A Return to Normal Life

I have been hesitant to say this, as it is so often the case that the moment you start to relax and think things are going well that it all turns bad again. But for the first time since my husband's last major relapse in February 2006, we are living what feels like a normal life. This is something I've craved for so long it seems bizarre that we have slipped into it almost unnoticed. I have been scared to acknowledge it in case it turned out to be a mirage. But we have finally arrived at a place where I can book things into my diary without causing problems between us.

For a long time now, I have had to consider my husband's illness every time I try to schedule work; every date has had to be negotiated carefully, and gaps left for him to recover if anything I do will lead to him being overloaded with childcare. I could never, for example, do two days work (out of the house) in a row. Yet next month, I'm going away to Yorkshire for five days, with his blessing. The proof of that pudding will be in the eating, and I hope it's not a dangerous experiment, but its quite something that he feels strong enough to agree to it.

And after a year and a half of not being able to arrange an evening out because my husband is always too ill - too ill to come, and too ill to be left alone to cope with the children - I am finally getting back some kind of social life. For a long time now there has always been a price to pay for going out in the evening; my husband's illness would be worse for a few days; often, he would be angry with me about the position it put him in, the fact that he would feel worse as a result. Agreement to anything that would leave him alone to cope with putting our daughter to bed was given grudgingly; his ME always in precarious balance with my need to live "a normal life". (Something that, in my times of despair, I have mourned the loss of).

In the last couple of weeks, normal life has been there for both of us, as if it never went away. I've been out several times without it causing any kind of problem. I've been able to work full days and emerged to find my husband cheerful and in good health. Even though I've had a heavy week of work, he has managed to hold the fort, and not suffered any kind of setbacks. He 's only marginally more tired, at the end of the day, than I am; and occasionally, less. On Saturday, we going to a party together. It has been a long, long time since he has felt able (or been willing) to go to a party. I'm the gregarious type, and I've very much missed being out with him; being a couple in public.

He's picking up his life again. Friends are beginning to drop in us like they used to; he's started to develop some of his interests, now that he can do the research without getting brain-fogged. He did a full day's work yesterday - performance workshops with primary school children - the sort of thing that, not long ago, would have knocked him back for a week. Yet he was in a better state to get our daughter to nursery this morning than I was, and is currently working at a laptop on the kitchen table, with no sign of malaise or post-exertion fatigue. EFT consistently delivers things that look like miracles, so at some point I should stop being surprised.

I'm fairly confident, too, that he's not overdoing it (as has so often been his downfall in the past) - he is being careful now about what he takes on, and is still listening to his body and resting when he needs to. But his body is giving him less trouble than it has for a long time. No doubt there will be challenges, possibly even setbacks. But we are, at least for now, living what feels to me like the normal life I have been craving ever since his ME took over our lives.

He's not as involved with EFT as I am, yet, but he has turned towards it, and is learning in his own time. He appreciates what it can do for him; for us. I think it's probably harder for people with ME to do their own EFT because of the energy-depleted state of the body; he reports the effects as being much weaker when he does it on himself than when I do it for him. But as his cells slowly repair, this should change.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to live like this; health is one of those things whose value you don't appreciate until you are forced to live without it. I'm actually a little afraid to trust that my husband is going to continue to be well, and be fully restored to me - at this stage, I'm holding something of myself back in case it collapses and proves to be an illusion. Trust needs to be rebuilt on both sides, and strangely, my husband is now rebuilding his trust more quickly than I am. But good and significant things are happening, and so long as he sticks with EFT, I believe we will be alright.