me shots, bathing me when I can’t do it myself, staying up all night when I’m afraid I will die if you’re not there to monitor me. I’ll often be sad or angry and you’ll have to figure out what to do to make me laugh again.

I will be needy. I won’t want to go to my doctor appointments alone. There will be nights I spend nine hours trying to fall asleep; you’ll wake up for work and I’ll be there looking at you, waiting to be held. When you come home you’ll find me crying on the kitchen floor because I dropped my favorite glass just trying to put it away.

Sex will involve more than making each other feel good. Our intimacy will include stretching my hips after intercourse and holding me when my back spasms. I can still feel really good, but we have to work harder at self-care and be more cautious than perhaps we’d like.

I will push myself to pursue activities with you even when they hurt me. I will encourage you to go for it, even when it is something I can’t do anymore and it hurts to watch from the sidelines. I will participate in your life to a fault and encourage you to go far, hoping that the freedom I give will substitute for the downfalls I can’t control. The reality is that a lot of my decisions will be navigated with a veil of hope covering my fear that you will leave me. I need you to understand this so you can stop me from pushing myself so hard, so you can tell me that you don’t need or want me to be anything more than I am.

All of this and more will overwhelm you. I will watch your poker face evolve over the years as you hide how hard it is to be in your shoes. I’ll see through it every time. I’ll know.

And I’ll wish I could take everything back: my needs, my desires, my sickness, and the fact that I am in love with you. I will feel I am ruining your life. I will feel I am burdening you with more than you can handle. Don’t let me. Please, tell me how much of a burden I am not. I will need your help reminding me that relationships aren’t about who gives more, but about why and how we give to each other.

Dear future partner,

The reason my disease is good for us is that it will force us to have a deeper relationship. We will have to communicate better to keep our relationship healthy — because of me. I’ll take credit for our need to be relationship perfectionists; I need to be able to take credit for something.

If you become my forever partner, it means I have no doubt whatsoever in your love for me. It means I can be all the parts of me with you all the time — the good, sad, goofy, angry, and painful parts — all of them. It means I have realized I am worthy of the fullness of life-giving love that makes a relationship whole.

Those of us who struggle the most know how much there is to lose, so we do a good job of holding on to what we have. We make the best partners, if only for that reason. When I allow myself to fall in love with you, I will be facing my biggest fear that you’ll get tired of taking care of me and realize you could have a better, more active, more fulfilling life without me. I only hope I am able to show you how much I love and appreciate you so you won’t forget how little I take you for granted.

Dearest future love of mine, don’t leave before we even begin. I have great things to offer despite this disease that tries to take my identity away, this disease that tries so hard to come between us. Help me defeat at least a small part of my handicap — my fear — by proving love can exist and survive beyond all that threatens to undo us. Find me, love me, be with me — until death parts us.

Follow this journey on Being Charis.