Supportive or non-supportive partners

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Hi Dorey your story makes me so sad....you deserve better. my partner was sometimes amazingly supportive other times id get the horrible comments and cold shoulder silent treatment.

If you want to chat privately you can always message me....lolnot that i can remember how as ive been off the site for a long time.

Take care you are not a burden in anyway.....you are amazing brave human xx
 
How do I go about messaging you? I'm new to this site and I'm not the brightest bulb of tech lol. Which button lol?
 
lol i have forgotten....i will have a play around and see. i think you go into your own account and somewhere it says send private
message. then you put diamond at the top and type away and press send. I will try sending you one and you should get a notification. xx
 
Its different now to the old days i was on the forum since 2015 ...something called conversations....but it looks like we can keep it private between just us two.x
 
Hi Dorey, oftentimes we are alone with this. It is just part of the package a great deal of the time.

In one way I don't blame people like your husband, or my recently-become-ex partner for their lack of understanding or empathy. They have no way of really knowing what it is like, and it's not as if it shows on the outside. Plus, often they did not get together with a person who had these problems; they developed later.

This is not the case with my ex -- I gave a lot of information before we even got together. I warned that there would be times I would have to cancel plans, and so on, and that person agreed to be there for me but that turned out to be false. Of course, no one can know what it will be like to be with someone with chronic pain until it happens.

I know that if I were in their shoes I would at least be sympathetic and not so selfish as never to ask or care how the other person feels. But would I stay forever with someone who couldn't do the things I want or need to do, if I were the healthy person? Really, I don't know. I cannot say for sure I would, unless I were in that position, so my point is that just as they don't understand our position, we also don't understand theirs. I am not making excuses for their bad treatment of us, just saying.

What I do know is that speaking for myself, I am much better off in every way without that person who disbelieved me, made me feel bad about myself, and gave me a hard time every time I had to cancel plans. That only made my condition much worse due to the stress it caused me, and I am happier, healthier, and actually have less pain without that stress in my life. Having Fibro is very tough already. Better to be without a partner than to be with someone who makes it worse.
 
Hi Dorey, oftentimes we are alone with this. It is just part of the package a great deal of the time.

In one way I don't blame people like your husband, or my recently-become-ex partner for their lack of understanding or empathy. They have no way of really knowing what it is like, and it's not as if it shows on the outside. Plus, often they did not get together with a person who had these problems; they developed later.

This is not the case with my ex -- I gave a lot of information before we even got together. I warned that there would be times I would have to cancel plans, and so on, and that person agreed to be there for me but that turned out to be false. Of course, no one can know what it will be like to be with someone with chronic pain until it happens.

I know that if I were in their shoes I would at least be sympathetic and not so selfish as never to ask or care how the other person feels. But would I stay forever with someone who couldn't do the things I want or need to do, if I were the healthy person? Really, I don't know. I cannot say for sure I would, unless I were in that position, so my point is that just as they don't understand our position, we also don't understand theirs. I am not making excuses for their bad treatment of us, just saying.

What I do know is that speaking for myself, I am much better off in every way without that person who disbelieved me, made me feel bad about myself, and gave me a hard time every time I had to cancel plans. That only made my condition much worse due to the stress it caused me, and I am happier, healthier, and actually have less pain without that stress in my life. Having Fibro is very tough already. Better to be without a partner than to be with someone who makes it worse.
It's totally understandable why he acts the way he does (to some degree) because he's not "in my shoes" but it would make my day if he could just take 10 seconds out of his day to even ask how I feel or how my day was. It's like he just doesn't want to hear about it, learn or even care about it because there's NOTHING HE CAN DO ABOUT IT. It kinda hurts my feelings when his "gal friends" are having issues of some sort and if they need his support, he's there for them (even if it they just need a hug or someone to listen to them). Mind you, they have been in his life way before I was but you would think that he would show some compassion for his wife too. I totally get that is not the most exciting conversation but I would settle for a hug and for him to atleast make an effort to "TRY" and hear me out. This may sound odd but I literally have to "wait for a window to open" just to even try and conversate any topic with him. Apparently he's got more important things to think about or do. I wish he'd ask me like "hey, you feel like going to so & so's house with me" ect. I just feel very alone and invincible.
 
Dorey, from what you say it sounds to me as if your Fibro is not really the problem. It seems your husband is losing interest in you in general if he doesn't want to talk with you on any topic and has no time for you. Maybe it is time for a serious talk with him. Let him know your relationship is at stake here, and he needs to make time to talk with you about what is going on. Maybe even see a couples counselor if he will go. If he won't maybe you could see one. Not because there's something wrong with you, but to learn how to deal with him and his disregard of you.

Personally, if I were in a situation like that with a partner I would tell that person I couldn't live with that kind of behavior and if changes are not made I would leave. As I said before, even though it can be hard to separate, being with a non-supportive person is far worse than being alone.
 
I don't really know what to say dorey apart from I hope things improve for you x
 
I will say that I am so sorry for those of you dealing with unsupportive partners. Right now my husband is very supportive. He asks how my day went and did this even before the Fibro storm. He listens when I need to vent or when I am sharing info about support groups etc. I have been a bit of a homebody even before Fibro but I still do things like I always have. Even on my worst days I try to push myself to run errands with him and I am honest about how I am feeling. And I am still supportive of him and his aches and pains. Believe me I feel VERY lucky. Emotional support is VERY important in life in general and even more so with the monster called Fibromyalgia. WE are all lucky to have found this group and to share, listen, vent. Share the good the bad and the ugly. I know for me it has helped me emotionally to know that I am not alone in this and have found alot of helpful suggestions and learned alot from shared stories. It is great to have this to be able to lift each other up even when we barely have the strength or ambition to move. Great group for sure. The best group I am part of :)
 
:)
yes its nice to have a group with people who can understand, hardly anyone in my real life gets it.
 
I, too, am glad for this forum. Lately things have been difficult for me because I am having a very hard time trying not to stress out about so many things.
The state of the world these days, the virus, politics, so many bad things are piling on top of each other in the external world that I feel overwhelmed and often wake up very anxious and stay that way all day unless I can get it blown off by activity or distraction of some kind. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. If it is just my own personal worries, usually it works. But the state of things in the world doesn't change.

I sometimes think I should just not read the news at all. But if I didn't, I wouldn't know if something really important happened or was about to happen. I just find myself wishing I didn't live in this time. But I can't change that. Anyone else having this difficulty?
 
I, too, am glad for this forum. Lately things have been difficult for me because I am having a very hard time trying not to stress out about so many things.
The state of the world these days, the virus, politics, so many bad things are piling on top of each other in the external world that I feel overwhelmed and often wake up very anxious and stay that way all day unless I can get it blown off by activity or distraction of some kind. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. If it is just my own personal worries, usually it works. But the state of things in the world doesn't change.

I sometimes think I should just not read the news at all. But if I didn't, I wouldn't know if something really important happened or was about to happen. I just find myself wishing I didn't live in this time. But I can't change that. Anyone else having this difficulty?
I understand how you feel. I just work very hard at not stressing over anything that I have no control over or ability to change. The news is filled with so much negative as is the internet. I try to focus on happier things. The good side is we can close our computers or other electronic device or turn off the news and watch something funny or interesting. Music is my salvation. Nice to turn everything else off and listen to music :)
 
Dorey, from what you say it sounds to me as if your Fibro is not really the problem. It seems your husband is losing interest in you in general if he doesn't want to talk with you on any topic and has no time for you. Maybe it is time for a serious talk with him. Let him know your relationship is at stake here, and he needs to make time to talk with you about what is going on. Maybe even see a couples counselor if he will go. If he won't maybe you could see one. Not because there's something wrong with you, but to learn how to deal with him and his disregard of you.

Personally, if I were in a situation like that with a partner I would tell that person I couldn't live with that kind of behavior and if changes are not made I would leave. As I said before, even though it can be hard to separate, being with a non-supportive person is far worse than being alone.
Unfortunately, his odd behavior slowly progressed as my fibro got worse. I'm perty sure he hates seeing me in pain (and everything thing else that goes along with it) and my lack of ability sometimes to not be able do what I love to do and what WE always did together. He wishes he could fix" the problem. He feels "helpless". I think it's due time that I have the "talk" with him. It'll make me feel better knowing that he'll have a better idea of what's going on. I mean, this is new for both of us, so honestly, how's he going to try and help "fix" "IT" if he has no idea what "IT" is right? I'll give him the "cliff note" version. After all... he's a guy right? Lol Thanks for your feedback. P.s I do have a "person" that I talk to about this. A non-bias stranger (so to speak) 👍
 
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