In Reality, Love Is Hard

We see it on our screens all the time.

The hot man or woman with the perfect shape hooking up with the perfect partner and living happily ever after with no problems.

The world is full of people looking for that hot, strong man or that perfect good looking man or woman with the perfect body.

Nobody takes a reality check and thinks about the future.

People change. Life also changes.

The strong, athletic hot man or beautiful woman may change physically in the future. They could have a life-changing illness or accident that leads to a disability where they are no longer as strong as they were before, are limited in activity, change in physique and more.

My husband was strong before he had his car crash despite having a tumour removed in his early childhood and having some right-sided weakness and other mild problems. He developed chronic pain after that car crash, and a few years after; Covid-19 worsened all the disabilities he had.

• He is limited in his walking and running ability which means he can no longer run marathons or walk as fast as he could before without pain.
• His strength is limited and he cannot lift like he used to. He used to be able to pick me up and he can no longer do that.
• He has to sit on a specially adapted chair just to wash up in the kitchen.
• He can't manage stairs very well and needs help getting up them.
• He needs help with dressing and bathing often
• He needs help getting up sometimes when he is sitting down
• He is in pain all the time.

He often feels guilty because things were different when we first met.

He was the one caring for me while I overcame my mental health difficulties.

He often feels scared that I will leave him and want something better. However, there are many people who left him when he was recovering from the damage left behind by the tumour, and when he was grieving.

He also faced a lot of rejection in the past because the neurosurgery and chemotherapy treatment he had in the past caused some brain damage, leaving him with many behavioural and mental health problems.

The point is, people were fine with him until they knew about this. It was almost like they saw him differently and were afraid of him, despite him being still himself and human like the rest of us.

It is a sad world that we live in when we as humans claim to love someone, yet can't accept faults, imperfections and disabilities. When we fall in love, we cannot expect a person to still be that same person in say five or ten years' time.

We must expect the unexpected because love is hard.

We change not just through disability and illness, some of which can have permanently damaging consequences; we also change with age.

Our personality, looks and physique change and age with us. We do not stay in our youth; we go through many changes and we grow old.

When we fall in love and get married, or even if we choose to be together as girlfriend or boyfriend; we must learn not to base love on looks or the figure alone. We must base love on the person, and we must understand that things in the future might change and prepare for those changes the best we can.

Of course, we do not expect our partners to suddenly go through life-changing accidents or illnesses, though they do happen.

However, the people we love are still human.

They are still the people that we fell in love with in the first place, and disability and illness no matter how severe do not mean that they are suddenly unlovable.