Partner Issues

Hi MillyMolly,

I just read your post and my heart goes out to you. If I am honest I have to say that when I was first diagnosed I was really worried about how my partner of 9 years would react, as he has always been very into the physical side of our relationship. Now, although he has been through various stages of denial and acceptance, I feel that we have weathered the storm. I had metastatic breast cancer with a good chance that I would lose a breast (luckily that didn't happen) and I felt wretched the whole time. Having sex was the furtherest thing from my mind, and while I was immunocompromised it was easy to use that as an excuse to stave off the intimacy. Now that I am on an anti-estrogen regime, and feel about 100 years old most of the time, I have to remind myself that he has needs as well.  In some ways the whole nightmare has strengthened our relationship, but I think I will always remember that even while he talked the talk, there was always the undercurrent of expectation that I was going to go back to being the person I was before my diagnosis. Ain't going to happen. 

Having written all that, I don't know if anything I said is going to be of any help to you. Except maybe to know that they do the best they can, but basically they are pretty shallow creatures.