The cancer of one family member seriously changes the lives of everyone else. This becomes a serious test for the relationship. How to overcome difficulties and maintain respect and love for each other? Is it worth staying together just out of a sense of duty? We answer these and other questions together with an expert.
To fight the disease, to undergo a long and difficult treatment, a person needs an understanding of why he is doing this, the meaning of life. Relationship with a loved one can become such motivation. At the same time, the partner is at the forefront and goes through all the stages of the disease together with the patient, at the same time trying to be his support and support.
save the relationship
Relationships in a couple can be kept intact only if they were such before the illness. If problems have arisen before, then a few rules will help maintain balance.
- A healthy partner should not take on all the responsibilities and take care of the patient too much. Help is only needed when it is really needed.
- A sick partner should try to move more. Even minimal physical activity contributes to successful treatment and recovery.
- If the patient’s condition allows, he should continue to work at least two or three hours a day. This will help you take your mind off your health worries and feel useful.
Those who know how to live survive. A relationship out of a sense of duty is a destructive bond that destroys both partners. If the couple existed only out of a sense of duty or because of children, the disease, as a rule, does not unite, but exacerbates the problems. Often such relationships turn into torture, and partners may leave.
Full-fledged relationships are built on spiritual intimacy, love, mutual understanding and respect. If there are at least two points, then the partners support each other and fight together.
circle method
Relationships between a cancer patient and his relatives are best built using the circle method. In the center is the patient. Around him are the closest people: a partner and family members with whom he shares his experiences. They, in turn, must take their experiences outside the circle — share them, for example, with friends or a psychologist.
Relatives of the patient should not deny reality. If you see that a sick person is scared, support him. It is enough to say: “I see that you are afraid, I am sometimes afraid too. But I will be with you in any situation, I am your support!
The best support is to be there, unconditionally accept and contain emotions (that is, recognize them, withstand and react from an adult position without falling into affect), but also not accumulate them inside yourself. So that your inner container does not overflow, share your feelings with friends or with a psychologist. You can help a loved one to experience this experience, but at the same time not get hurt and burn yourself.
Attention to yourself
Often, living the life of a patient, the partner stops even taking care of himself, not to mention hobbies and hobbies. Such self-sacrifice negatively affects the relationship in a couple. To be a support for a loved one, it is important to stay in the resource.
It is important for a healthy partner to follow the principle «Burn, but do not burn out.» Be sure to set aside an hour a day that you will spend alone with yourself. Once a week, choose a day to meet up with friends or a hobby.
A healthy partner may develop a neurotic sense of guilt due to the fact that a loved one is sick, but he is not. This feeling interferes with life and can lead to psychosomatic diseases. It is better to prevent the disease than to fight it later, realizing your mistakes and destructive neurotic reaction.
You don’t need a cancer diagnosis to learn how to respond or change how you feel about yourself or your circumstances. Start right now.
Sexual life and oncology
Often, couples in which one of the partners has cancer complain of a decrease in the need for sexual intimacy, negative emotions, and a decline in sexual arousal. Find out what is the cause of this dysfunction.
- Of course, the treatment affects the couple’s sex life. After operations and radiation therapy of the pelvic organs, sexual life should be temporarily limited. After surgery, depending on its complexity, such a ban is valid from a month to two and a half years.
- Women during chemotherapy experience menopausal symptoms: vasomotor hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness even with sexual arousal. These manifestations are corrected together with the gynecologist and oncologist.
- With pain and fears of sexual intimacy, experts recommend self-insertion of dildos to develop the vagina, the use of lubricants and vacuum clitoral stimulators for sexual arousal and orgasm.
- In men, chemotherapy can cause erectile dysfunction due to a decrease in testosterone production or due to emotional shock and stress. In such cases, more intense erotic caresses are required, including direct stimulation of the genitals. If this does not help achieve the desired effect, the correction is carried out with a urologist.
- Sexual disorders can also be triggered by other problems, such as malfunctions of the cardiovascular, endocrine, or nervous systems. Then consultation of doctors of related specialties (gynecologist, urologist, neurologist, endocrinologist) is required.
- It happens that sexual intimacy is absent due to difficulties in the relationship of the couple. Partners may ignore each other’s needs or express desires incorrectly. Sexual therapy is indicated for such couples. It reduces tension between partners, helps to communicate more openly, find and use effective methods of sexual stimulation, overcome insecurity, fear and stiffness.
- It is important to openly express desires and talk with a partner, to exclude rudeness and pressure. The patient has every right to refuse intimacy during and after treatment.
The harmony of a married couple is based on three pillars: common interests, sex and plans for the future. Maintain these pillars of the relationship. Don’t let illness take over your entire life. Make plans, short-term and long-term, live in harmony with yourself, have fun as much as possible. Talk to each other and be able to hear the desires of a loved one.