This Valentine’s Day, we want to celebrate love, and recognize the role that illness can play in romantic relationships. When illness impacts your life, it inevitably ends up impacting your partner’s as well. Partners have to navigate the tricky boundaries between lover, friend, and caretaker.
It takes a lot of work and crystal-clear communication to create equal, supportive, loving relationships. But when it works, love with spoonies can be incredibly strong. Vulnerability, communication skills, and empathy are all deepened by the experience of chronic illness, and this can bring relationships such depth!
We asked some of our Friends in the Fight to share their own stories of love and illness: