A panegyric to my partner

Today’s annual blog week prompt is partners – where would we be without them?

I am incredibly lucky in having my hubby to support me, which he does in a million different ways, from doing the vast majority of the housework all of the time, to fetching and carrying when I’m having a flare, to just being cool about it when all I want to do is flop about like a damp squid and maybe read a book. He’s also handy in the kitchen and although I usually cook (if you can grace it with the name cooking!), if I’m not well he’s perfectly capable of diving in there and rustling something up for both of us, which is something he often does at the weekend anyway. He’s also happy for me to go bombing off doing my own thing – for instance in the last month or so I’ve been away for a painting weekend, a felting weekend and to visit a friend in Wales, leaving him at home to mind the cat!

Things aren’t always perfect – once in a blue moon we bicker or he makes some little comment that I, in a state of fatigue and flare, take the wrong way and have a good sulk about, but the important thing is that if something like that does happen we can always talk through it – maybe not right then but certainly within a day or two. There was once a comment, right in the middle of a flare, on the lines of he was sick of hearing about how I wasn’t feeling good – just once mind, in over ten years of marriage – and yes, I found that hurtful, but then I took a good look at myself and thought, ‘By heck – I have been whinging a lot lately, and it’s not like he doesn’t know how I’m feeling, and he’s exhausted himself over the last few days running around looking after me… which is why he’s being a miserable git!’ Now, I’m not saying that stopped me sulking or feeling miffed … but at least I was able to see it from his point of view too.

Of course it’s hard having a chronic disease but it’s also hard being the partner of someone with a chronic disease – it’s not what either of us expected when we first got together, but like everything else in life, you’ve just got deal with the lemons life throws at you and try to make lemonade. (By the way, life, if you fancy a change, throw me some elder flowers instead; I quite fancy trying to make elder flower cordial!)

I’m not a terrible wife  – I do do ‘stuff’ around the house and support hubby in his hubby hobbies (such as learning calculus, strangely enough), although it might not sound like it from the above, and I do work longer hours, but he does more ‘stuff’ for sure! There’s no doubt about it, I’m incredibly lucky in my helpful, laid back, thoughtful, supportive and, importantly, cuddly hubby!