Selfish Promises

My God, she gets on my nerves. Why can’t she just deal with this and move on? It can’t hurt that bad!

These are honest thoughts and unfortunately comments that I have made out loud to my wife. She cries a lot and I’m sure for good reason. I couldn’t imagine going through what she endures everyday and luckily I don’t have to. I don’t have to dread the intense pain that is sure to come once a month on schedule. I don’t have to explain to the world that this agony I feel isn’t self-induced. I’ve never been in a situation where the validity of my emotions has been questioned. I have felt the regret of not being as understanding as I can be and as selfless as someone needs me to be.

It’s frustration. We are both frustrated because there are no answers. Last week I went to the doctor’s office with her and held her hand as she described her pain. She used words so expressive that, as a writer, I actually envied her ability to paint such a vivid picture.

It feels as if my uterus has been placed in a meat grinder.
It feels as if I am being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach with a serrated knife.
It feels as if a fire has been lit in my pelvis and the flames are shooting up my back.

Wow. How could I not be understanding when she offers such horrific and illustrative descriptions? How can I even attempt to complain about anything while she suffers? We may need to “shut you down” her doctor suggested as if my wife was an ornery piece of electronic equipment. Just hit the reset button and possibly she would work better after being reset. My wife does not want to be reset nor does she want to be treated like a piece of equipment, especially since there is no guarantee that it will work. Even my wife has felt the agony of self-righteousness because the more we read about Endometriosis the more she understands that things could be worse. There are thousands of women who suffer not only from Endometriosis but the host of problems that are associated with this diagnosis. She wept as she read stories of women who will never know the joy of having children or the women who have developed cancer.

To be a supportive husband in all situations I am learning that the fundamental principle to remember is that it’s not about me. My life, my joy, my pain is shared with my wife. In the middle of night when she wakes me in tears because she desperately needs me to hold her hand… those are the moments when being a husband is more important than anything else. When she celebrates because she is able to mark one more day off her calendar as a day with out pain… again that is when I am required to be more than just a man in her life; I must be the man in her life.

There will be times I am selfish. There will be times I am not very understanding, but through it all I must always remember the promise I made… The promise I will forever keep.