A Young Wife’s Tale

When my husband and I were engaged, my mother told me, “I don’t care whether or not you go for pre-marital counseling. Nothing can prepare you for marriage.” She was right, but not even my mother knew the challenges my husband and I would face in our marriage.

On July 8, we celebrated five years of marriage. Those five years have been dominated by health problems. It started off with my health. I had severe TMJ Disorder and a knee injury. Then in our second year of marriage, my husband, David, was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis. Although he was being treated, he continued to get worse until our third year of marriage when he began experiencing flares that left him bedridden for days at a time.

This was originally posted on April 25, 2009. It was the second blog post I wrote. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. And to know David’s arthritis could be this bad again.

My husband, David has Psoriatic Arthritis. He was diagnosed a year ago, at age 23. He’s only ever had mild psoriasis on his scalp. We actually didn’t know it was psoriasis until the rheumatologist told us. David has a family history of rheumatoid arthritis, so we were relieved to know he does not have the rheumatoid factor, although I recently learned that it could develop into rheumatoid arthritis.

Why is the alarm clock on my side of the bed? Psoriatic arthritis doesn’t affect David’s hearing.

I hate New Jersey. We’ve been here seven months. I have tried, but I still hate it.

When I call to pay $75 towards a $103 doctor’s bill, billing associates shouldn’t ask me when more funds will be added to my HSA card because they “just don’t want me to be sent to collections.” Um, did you want me to pay you or not? You didn’t send me to collections for two months over the whole amount, but now because I’m paying you, you’re sending me to collections?

I do not like New Jersey. It is not a nice place. But New Jersey has been good for us as a couple. Being thousands of miles from every single person we know has forced us to rely on each other. Literally, months went by before I met anyone other than the apartment complex manager and our leasing agent.

Being married with a chronic illness can be very trying, however. Here are some tips that have helped Doug and me in our ten year marriage (and illness!)

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Make sure you both feel able to express emotion without penalty. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to vent, vent. Be clear about what you’re trying to express. One thing that has helped Doug and me tremendously is that we repeat back what we heard the other person say. You would be amazed at how different those two statements can be!

For example, Doug might say, “Man, I didn’t sleep very good last night. I’m tired.” And I might HEAR, “You kept me up all night coughing and needing suction and I resent you for it.” See what I mean? He really, truly just could have been making a statement. Do. Not. Assume.