Health and Relationships: How Chronic Illness Affects Every Kind of Relationship

Chronic Illness Doesn’t Just Affect the Person Who Has It

People see some of it. They see the walking stick, the medication, the medical supplies, the hospital appointments and the plans that get cancelled at the last minute. They see you looking exhausted or hear you say you’re in pain again. And sometimes, because they don’t understand what living with a chronic illness actually involves, they think you’re moaning. They don’t see what it takes just to get through an ordinary day, or how much of your life has to be planned around a body that doesn’t always do what you need it to.

What people don’t always talk about is how much it affects everyone around you, too. Chronic illness doesn’t just land on one person’s doorstep and politely stay there. It changes routines, relationships, family life and friendships. It affects the people who love you, even when they’re trying their hardest not to let you see it.

Partners can end up taking on responsibilities they never expected to have. Shopping, housework, cooking, appointments and all the everyday things that suddenly become difficult when you’re having a flare. They learn which medication does what, recognise when you’re getting worse and sometimes notice you’re heading for a crash before you’ve even admitted it to yourself. I know people close to me can sometimes see a flare coming before I feel it properly myself.

That can be a lot for someone to carry. They can love you to bits and still feel exhausted. They can understand that you’re ill and still get frustrated when another day doesn’t go to plan. Then they feel guilty for being frustrated because they know you haven’t chosen any of this. It’s possible to care deeply about someone and struggle with the situation at the same time. Those feelings don’t cancel each other out, and pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make things easier.

Children feel the changes, too. They might not understand why Mum can’t get up, why she’s spending the day lying down or why something they’ve been looking forward to has been cancelled again. They just know that the day they imagined isn’t happening anymore. Depending on their age, they might worry, become protective or quietly start adjusting their own expectations around what Mum can manage.

As a parent, that can be a particularly hard thing to sit with. You want to be there for the school runs, the days out, the memories and all the ordinary little things that make up childhood. You don’t want your children having to think about whether you’re well enough to do something before they even ask. And when you can’t manage what you wanted to do, the guilt can be bloody awful.

But children don’t need a parent who can do everything, every day. They need love, care, honesty and reassurance that they’re allowed to be children. They shouldn’t feel responsible for keeping the house running or looking after their parent’s emotions. Having an illness doesn’t make you a bad parent, and needing help doesn’t mean you’ve let your children down. Sometimes family life looks different from what you pictured, and that’s hard enough without judging yourself for every single thing you can’t do.

Friendships can change as well, and this is where things can get lonely. At first, people might ask how you are or invite you out. You cancel because you’re in pain, you’re exhausted or you simply cannot face getting dressed and pretending you’re fine for a few hours. You try again another time, then have to cancel again. Eventually, the invitations might become less frequent.

Sometimes people drift away because they don’t understand. Sometimes they’re dealing with their own lives and don’t know what to say anymore. Sometimes they assume you’re not interested because you’ve said no so many times. It isn’t always cruelty, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. You can understand why a friendship has changed and still miss the person you used to spend time with. Both things can be true.

And while all of this is happening, the person living with the illness is watching it unfold. You see your partner taking on more. You worry about your children. You notice friends disappearing from your life, and you start wondering whether everyone would be better off if they didn’t have to deal with you being ill.

That is a horrible place for your mind to take you. When you’re already struggling with pain, fatigue and the loss of things you used to take for granted, guilt can creep into every corner of your life. You feel bad for needing help, bad for resting, bad for cancelling plans and bad when someone else has to pick up the pieces. You apologise because dinner is coming out of the freezer again, because the house isn’t how you want it or because somebody has had to change their plans to help you.

Before long, you can find yourself apologising for things that aren’t your fault. You start feeling as though you need to make up for being ill, as if you owe everyone something because your body isn’t cooperating. You might even start believing you’re a burden, rather than a person who’s dealing with something bloody difficult.

I think that’s one of the hardest parts of chronic illness. It’s not just the physical pain or the exhaustion. It’s what happens to your sense of independence, your confidence and the way you see yourself. You remember the things you used to do without thinking, and now you have to calculate whether doing one thing will leave you capable of doing anything else that day. You can miss the person you were before all this, while trying to work out who you are now.

And there isn’t always a neat answer. You can have good people around you and still feel lonely. You can be grateful for help and still hate needing it. You can know your family loves you and still worry about what your illness is costing them. Those thoughts don’t mean you’re ungrateful, and they don’t mean you love your family any less. They mean you’re trying to come to terms with a life that may look very different from the one you expected.

To the partners who are doing their best, I see that this can be hard on you as well. The extra responsibilities, the worry, the disrupted sleep and the plans that keep changing are real. You deserve support, time to yourself and the chance to admit when you’re struggling, too. You shouldn’t have to pretend you’re coping perfectly just because your partner is the one with the diagnosis. Looking after someone doesn’t mean you stop being a person with needs of your own.

To the children growing up alongside a parent’s illness, you deserve to have your own lives. You deserve laughter, friends, hobbies, dreams and room to make a mess without feeling you have to be the responsible one all the time. You are loved for who you are, not for how much you help. Your parent’s illness is not yours to fix.

And to those of us living with chronic illness,