Maintaining Your Relationship With Your Significant Other as a Heart Failure Patient

Maintaining a relationship with a significant other can be very trying when one or both of you have a chronic illness that can limit daily activities. It isn’t always easy to put the effort needed into a relationship on a daily basis while fighting for your health. Hopefully, some of the following tips can make it a little easier and less stressful when trying to balance a relationship on top of all your health issues.

Honesty

Honesty. The foundation of any relationship is more important than ever. Of course, you always want to be honest in a relationship regardless of health, but when you have a chronic illness, it is extremely important to not lie to your significant other. This means not lying about not feeling well on days you do feel or not being able to do simple tasks you can do, amongst other things. It is so important for a relationship to be honest about how you feel and not milk your disease so you can be lazy. Once you lose trust from your partner, it is going to take a lot more work getting it back than it would if you were honest from the beginning.

Compromise

Again, this is somewhat obvious, but it's more about the way you compromise rather than the compromise itself. There will be days you simply can’t do something that needs to be done. You don’t want to pawn this activity to your loved one every time you can’t do it. Instead of asking your partner to do it for you, ask them if you can do it in steps or when you feel a little better. This will take understanding from your partner's side as well, but asking for extra time is not a big compromise on his or her part. Your partner will need to be on board with these types of compromises, but if you are honest about what you say, he or she should be fine with this.

Step up when you feel good

On those amazing days where you feel like nothing can stop you, step up for your partner. I imagine he or she has done a lot for you and will continue to do so when you don’t feel well. When you are having a good day, offer to do some extra tasks you don’t normally do. You have to know your limits and not overdo it because you feel good. We all know the next day is terrible after overdoing it, so do something simple that maybe you know he or she doesn’t like to do. Stepping up when you feel good adds credibility to you when you say you don’t feel good and can’t do something. Now your partner knows if you say you can’t it’s true, but when you feel good you will do something extra for them.

Think simple

Maintaining a healthy relationship with a chronic illness isn’t hard if you and your partner are both on board. If your significant other is resistant to your illness, sometimes there is nothing you can do. I hate to say it, but it is the truth. Hopefully, these few tips can help keep your relationship healthy. There are plenty more little things you can do. Many of them are things we take for granted in a relationship with two healthy people but can be actions that keep relationships involving a chronic illness healthy and happy.