Unless you go into your marriage with a pre-existing condition, most people just assume that they will spend most of their marriage in health. Sure, you know that there will be colds and coughs, but that can be easily dismissed as nothing to worry about, and you believe that your sweetheart will surely be there to take tender care of you when you don’t feel well.
The reality is, sickness, on some level, ends up being a part of pretty much everyone’s life, and it isn’t usually as romantic as we make it out to be. When both people work, and especially when there are young children in the home, sickness is, at best, a major interruption in the flow of things and, at worst, a threat to all that you are building in your marriage and family. Minor illnesses still mean that someone has to pick up the slack and can represent a loss of income on some level.
If you’re not the one who is sick, you can’t let resentment of the extra hassle or worry about the effect on your spouse’s paycheck keep you from putting his or her needs first. It’s not your partner’s fault he or she is sick, and that person really needs your love and caring. After all, when we commit to marriage, isn’t that what we expect? That our spouse will love us and care for us when we are the one with a need?
I’ll always appreciate the way my wife stayed strong and supportive when we went through a bad scare one night. I have a heart murmur and I developed an arrhythmia one afternoon. I went to have it checked and ended up being rushed by ambulance to a cardiology unit in another city a few hours later. She was there for me, even though I’m sure she was scared, and she didn’t allow me to have to worry about how she was handling things. She put her own concerns aside and showed true love in sickness.
Naturally, sickness isn’t always that dramatic, and many couples won’t have to face nights in the hospital until much later in life. During any kind of sickness, you have an opportunity to show real love by being a comfort and strength to the one you love. Something as simple as doing the chores that your spouse would normally do is a real blessing. A bowl of soup, a movie in the DVD player, and letting your husband or wife know that you’ll take care of everything speaks volumes about your love
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