Goal: To give each other support even when one is caring for the other. Image: Stocksy
A serious illness, a stroke – and suddenly your partner needs around-the-clock care. What happens to the relationship if the partnership of equals is lost? And how do you carry on anyway?
This text begins with two statements that are similar: “He was my great sparring partner,” is one; the other: “We were a dream team for over 30 years.” Such statements describe what makes long partnerships fulfilling. Added to this is the knowledge that the other person won’t let me down, come what may.
Eva Schlafer
Editor in the “Life” department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
The two women who wrote these sentences do not know each other. But they have one thing in common: they didn’t abandon their husbands. One, a doctor from Schleswig-Holstein and in her late fifties, had to bury her husband about a year and a half ago after four years of illness, care and character changes – and then set out to find out what actually happened. The other, a communications expert from Saxony and in her early fifties, knows her husband is still at her side, but he is a different person. In January 2021, a stroke turned an energetic and eloquent family man into a severely disabled person. It is important to both women to talk about what it means when equal partnership is lost – and how you can carry on anyway.