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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Dating someone with chronic condition

114 replies

Topsyair · 06/07/2021 18:30

Been dating a well controlled type 1 diabetic for a few weeks. Hes lovely but I'm worried if its gets serious about the future with regards to his condition. I sound like a bitch but I dont want to end up a carer or with someone who may die years before me

OP posts:
AbsentmindedWoman · 07/07/2021 09:26

@Enko

Op what is your concern? I dont get this at all. Dh has diabetes t2. And it only impacts our life when I consider meals and even there not massively. Could you read up on diabetes and learn more as it sounds like you do not fully understand how it impacts and are looking for negatives
Type 2 is a very different disease.

It really does not present the same particular set of challenges.

It's 4am where I am. I have not slept. My $5000 insulin pump has misfired (quite dangerously, I've had two hypos where I was wondering if we'd be calling an ambulance) and I have just spent an hour on the phone to tech support.

My sugars had been weird and shit for 12 hours. I had been putting down to period. Oh well.

Type 2 is a shit show in a very different sort of way to type 1. I have every sympathy with T2Ds though - we are all vulnerable to the same grisly complications in the end.

Cowbells · 07/07/2021 09:42

@Topsyair

Been dating a well controlled type 1 diabetic for a few weeks. Hes lovely but I'm worried if its gets serious about the future with regards to his condition. I sound like a bitch but I dont want to end up a carer or with someone who may die years before me
My dad has type 1. He's well into his eighties and is only now starting to see bad side effects. Until well into his seventies he was very active, travelled all over the world, still worked, had a social life that exhausted me just to hear about it. If your partner controls his blood sugar (and it gets easier to do this with recent developments) then there's no reason he should be less healthy than anyone else. You might get ill yourself. Would he skip off?
MoreAloneTime · 07/07/2021 09:50

I know it's the kind of thing that your mother says when the kids are being mean to you at school but I really do believe when people say nasty things to someone it says a lot more about the person who says it than tge person it's aimed at.

OP whether it's fair or accurate or not it's better to think about this sort of thing now. Everyone has their limit and being a carer isn't a fairytale.

thing47 · 07/07/2021 09:59

Lots and lots of T1 experience here (all 4 members of immediate family have it). Can't say I'm particularly offended by the OP, maybe she just hasn't got any knowledge of the condition.

But the truth is, vast improvements in T1 knowledge, technology and management have been made over the past couple of decades and, hopefully, will continue. There's no reason to think a well controlled T1 can't do anything they want in terms of work, hobbies, travel, sport. etc. And no reason to think you will ever need to become a carer either.

That said, if your potential partner's health is a deal-breaker for you, perhaps it would be best for both of you not to get too emotionally involved.

Ohhok · 07/07/2021 11:15

Na, I think he deserves better.
You have no idea how healthy anyone will be in old age, literally ANYTHING can happen. You could get cancer next week and you might need a carer! Who knows!
Would you abandon your own child if it was disabled too?

longtompot · 07/07/2021 11:35

Thank you @MistySkiesAfterRain and @CharlotteRose90 She is doing ok. Some bad days, especially when it's first time without. I hope she meets someone else, but I think this will have knocked her confidence and her ability to trust anyone in this way. She was 100% committed to this person, they were looking to move in together and start that part of their life.

Lockheart · 07/07/2021 11:48

Christ there are some bitches on this thread - and I'm not referring to the OP.

You can not date someone for whatever reason you choose. That said, I would encourage you OP to do some further research into what living with T1 means, as this might help ease some of your concerns (which are not necessarily stupid or invalid). I'm assuming that you like him and it's just this one thing which is scaring you.

The idea of living with or caring for someone with a chronic condition can be scary for those who have no experience. The thought of losing the partner you love at an early age is an unpleasant one to say the least. But that is not a given with T1 diabetes.

I have watched my mum care for my father (not diabetes but a long term, incurable condition) - it's not a life I would choose for myself, were I given the option.

WhatMattersMost · 07/07/2021 11:56

@Topsyair - You have had a fucking hard time on this thread, and it's totally uncalled for. Shame on you, all of you who have jumped on a totally understandable question!

If you're concerned, then the relationship probably isn't for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, or you. And perhaps you'll change your mind, who knows? Because that, too, is your prerogative. (As it is your new partner's prerogative to make his own decisions.)

Try to ignore the vitriol. That says everything about the poster, and precious little about you.

SavageBeauty73 · 07/07/2021 12:32

The responses on this thread are completely OTT. She's entitled to express her concern on an anonymous forum!

Coronawireless · 07/07/2021 12:37

A totally reasonable question OP.

BelterDelta · 07/07/2021 13:06

This….

Dating someone with chronic condition
FrankieDettol · 07/07/2021 15:31

One of my main worries as someone with relapsing remitting MS is how I'm perceived by others. Luckily I have a truly amazing boyfriend who couldn't be more supportive. He's not my carer, I guess he might be one day if my condition gets worse. In the same way I'd care for him if he needed it.
Right now we laugh, have a brilliant friendship and lots of sex Smile

Do your bf a favour and let him find someone who truly accepts him.

Oblomov21 · 07/07/2021 18:31

And Sir Steve Redgrave.
Rowing is one of, if not the most calorific sports of all.

Persephone89 · 07/08/2021 23:05

@AbsentmindedWoman

I assumed you were going to say something far more complex than diabetes!

It's diabetes, the most you'll have to deal with is the odd hypo

Posts like this are totally ignorant of the reality of what it means to live with type 1 diabetes.

It is EXTREMELY complex. It is incredibly dismissive to pretend that it is not. It is wearing and relentless and diabetes burnout is very common.

I have lived with it for 25 years and have met many, many people with T1D, all with various experiences ranging from the lucky people who have the magic combo of good resources and not being brittle right up to friends who are not so lucky, who have lost most of their vision and are on dialysis and have had heart attacks in their 30s.

NONE of them would say oh diabetes isn't complex, just the odd hypo Hmm They would all agree that it is in fact hard work, requires constant attention, and that there is a significant mental and emotional toll attached to the constant awareness of what your glucose is doing, at any time.

Exercise can make your blood sugar go up, as well as down. Pain, weather being particularly cold or hot, running for the bus, a bad night's sleep, a tense exchange with a colleague, the adrenalin from doing something like performing on stage...the list is endless.

A fucking shower or brushing my teeth is enough to make my liver do a glucose dump OR send me freefalling into a hypo depending on how many other variables from the above list have happened that day.

But it's not complex. Right.

It honestly makes me despair at times how NOBODY understands this disease, unless you have it or a close family member or friend have it.

I speak from a position of immense privilege with the most advanced technology available in the world - an insulin pump which receives feedback from a glucose sensor on my arm, and every 5 minutes changes the tiny pulse of insulin that is administered into my body.

More importantly, I have an incredibly supportive wife. I am lucky - when I go to sleep, I feel safe that I have my sensor to alarm and scream like a banshee if I go dangerously low, and if I cannot wake up my wife will call the ambulance.

Because I am fortunate enough to have these resources, I am so well managed you wouldn't know I have T1D to look at my bloodwork - unless I'm premenstrual, then all bets are off Grin

Despite the tech, my "perfect" a1c of 5.2 (with a standard deviation of just over 1, so not an artificially good a1c made up of highs and lows...) requires a lot of hard fucking work. Maintaining those numbers is a neverending slog, especially around ovulation and period where I have constant broken nights spending hours coaxing my numbers to where they should be.

T1D is work.

@AbsentmindedWoman - fellow type one here (20 years since diagnosis) and 100% agree.
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