Dear Carolyn: I have been with my girlfriend for five years, and while I have loved being with her, we have issues beyond our control. Four years ago, my girlfriend was diagnosed with lupus, and she has periods where she’s too tired to leave her bed. I understand this, and while I try not to get upset, it does sometimes feel like I am in a relationship by myself. However, I love her and do what I can to accept it.
Recently we had an argument and she said something that made me very upset. Every day — and I do mean every day — she tells me she’s tired or not feeling well. I used to say something like, “I’m sorry,” but I’ve recently stopped because I feel the words have lost meaning, and, as shameful as this sounds, I don’t have the same emotional reaction I did when she first got ill. She said that I lacked compassion and that whenever she told me she wasn’t feeling well, she wishes I would ask if there was anything I could do to help, or, as she put it, “be there for [her] emotionally” again.
This filled me with both anger and sadness. I feel she’s not acknowledging that I can sometimes be disappointed in canceling plans. I’m also upset that she feels I’m not doing enough to help her — which I feel I am. Some days I’ve taken off work, or worked from home. I try to take care of her when I can.
Yet there are days I just don’t have it in me to be there emotionally when she tells me she’s not feeling well. Am I being selfish? What is wrong with me? Please help me figure out if I need to change something in my attitude. — Boyfriend
Boyfriend: I’m not sure it’s your attitude that’s the problem.
Though I admire the dedication you’re showing in focusing on that, on yourself, as the area in need of a change.
You were together only a year when hardship arrived. You weren’t married, or (apparently) even engaged. You were still figuring each other out, in other words — still letting your relationship’s progress tell you whether this was a pairing you wanted for life.
The diagnosis disrupted that process completely. In one stroke, you went from being a regular person who was at societal liberty to decide whether to take or leave a serious commitment to this woman you were really just getting to know — to becoming the guy who’d be seen as a jerk for leaving his sick girlfriend.
That’s a terrible thing for both of you for so many reasons: Aside from the obvious — that your girlfriend has a serious condition to manage — it changed the motivation for your being together from being mostly internal, as it should be, to involving significant external pressure.
The reason to commit is love, not obligation. You’ve probably witnessed firsthand a person who fell more deeply in love, and then stayed for love, after disaster struck. There’s no shortage of examples, in my experience.
But that doesn’t mean everyone follows that script. Nor does that obligate you to follow it. It’s also plain wrong of anyone to judge you for not doing so.
There are certainly kind vs. cruel times to leave a person, but, staying just out of a sense of duty or futility is a cruelty of its own. We deserve people who love us, not pity us.
Maybe you really are the former and just need support. All caregivers do. A support group could help lift the weight holding down your compassion.
Certainly, too, you and your girlfriend have work to do on your communication.
Specifically, she needs to replace “I’m tired” with articulating what she wants. “Sick” does not mean “always right” (or good or likable or anything else).
