Downs and Ups

Things seem to improve much more quickly, now, than they have been doing for the last year and a half. There are still some problems, some areas of conversation that are possibly still not ready to be discussed. But we are coming together more quickly after things go wrong. It frightens me when it collapses - I'm send right back into despair; everything feels insoluble. But he is less unreasonable than before. He is more willing to take steps towards me. When he sees I am upset, his resentment evaporates more quickly (instead of being provoked).

We had the nicest weekend I can remember for a long time. We just relaxed together, doing very little. He's still really ill from my overloading him (which finished ten days ago or so) and I'm doing what I can to help him feel better. On Saturday evening we went for a long, gentle stroll along the seafront, further than we have walked since we were courting. [Both of us, in the last seven years, have had health conditions that have prevented us walking very far at times.] We had our daughter with us; she was happy and playing, and clambering and "doing excercise" (she's not yet four) and saying the sorts of things that make adults laugh. It was so lovely to be together, and just talk about stuff. He was the man I remember, the man I fell in love with, explaining the world to me in a way that makes sense (his philosophies about the nature of people, and of happiness, always seem absolutely right - and are reassuring). I didn't want it to end; it was like being transported back to the time before ME, before we had a daughter.

This is hard to say, and I don't want to be misunderstood. I don't blame our daughter for Paul's ME in any way. She is a joy, and we are both devoted to her. But the ME coincided very closely with her arrival; the big viral event that he never seemed to recover from began less than three months after she was born. He was overdoing it. I had a pregnancy-induced instability of the pelvis (SPD) that meant I couldn't walk without great pain, and we pretty much sofa-bound for three months before and three months after the birth. Because he felt so responsible, in that way that impending and new fathers do, he was working two jobs - the job he loved, which didn't pay but involved being out until late every night, and a cash-in-hand physically demanding job - removals - which meant he had to get up early. He was also taking on more than his fair share of running the home because of my physical impairment. Once our daughter was born, he was also helping to look after her, doing nappies, taking her with him when he could, pacing or dancing her to sleep when she was restless. He was brilliant. He was totally over-doing though. Then he got a bad cold and he didn't stop for it. He said he "couldn't". I can't remember if he dropped removals - quite possibly not. It was Christmas, I wasn't working, had only state maternity benefit, and we were struggling financially. Nor did he drop the job he did for love, which kept him out till midnight, or later. Perhaps he cut down a little on looking after me and his daughter (my pelvis was stabilising, I could do more) but was still doting on us both, and therefore wanted to continue doing whatever he could. He said he would stop working and have a proper Christmas holiday from the 21st December; three weeks off. But at the end of that three weeks he was still ill. Six months later, he was still ill.

This whole three years since has been one long struggle to come to terms with this illness; to, on some level, accept it and accommodate it. We still fight it, both of us. I am still so angry, sometimes, when I think of what it has done to us. But there is no way out of here without accommodation. And there may still be no way out of here.

I don't wish we'd never had our daughter. Enjoying her, together, was a large part of what made Saturday night so special. She is the bridge that enables us way to fight our way back to each other. She is so precious to us, and we are both so proud of her, and thank goodness, when times get really tough, we have something we can agree on.