Dating with a chronic health condition - optimistic stories needed!

[TooTiredForDating]

Can anyone with a chronic health condition or disability give me hopeful stories of how they met someone? I have been single for 2 years, and was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune condition 4 years ago. I have awful bouts of pain and fatigue which can make life very challenging. I can't see how on earth I will ever date again. I have a small life due to my condition, and with online dating I cant imagine anyone moving past the chronic condition bit. Please tell me some positive stories!

Oh dear, no one?

I can’t offer you a success story as I’m not currently dating but when I was on one of the sites I did see other people who mentioned chronic health conditions too.

I’m not sure if that’s helpful, I suppose I was thinking that there will be others out there with similar challenges who might be sympathetic. And also, people face all sorts of other challenges and even if they don’t suffer from a chronic condition themselves, may have people close to them that do, and might understand what that could mean in terms of energy etc. I know and have known lots of people with autoimmune conditions of all kinds. It wouldn’t put me off dating someone.

Wishing you luck!

DP has Crohns which causes fatigue (as well as the other obvious symptoms). It didn't really come up when we were first dating but by the time we were serious enough for him to tell me, there were occasions when he needed to rearrange things (i.e. we'd stay in instead of go out). To be honest I never even considered not dating him because of it. Maybe I would have if he'd told me very early on, but probably more because it would have felt like it was a huge component of his life when in actual fact, it just means sometimes we work around it. Besides, I come with plenty of my own baggage (widow with a 6 year old!) so honestly, I think I got the better end of the deal!

Hi OP, I can give you a very positive story! I have several very debilitating health conditions causing severe fatigue and a lot of other issues. I am chronically ill and disabled. I met my partner online and we’ve been together ever since. To be honest when I was looking , I wasn’t too hopeful about my chances of getting into a relationship as my condition had got a lot worse since my last one. But like you, my life was (and is) small. I realised that if I didn’t put myself out there, I probably would never meet someone. If I did, I just might.

We just clicked when we met, and it turned out that I had qualities that were more important to my partner than physical fitness or a busy social life. He is an introvert so our very quiet lifestyle suits him fine.

My advice is to focus on your strengths and develop your interests, anything at all that interests you. These are potential routes to bonding with someone who shares those interests. Anyone living with a long term illness develops insight, and a deeper appreciation of the good things in life. There are people out there who appreciate these things. They may have illness themselves, or problems like extreme shyness which you might be able to help them with.

Hope this is encouraging - all the best to you x

A while after my marriage break up I met a really lovely chap online, we will have been together 3 years in May. I have a visually obvious disability and an unrelated chronic autoimmune disease which both affect my daily life.
I mentioned my disability before the date, once we’d been chatting online for a short while but only mentioned the autoimmune condition when it became clear that we were well suited and it was likely to impact our relationship. I saw no need to share this information until that point.

There are some lovely men out there and if you click, you click.

My rule of thumb was to only mention it when it became relevant or necessary.