#12082015

Dear husband,

I’m sorry that I was naive enough to think when we married that my health issues would be temporary. Over these past eleven years, they’ve multiplied and they’ve crept into every corner of our lives. They affect everything. What I’m capable of is very limited, and I’m sorry that I’m not the wife I know you deserve.

I’m sorry that you’re now my carer. I’m sorry that your dream of being a doctor was shattered last year during a health scare that still continues. I feel responsible for you giving up on your medical career because you were left paralyzed with fear for me. Medical texts may be interesting, but when you’re sitting in the waiting room of a neurologist’s office and waiting with MRI scans of your wife’s brain, things change.

I’m sorry that the threat of multiple sclerosis will be hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives, or until it gets diagnosed.

I’m sorry that I told you your idea of becoming a researcher through doing more degrees was unreasonable and not feasible. I said it in frustration and out of fear, and you’ve since given up that idea too. I’ve suggested since that we move an hour or more away to be nearer the university so I can support you, but you refuse. You say moving isn’t a good idea for me. I know you’re right, but it just makes me feel more of a failure for acknowledging it. I’m 29 and still incapable of change. This is not the life I expected. I wanted to be so much more than this. I feel like I’m taking so many things away from you.

Thank you for looking after me every day, for taking me swimming and for walks, for taking me on exposure therapy outings to cafes. Thank you for rubbing my legs when they’re sore and for making dinner all the time. Thank you for always telling you love me and you wouldn’t change a thing. Thank you for telling me that you’re happy the way we are.

I pray that our future will see me become stronger, more resilient, more independent. I pray that I can face anything that life throws at me. And I hope that you will continue to be there for me, my one constant, and find your own way in the world. When you find something you’d love to do this time, I hope you’ll chase after it even if I don’t adapt well to it.

Thank you. I’m sorry.