Health Issues Stress Individuals, Couples and Families

You can forge an alliance for the best possible wellness, shared responsibility and partnership in the face of health challenges. I can help you develop your own Contract for Wellness© based on your specific health issues, demands, goals, and needs.

Many couples face health challenges. One or both of you may have a health issue or you could be caring for an aging parent or a child with an illness or other special needs.

Caring for a chronically ill or disabled child or a parent consumes great energy. Such essential and also rewarding family trials can make it difficult to invest time and energy in your partnership.

WHEN ONE OF YOU HAS THE HEALTH CHALLENGE:

In a healthy relationship, both of you take ownership of each other’s health issues as a team. But the challenge for each is not the same. For the one “carrying” the health issue, dynamics may include grief over the loss of capacity and potential, shame for not “carrying one’s weight,” and a lost sense of worthiness, personal power, and attractiveness.

For the healthier partner, dynamics may include grief over the loss of expectations about the relationship, stress of taking on additional responsibilities, resentment over being put in a caretaker role, and an often unspoken concern that their partner is not doing all they can do despite their health issue.

Here is a central and difficult truth in our journey: illness, injury and disability do not define wellness. Human beings have a huge capacity for life, happiness and achievement despite health challenges.

We can’t do all the things we might without our health challenge – there is a necessary journey into acceptance, resolve, and adaption. Wellness is about doing the very best we can with the limitations we carry. Every couple can team up for the greatest mutual endeavor, vibrancy and engagement in life.

FORGING A CONTRACT FOR WELLNESS

I will help you:

• Evaluate the issues, implications and outlook
• Understand each partner’s hope, fears and experience
• Develop realistic and compassionate goals and commitments
• Set a course for the best achievable wellness, cooperation, and happiness

The Contract for Wellness© is an agreement of compassion and support between couples and within families that supports the most vibrant and fulfilling way of life.

The Contract for Wellness© embodies a commitment by both partners to do the best they can for and with one another and the rest of the family. It involves mutual accommodation, respect, best efforts, measured striving, and gratitude for the capacity we have for achievement and happiness.

I ALSO SEE INDIVIDUALS WITH HEALTH PROBLEMS WHO WANT TO LIVE THE FULLEST POSSIBLE LIFE.