In Sickness and Health: Marriage, Stress, and Autoimmune Disease
If you have a chronic illness, especially an autoimmune disease, you’re going to have to manage it long term. It does take a toll physically and mentally, which will impact both you and your spouse or romantic partner. Rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS), lupus, and marriage problems are common, especially while your spouse learns to cope with your exhaustion and other symptoms of autoimmune disease.
This article will discuss how autoimmune disease affects marriage and romantic relationships and what your partner can do to support you along the way.
Energy and Libido
If you have an autoimmune disease, you’re probably exhausted and might not be able to keep up with your daily tasks or be there for other people in the household who need your help, including your spouse. Your partner may have a heavier household workload because of it.
Being tired and in pain also will affect your libido. Your partner may want to have sex at a time when all you can think about is sleep and rest.
In addition, it’s going to be more difficult for you to travel and go on vacation. It’s hard to enjoy yourself when you’re exhausted and in pain. If your significant other enjoys traveling, it may frustrate him or her that you can’t participate.
Stress and Autoimmune Disease
Stress and lupus or stress and RA, not only worsens the autoimmune symptoms, it can impact the relationship with your significant other. Stress and rheumatoid arthritis, for example, does not just affect the patient—it affects his or her spouse, too. The same is true with lupus and relationships. If you have lupus and you’re stressed, chances are good your spouse also feels stressed.
One of the most stressful aspects of autoimmune disease in the context of a relationship is the effect on finances. Going to specialists, co-pays, the cost of medicines and treatments can add up, especially because a conventional medicine approach involves being on medicines for the rest of your life. People with autoimmune disease often have more success with functional medicine, which frequently isn’t covered by insurance, but may yield longer-lasting results. The financial stress of treating the illness can take a toll on your relationship.
Having to deal with autoimmune disease symptoms can push you into fight-or-flight mode. This is when your body responds to a perceived threat by preparing to either confront the threat or run away. Your body is essentially just trying to survive the threat. If it stays in this mode too long, it can strain the body physically and cause adrenal dysfunction, adding to the illness burden you’re already experiencing from the autoimmune condition. Staying in the fight mode may also lead to confrontations with partners. Rather than fight-or-flight, you can also enter into a freeze response, which is where the body will start to feel numb, leading to depression and low energy, neither of which is good for a relationship.
How Autoimmune Disease Affects Your Mood
The pain, exhaustion, lack of sleep, and stress associated with autoimmune disease can cause your mood to plummet. You can become irritable, which may trigger arguments with your spouse. Hormone changes that occur due to autoimmune disease also can affect your mood.
Autoimmune Disease and Depression
One way in which autoimmune disease can affect mood is by triggering depression. If you’re dealing with low energy, fatigue, sleep loss, and chronic pain, it’s understandable it may cause you to feel depressed. You aren’t feeling like your best self and that takes a toll on your mood and also on your relationship. It’s not easy for your spouse to be around someone who isn’t laughing or smiling. Depression can further reduce your libido and your desire to have sex.
Your Diet and Autoimmune Disease
Another way in which autoimmune disease can impact a relationship is through dietary changes. Autoimmune patients are often encouraged to change their diet. It’s difficult to get the spouses and family members to be on the same page. Then you may have to make separate meals because your spouse doesn’t want to eat the same way as you do. That can be stressful on the relationship.
How Your Spouse Can Support You
One of the most important ways in which your romantic partner can support you during your autoimmune challenges is by participating in appointments with your functional medicine provider. That way, your partner will understand more about why you’re implementing changes, and may even start eating the same way you are.
We’ve seen lots of people where their spouses got on board and made the changes along with their significant other, and the spouses experienced health benefits of their own. The spouses lost a lot of weight, were able to stop taking different medications, and reversed their diabetes and high blood pressure as a positive side effect of being supportive and following along with their spouse. A romantic partner also can help you have accountability to make the necessary changes for you to feel better.
When a person with autoimmune disease has the support of their spouse, it makes it a lot easier to do the things required to get better. Then that feeds back to helping the relationship. When somebody starts to feel better, they get their pain down. They start to have better energy. They’re sleeping better, they’re not dealing with so many symptoms, they just feel more like themselves, and they’re able to do more and be more productive, and their mood improves. And we’ll see all those positive results trickle down into improved relationships as well.
Read more about how others can be supportive of you when you’re living with autoimmune disease.
Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, MS, and Relationships
At Caplan Health Institute, we’ve seen a lot of people who have concerns about the outcomes of autoimmune disease and marriage. The good news? Most of the time, spouses are supportive, and even if the autoimmune disease causes stress, it doesn’t destroy the relationship. Even so, conquering your autoimmune symptoms can improve your relationship.
The first step? Schedule a free 15-minute discovery consultation, by phone or video.
If you decide to come on board as a practice member, we can order tests and create a personalized plan to show you which strategies will work best for you. We call our patients “practice members” because they take an active role in their health. In addition, our Caplan Health Institute coaches can work with you to make sure you’re staying on track and not slipping backward. You and your spouse will both appreciate your increase in energy, improved mental outlook, and higher-quality time together.
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