It’s refreshing to see some compassion toward the struggling person in this scenario.

A depressing statistic that I try my best to fight against both in my life and through commentary like this. We men can be so strong in situations we have been prepared for and so helpless and hapless when we aren't for any number of reasons, many of them our fault, and many of them systemic and societal. At the end of the day we have become less well connected with what I believe to be a truism: life will give you challenges, both those which you're ready for and those which you never saw coming. You can learn to sink, swim or float on the waves but they are going to come whether you've got your water wings on or not. How you respond can be the difference between drowning, surviving and going surfing. And having a partner is meant to be about having someone to help you stand on the board, catch you when you wobble, hold you when you're both in the water and tell you that in the end even if no help is coming that they love you and that they are with you. And you owe them the same.

Katy McMouse

Katy McMouse

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Yes, that is a depressing statistic, but I believe there are more men like you than we realize. The thing about accounts, like the one we read, is that we rarely hear the good stories - only the nightmare stories. AITA seems to be popular and a place where people can get the bad stuff off their chests, which is fine. However, we almost never see sites dedicated to people praising the things that partners (mainly men) get rite on a consistent basis (at least not on BP). I'm not slamming the bad accounts, but I really think that the good and decent partners out there just don't advertise the fact that they ARE good and decent because for them, it's in their nature and who goes around bragging about that? It's normal for them and not something that needs to be analyzed on a regular basis. I hope this makes sense - I have some sort of stomach bug that's kicking my butt and killing more brain cells by today. Anyway, you're a good guy and we need more people like you in this world.

To distract from that depressing fact, though, I will share that my husband's uncle's wife has ALS and has been wheelchair-bound and unable to speak for years. She still has control of her hands and arms, however, which is apparently unusual, so she spends basically all day knitting. She's phenomenal at it. She told me through her text to speech device that she's been knitting for ~50 years, so it's probably just really deeply established and so she's less likely to lose it. But her husband has done everything for her for the past number of years with love and compassion and it is beautiful to see.

A beautiful story and for one I hope to have the strength to be that supportive or the grace to accept my changes as both your family members have shown.