Do I ever get a chance to come first?

Dear Terri,

I need help. How do I deal with accepting that I have to focus on my PWP while still feeling like I do have value? It’s so frustrating!

Signed,

The nearly invisible woman

Dear Nearly Invisible,

You have asked about three things, really

• Acceptance

• Frustration

• Holding on to your feelings of worth.

It’s hard.

To answer your questions I started by looking for quotes about acceptance. 

There were plenty, but this one from Gilda Radner caught my eye.

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.

You may know that Gilda was a member of Second City and was in the original cast of Saturday Night Live,  She was a gifted comic. A TV success. She was married to actor Gene Wilder, and once described their marriage as changing her life from black and white to technicolor.

And yet,

As her character Roseanne Rosannadanna said “It’s always something.”

Gilda’s something was the ovarian cancer that ended her life in her 40s..

Your “something,” your husband’s and yours, is Parkinson’s.

Acceptance doesn’t mean liking what’s happened. It doesn’t mean thinking it’s a good thing. It means seeing that, along with the good things that just happened in your life, these changes also “just happened.” 

“It’s always something.”

How you accept, then?

What else can you do? 

If you could change them, you would.

It doesn’t mean you have to think they are good. Or like them.  The fact is, it’s a rotten something you have to deal with in some way. 

How do you handle the frustration? 

You learn to adjust your expectations to fit the reality of the present. It’s frustrating if he constantly spills things just after you’ve mopped the floors. But if you no longer expect your floors to be always clean, then you can be tired of mopping, but less frustrated by the fact that it’s necessary. And some days, you just let the floors be less than perfect.

How do hold on to your feeling or worth?

You learn to put your PWP’s needs first—when you can. When you want to.

But you also learn that your partner’s PD does not require you to give up everything you value in your life.

It takes time to make these adjustments. I wish I could tell you right here all of what I have learned about them.  But I do talk about these topics often. Be patient with yourself –even before you become patient with your PWP.

You count too.

Hugs x 4

Terri