In Sickness and in Health

“To have and to hold from this day forward, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse…”

This promise of the marriage vows that we profess at the altar is without a doubt a beautiful way to express the aspiration to live the rest of our life together. It reflects the ideal disposition to live a quiet and full life – trusting in the other- to feel happy and fulfilled, knowing that we are loved and accompanied by someone who will always be by our side.

When all goes well, (family, health, finances) it is relatively easy to live this promise. The test comes when everything is not so stable and we face a reality that is not what we idealize. In our case, the imbalance came because of a change in my wife’s health.

A few months ago she needed a surgery. But this was not only a complicated surgery, it took several weeks for her gastrointestinal system to fully recover. This event had a great impact on our daily life and so far it is one of the hardest challenges we have gone through.

First of all, I had no idea of the load that came on me, because the burden of daily work (my job, take care of home, and the children) was suddenly all on my back. Life continues normal for everyone and the commitments have to be fulfilled. Maybe a few days is bearable and you can adapts to the situation, but when this extended for weeks and even months, it required my whole being to keep moving forward.

The mind does not rest and plays an important role in our lives. It is not what happens around us that affects us, but what we repeat in our mind over and over again, which puts us in a negative emotional state.

For instance, to my convalescing wife fear and uncertainty punished her, thinking that perhaps what she had was more serious than what doctors told her. Her suffering increased as the days passed and her recovery did not come. When she felt unused she worried more, because she saw the obligations and expenses did not stop. Little things affected her mood and she was very vulnerable to the attitudes and behaviors of other, because her self-esteem was shattered.

I was full of work and worry with almost twice the load. Fatigue did not allow me to receive well the comments of others, especially when they gave me advice to help my wife recover. I reacted with anger when I heard any suggestion that would mean more work for me.

Being in charge of everything required  me to make decisions that she did not always agrees with, and sometimes I judged she wasn’t listening neither valuing my effort. In that state of mind, it was hard for me to accept that after doing so many things some did not help at all.

Perhaps, the hard part of this trial for both of us was feeling not valued and the lack of affection from one another. But neither of us was able to give it in those moments.

It is said that “calm comes after the storm” and that no matter how bad it is, it is going to go away. The promise to love and stay true to that love was difficult, but thank God, not impossible. This experience helped us to mature by making us aware of how fragile life is and how drastically life can change if one of us died. It also served to strengthen our love. Our strongest motivation during this test was to recover the life we had before, committed to live and act seeking the happiness of the other.