Private livesHealth This article is more than 17 years old

My partner has MS and I'm thinking of leaving her

This article is more than 17 years oldLinda BlairI have so many things I want to do with my life but this illness will affect them all. Am I being impossibly selfish?

My partner of nine years has multiple sclerosis and now finds walking unaided difficult. I've been thinking about leaving her. Staying means accepting the end of so many hopes: having children, travelling and progressing with my career. We do so little and seem to have nothing to look forward to. It seems like a stark choice between going, or eventually becoming her carer, which I already am to a certain extent.

I still love her and we are great friends. If I did go, I would still be around to help her, though I find it difficult to see how she would cope without me. She often says I should leave and that she has to have this life but I don't. I am seeing a counsellor but I still feel that I could avoid taking any real action for years.

Make the best of it

If you truly loved her, you would be working out ways to make both your lives as good as they can be under the circumstances. The stark fact is that when we embark on anything in life, be it a relationship, a career or having children, we are taking a risk. How desperately sad for your partner to be unable to gain comfort and security from you and to feel that she has to tell you to leave. What would you do if you left your partner, had a baby with someone else and that child was born with a disability? Whatever action you take now, make sure it is something that you will not feel ashamed to look back on in years to come.
A, via email

I was terrified too

My wife has had MS for 20 years and has been a wheelchair user for the last 10. I don't remember making a conscious choice to stick it out, although I do remember being terrified by the future. After the diagnosis, we stopped putting things off and probably had more fun than we would have had if we'd both been healthy and stuck to conventional careers.

Get carers organised, claim the benefits to which you're entitled and call on the support of colleagues, friends and neighbours. MS doesn't have to mean that you can't have kids. Talk to the doctors - I know people who have had children after contracting MS. Becoming the main carer for your partner does change your relationship. That has been the hardest part for me - you have to work out new ways of being together.

Some dreams will die and you must let them go. If you stay, you can focus on the many good things that are still possible and get immense satisfaction from doing them despite the difficulties. I don't claim any moral superiority because I stayed - I didn't experience it as a choice and I would never criticise someone who took the other course; we are all different.
RT, via email

Keep talking

I've had MS for 25 years and can barely walk. I continue to live my life to the full (career, family, friends, travel, fun) with the support that is available from medical professionals, social services, the MS Society, MS Trust and so on. MS takes away spontaneity but with planning, most things are possible.

Talk to your partner. Never assume that just because she has MS that she doesn't have the same aspirations.
SLJ, via email

Act decisively

I also lived with someone with this remorseless disease. We were together twice as long as you have been and I eventually decided I had to go. Any love that we once had had shrivelled and died by that point, but leaving her was still the hardest thing that I have ever done. I can't see this being any easier for you given that you say you're still in love and "great friends".

If you want the things you say, then you need to act decisively. Recovering from a break-up like this will take time and it may not be as easy as you think to build another relationship that offers you the stability and understanding that you will need to realise your hopes and "still be around to help". If you love your partner, recognise that she will always be there in your mind.

The guilt that you will feel may become worse. The alternative is to stay and adjust your life to the limitations her condition imposes, but accept this out of love. Help is available, although you will always have to fight for it.
AM, via email

Next week

My wife has decided that she would like to have a third child - we're both in our mid-30s and already have two under the age of four. I feel that our family is already complete, given our income, house size, general state of exhaustion and the lack of time we get to spend together.

Until a few months ago, there had been no suggestion that we should consider a third child, but, following a pregnancy scare, we were both pretty upset when we realised there wasn't going to be a baby and I was initially supportive of the idea of actively trying again. I would rather concede defeat than risk a break-up. Am I being unreasonable in "denying her her right to a third child"?

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