Love questions
When the partner doesn’t care about health
© Ruslan Huzau / Shutterstock
Is love the answer to all questions? Not quite. It also provides quite a few. Psychologist and couples therapist. Oskar Holzberg answers them all.
What if my partner doesn’t care about their health? The relationship is ailing and love is weakening.
I will never forget this couple. Two lovable elderly people, caring and humorous towards each other. They just had one problem. He had said goodbye to their sexuality since he began to suffer from erectile dysfunction. Since he always emphasized that he would continue to find her attractive, his wife asked him again and again to see if there was a physical cause for his symptoms. He seldom refused a heartfelt wish. But here he hesitated, after all, he was completely physically fit. When, after years, he finally went to the urologist, it was too late. Advanced prostate cancer. An operation did not save him for long, and two years later he died of cancer. His wife was sitting on my couch, weeping, clenched her fists and kept saying, “That stupid guy, oh that stupid guy!”
If you don’t take care of your health, then I’ll be sick with you
Basically it’s easy. When we share our lives, we are at the same time allowing ourselves to be dependent on one another. If you snore, I can’t sleep. If you squander money, I’ll be in need too. If you become an alcoholic, then I’ll be addicted to you. And if you don’t take care of your health, then I’ll be sick with you.
Oskar Holzberg, 67, has been advising couples in his Hamburg practice for over 20 years and has been married for over 30 years. His current book is called “Neue Schlüsselsätze der Liebe” (240 pages, 11 euros, DuMont).
© Ilona Habben
As soon as you’re sick, it hits me twice. I suffer with you, worry about you, don’t want you to be bad. But my life is also restricted by your condition. I have to do your chores around the house and with the children. What I want to enjoy with you is not possible now: the excursion, the trip, not to mention sex and bike rides. And when your immune system weakens, you infect me too. And ultimately you leave me alone when your illness is fatal.
So I can’t care what you do with your health. I don’t have to watch when you treat yourself badly. It’s an excuse when I tell myself that you are an adult after all and that it is your business if you don’t want to go to the doctor with your complaints. On the contrary: I not only have the right to confront you because I am always affected – my love for you almost obliges me. Because who but me will notice how careless you are with your health?
It is now known that men in particular are reluctant to seek help and often steer clear of doctors. Nobody can carry an unwilling partner into the next waiting room. But we can strongly advocate that our other half take care of their health. It can help to become softer with each other and to look together at the fears and needs that both are experiencing. But we should argue, strike – yes, ultimately break up when our partner absolutely refuses. Because if we don’t reach them with our requests, we get the feeling that we are not important. And that really makes us and our love sick.
“Couple adox” is the podcast with Oskar Holzberg and his wife Claudia. You speak openly about topics that keep challenging relationships. Funny, exciting and insightful! I.a. on Audio Now.
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