I'm so sorry to hear about everyone's relationship problems regarding this stupid awful illness. I also had some marriage issues, but fortunately those have been pretty much resolved now. The first year of my illness, things were kind of bad though. My illness was uncontrolled for the first year, I was having flares regularly, and even when I wasn't flaring I still didn't feel all that great, I was crying all the time and had low energy, etc. Hubby really didn't understand, especially because I was (and of course still am) undiagnosed. At the beginning especially, he didn't understand how bad things were for me and he even accused me of being psychosomatic and making up symptoms (!!!). It was awful. I was so depressed.
After the first year of my illness, two important things happened. The first is that I was put on Entocort, which got my illness mostly under control. I started heading towards remission which of course meant no more flares, generally feeling better, and not crying all the time anymore. Then, in December 2010, hubby started getting ill himself! He didn't fess up to it until about March though. He had been having LRQ pains and sometimes would vomit, and he finally told me he thought he might have something like Crohn's as well!! After several doctor visits and tests, it turned out that he actually had kidney stones. His urologist wanted hubby to try to flush out the stones, so hubby spent several painful months on meds, drinking a lot of water, trying to flush them out. It was very painful for him. But, it taught him some important lessons - that, just like with his stones, I didn't choose to become ill, I didn't mean to be a burden on him in any way, I can't just "wish" the pain or symptoms away or "tough it out", and when I say I'm ill I legitimately mean it! He went through months of agony with his stones, and it was kind of like IBD - attacks of pain & vomiting could hit him at any time, could make him cancel plans, could debilitate him to the point where he couldn't leave the house, and so on. He told me once that he thought I must have put a voodoo curse on him or something so that he'd get sick too and finally be able to understand what it is to have a painful ongoing illness. He got his stones surgically removed a couple months ago, so we're both in pretty good shape right now, and we're both a lot stronger because of everything we've been through, both personally and in our relationship.
That was really long, but I guess I just wanted to say that for those who are struggling to juggle both illness and marriage, it can get better. I'm not going to lie, I was really lucky that things happened the way they did - yes, I am lucky that my hubby got kidney stones! And also very lucky that I managed to get into remission. So, everyone get out your voodoo dolls and make your partner really ill (just kidding!!). Seriously though, it can get better. Sometimes it takes some luck, and it definitely takes some work on the part of both people, but it can happen. Don't give up on your spouses. They honestly have no idea what it's like for us. You can tell them about it until you're blue in the face, but unless they experience something similar first-hand, they just have no clue.
