How to help your ill wife live the best life possible?

Every day, many healthy couples are faced with unexpected health problems. Some of them are lucky to get an acute condition, but other couples are faced with a long-term chronic disease. So, how to help your ill wife live the best life possible if she becomes chronically ill?

Chronic Illness

Dedicated to Male Partners

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Educate yourself about her illness and be there for her emotionally and physically. Make sure she gets proper medical care and encourage her to stay active in her hobbies and interests. Be patient, and understanding. Show your love and support.

Do women get ill more often than men?

Well, it has been scientifically known that almost 80% of people who suffer from autoimmune diseases are women, but the reason wasn’t always clear.

I am not talking about the famous “man flu” but chronic conditions like the ones my wife suffers from – endometriosis and fibromyalgia.

Hormonal changes impact chronic illness!

According to Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, author of “The 4 Pillar Plan”, one of the main reasons behind this is that women’s bodies go through so many hormonal changes throughout their lifetime – starting from puberty to menopause.

He says:

“These hormonal changes have a massive impact on how the body functions. For example, during pregnancy, a woman’s immune system is naturally suppressed to stop it from attacking the baby. This suppression can last up to 6 months after the baby is born”.

This means that women are more likely to get sick during certain times in their life, like during pregnancy or after giving birth.

According to this source, “Gender has implications for health across the course of every person’s life. Gender can influence a person’s experiences of crises and emergency situations, their exposure to diseases, and their access to healthcare, water, hygiene, and sanitation. Gender inequality disproportionately affects women and girls.”

If you want to learn how to cope with your partner’s chronic illness, how to support her struggles, and manage a relationship with a chronic condition, I give away a FREE Chapter of my eBook: “Supporting a Chronically Ill Partner”. 

This chapter alone has all the comprehensive information about acknowledging the struggles, including:

• A word to your partner.
• A word to you.
• Stepping on eggshells.
• Understanding her needs.
• How to acknowledge having a chronically ill partner?
• Acknowledging can be hard.
• 15 tips on how to do it!

Tips on how to help your ill wife live the best life possible.

Supporting a spouse through a health challenge can be difficult, but there are ways to help your wife live her best life possible. Here are some tips:

1. Educate yourself about your wife’s illness.
2. Make sure she gets proper medical care.
3. Talk to practitioners together.
4. Talk to other couples in a similar situation.
5. Spread awareness about her illness.
6. Listen and share time together.
7. Encourage her to stay active.
8. Be a shoulder to lean on.
9. Be patient and understanding.
10. Help with household chores and childcare.
11. Accept help if you need it.
12. Take care of yourself first.

Below, I expand on the above tips more in-depth…

Educate yourself.

Educate yourself about your wife’s illness. If you want to be able to support your wife properly, it is important to educate yourself about her illness. This includes learning about the symptoms, what triggers them, and how they can be managed.

When my wife was first diagnosed, I had to educate myself about endometriosis, furthermore, she has stage IV deep infiltrating endometriosis, which is even more complicated than the other, less advanced types of endometriosis.

I also had to educate myself about fibromyalgia disorder which is a condition that causes fatigue, pain, and other symptoms.

So the amount of knowledge I had to grasp was immense. But I was dedicated to supporting her the best way I could. I think you should too. In order to know how to help your ill wife live the best life possible, you need to educate yourself about your wife’s illness.

Medical care.

Make sure she gets proper medical care. One of the best ways you can support your wife is by making sure she gets proper medical care. This includes taking her to appointments, helping her to find the right practitioners, and making sure she takes her medication as prescribed.

Supporting a spouse through a health challenge you must make sure they get proper medical care, and to give you an example of my own I had to step in to help my wife get proper medical care with endometriosis.

Most of the time, women aren’t taken seriously, especially by general practitioners, not because the symptoms of endometriosis are very similar to other conditions, such as IBS, but because it makes women feel worried about their health, but doctors seem to gaslight them by saying that it is all in their heads.

Only when I began to accompany my wife at her medical appointments she was taken seriously which sped up her diagnosis.

Talk with her doctor.

Talk to practitioners together. Like I said above, it is helpful to talk to your wife’s practitioners together. It is important that you be an advocate for your wife and make sure she gets the proper medical care she needs.

This way you can both be on the same page about her care and treatment plan.

Additionally, your support will allow your wife to feel more comfortable discussing her symptoms and concerns with her practitioner.

Talk to other couples.

Talk to other couples in a similar situation. Talking to other couples who are in a similar situation can be helpful for both you and your wife. This can help you to feel less alone and can give you some ideas on how to best support your wife.

I’ve done that, but I have done it through blogging. My blog opened me many ways to find other couples in a similar situation, but if you want to take the more traditional route, then you could look for support groups in your area.

Spread awareness.

Spread awareness about her illness. Spreading awareness about your wife’s illness can help to break the stigma surrounding it. This can be done by talking about it openly, sharing information about it on social media, or even writing about it in a blog or article.

As you can see, this is what I do. Blogging in my opinion is the best way to spread awareness and advocate for your wife’s chronic illness.

Blogging allows you to reach many people who are going through the same thing as you and your wife, and it also allows you to connect with them. Not only does blogging allow you to do that, but it is also the very best and least risky way to reach financial freedom, which in turn can help your ill wife live the best life possible!

It will help with medical bills, extra support at home, like a nanny or cleaner, and even provide your wife with private care, and help send your kids to a good school.

So my fifth tip on how to help your ill wife live the best life possible would be to start a blog today!

Listen and spend time together.

Listen and share time together. Listening to your wife and spending time together are important for both of you. This can help her to feel heard and supported and can give you both a chance to connect on a deeper level.

Listening doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything she says, but it does mean that you should try to understand her point of view and how her illness is affecting her. Try not to interrupt her when she talks. I got caught doing that. It can only make your wife angry.

Sharing time together can be anything from watching a movie or tv show together to going for walks or doing an activity she enjoys. I do it with my wife all the time.

We love to walk and admire nature, visit various coffee shops (ahh coffee…), and travel, mostly to Italy where my wife comes from.

Encourage her to be active.

Encourage her to stay active. It is important to encourage your wife to stay active, even if her illness makes this difficult. This can help her to maintain her strength and energy levels and can improve her overall wellbeing.

It can be difficult to stay active with chronic conditions such as endometriosis, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue syndrome, but it is important to try.

There are many ways to stay active that don’t involve traditional exercise, such as gentle yoga or stretching, walking, swimming, or even dance. Being dancers is by far the best way we stay active, even though we don’t do it professionally anymore, but for health reasons and fun.

Whatever your wife enjoys doing, encourage her to do it as often as possible.

Be a shoulder to cry on.

Be a shoulder to lean on. Being a shoulder to lean on for your wife is important. This means being there for her when she needs you, whether she just wants to talk or needs help with something practical.

Many times I had to let my wife cry on my shoulder, literally!

Many women who have chronic conditions such as endometriosis and fibromyalgia live in constant pain, and with debilitating fatigue. A number of them, including my wife, experience suicidal thoughts.

My wife tried to commit suicide on a few occasions. I needed to be there to help her, she often cried cuddled to me, leaning her head on my shoulder. In conjunction with listening, it always helped her.

Be patient.

Be patient and understanding. It is important to be patient and understanding with your wife, as living with a chronic illness can be very challenging.

This means not getting frustrated with her if she doesn’t have the same energy levels as you do, or if she has to cancel plans at the last minute.

It can be hard, for example, if you had planned to go out for dinner and she can’t make it because she isn’t feeling well, but it is important to be understanding. Many women who have chronic illnesses feel guilty about canceling plans, so your understanding can go a long way.

They often feel like a burden. That includes both of our wives. So, what to do when your wife is always sick? Be patient and understanding.

Help with her chores.

Help with household chores and childcare. If your wife is struggling to keep up with household chores and childcare, it can be helpful to pitch in. This can take some of the pressure off of her and can help to make her life a bit easier.

If you have kids, it may seem impossible for your wife to juggle a baby on her hip, cook dinner, and fold laundry all at the same time, but many women with chronic illnesses do just that every day.

If you can help out with some of the household chores or childcare, it can make a big difference. And even if you can’t do everything, any help you can give will be appreciated.

Accept help.

Accept help if you need it. If you are finding it difficult to support your wife, don’t be afraid to ask for help. This can come from friends, family, or even professional services.

I know that you probably try to fix everything, that is what we do. Men are wired to fix things, but since you cannot fix your wife’s health, try to change your approach to her support. Supporting a spouse through a health challenge is different than fixing a car.

Practice self-care.

Take care of yourself first. It is important to take care of yourself first, as this will help you to be in a better position to support your wife. This means making time for yourself, doing things that make you happy, and getting plenty of rest.

You cannot help somebody else if you are not in the right state of mind yourself, so make sure to take care of yourself first.

It can be difficult to do when your wife is always sick but it is important. This is one of the most important tips on how to help your ill wife live the best life possible.

To wrap things up…

If your wife is always sick, it can be difficult to know how to help. The best thing you can do is educate yourself about her illness and be there for her emotionally and physically. Make sure she is getting proper medical care and encourage her to stay active in her hobbies and interests. Be patient and understanding, and show your wife your love and support.

Supporting a spouse through a health challenge can be difficult, but it’s important to remember that you are a team. You can get through this together.

These are just a few tips on how to help your ill wife live the best life possible. If you have any other tips, please share them in the comments below.

Thank you for reading!