MS and Your Important Personal Relationships

Important relationships take effort and energy — even without the added challenges of MS. While MS does pose some additional challenges, it can also enrich relationships and bring people closer together. The primary steps to figuring out how to deal with MS in your personal interactions is to:

1. Recognize that the disease affects all of you — whether you have the disease or care about someone who does.

2. Decide whom you want to tell about the MS and what you want them to understand about it.

3. Look for ways to make room for MS in your personal and professional relationships without giving it more time, attention, and energy than it really needs.

Disclose information or No?

Telling others about your MS may be the first thing you want to do — or the last. No two people feel exactly the same about disclosing their MS to others. Keeping in mind that once the information is out there, you can’t take it back, the key is figuring out when disclosure is in your best interest and when it is not. Read more about disclosing to family, friends, employers and colleagues, and someone you are dating.

One-on-One Relationships - Keeping the Balance

When one person in a couple is affected by MS, the other person lives with it as well. To keep your relationship healthy and balanced, it’s important to make sure that both of you stay on the giving and receiving end of the relationship, in spite of whatever changes MS may bring. Learn how to manage MS as team and enhance your communication and intimacy.

Parenting 

Family Planning Decisions — The good news is that women and men with MS can be successful parents of happy, healthy children. Learn the up-to-date findings about the impact of MS on conception, pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding, and the impact of childbearing on MS from the National MS Society at this link:  http://www.nationalmssociety.org/living-with-multiple-sclerosis/healthy-living/pregnancy/index.aspx

Talking with Children about MS — Kids tend to worry when they know something’s up — even if Mom or Dad has no visible symptoms. Get some hints about how and when to begin talking about MS with your children and check out the special resources for young children and teens from the National MS Society at this link:  http://www.nationalmssociety.org/multimedia-library/brochures/for-children--teenagers/index.aspx

Taking Care of Yourself While Caring for Someone Else

Caring for someone with a chronic illness like MS can be deeply satisfying. Spouses and partners, family, and friends can be drawn more closely together by their shared concerns and collaborative efforts. But care giving can also be physically and emotionally exhausting, particularly for the primary caregiver. While this is most often a partner or spouse, the primary caregiver may also be an adult child, parent, or friend. Whoever you are, remember that paying attention to your own health and well-being is essential to being able to care for someone else.