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Surviving Your Spouse's Chronic Illness
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List Price:
$13.95
Fitness-Health-Care Price: $50.64
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Owl Bay Publishers
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.044019
EAN: 9780805055733
ISBN: 0805055738
Label: Owl Bay Publishers
Manufacturer: Owl Bay Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 238
Publication Date: 1999-02
Publisher: Owl Bay Publishers
Studio: Owl Bay Publishers
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Editorial Reviews:
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The emotional and psychological impact of caring for a chronically ill spouse. When one's spouse is diagnosed with a serious illness, two lives are devastated. The partner is a victim, too. Author Chris McGonigle, who was a well spouse for fifteen years, draws on her own personal experience and on that of the many other men and women whom she interviewed and who spoke frankly to her about what it is really like to take care of a chronically ill spouse. Her honest book reassures readers that they are not alone in what they feel and are going through. The topics covered include initial reaction to the diagnosis; denial; communication; what losing the sexual part of marriage means; anger; violence; parenting; and spirituality. A final section tells where to turn for help. Through the wisdom and compassion of the many voices in the book, readers will learn how others cope and what they themselves can do to survive.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Someone understands!
Comment: I have finally found someone who truly understands what I am going through every day. This book presented the REAL- yes the well spouse has anger and feels isolated and desires sex! This book has been a God-send for me! I am so glad that I found it and I recommend it to anyone who finds him or herself in my unfortunate situation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Deeply flawed
Comment: The spouses of the chronically ill often suffer in little-known and terrible ways. Few resources are available to help them. This ought not be. But this book, despite its promising title, will not provided desperately needed help for those who attempt to minister to their chronically ill spouses.
The reason is simple. The most important reality for handling chronic illness is ongoing love and commitment, despite the pain, frustration, and anger. In chapter three, Mrs. McGonigle condones adultery when the well partner has had enough and needs to have her or his sexual and emotional "needs" met by another man or woman. She even admits to committing adultery herself-during a one-year "affair"-and justifies this in self-deceptive ways. Her husband supposedly tacitly allowed for it. She even claims that this betrayal ended up strengthening her relationship to him. That is utter garbage.
The wedding vows do not allow for that serve-serving and sinful path of destruction. Yes, living with the chronically ill is hell. One often does not know how cope. Nevertheless, the path of virtue demands faithfulness. Would Mrs. McGonigle have allowed for her husband to commit adultery if she had been the one with a chronic illness? If so, the debauchery only intensifies. For a more faithful response to chronic illness, read "Beyond Chaos" by Greg Phiburn.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Why?
Comment: This book starts out with great ideas and empathy for the "well" spouse, giving them a sense of support and understanding. Yet, it suggest the well spouse have an affair to curb their sexual needs. I find this deplorable! I am chronically ill and the thought of my husband having sex with another woman makes me sick. I don't care that the author claims her ill husband sort of consented to it. He said he did not want to know about it if she did. Obviously, it was not really okay with him. What happened to "for better or worse" or "in sickness and in health?" Marriage is about a commitment, not about selfish urges. Besides, there are many other ways to be fulfilled sexually within marraige, other than intercourse, if this is not possible for the couple. Illness and impotence are not an excuse or justifiable reason for an affair.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A must have for the well spouse
Comment: This book is wonderful. It helped me so much to know that the feelings that I have are completely normal to the well spouse of a chronically ill patient. From the anger and resentment to the wonderful feelings of love it is all explained here for us.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Recommended, but with certain reservations.
Comment: Part of my job is to review and recommend books in the chronic illness category. I borrowed this from the library, with hope, for this subject is not much written on (as distinct from "caregiving" in general.) It is certainly a complete, and fully accepting, description of a desperate situation (from the author's own experience, and those of others that she interviewed.) Don't look to this book for instructions on how to give a bed bath, it is not that kind. Look to it for an honest approach, without the "plaster saint" image, to feelings and stressful emotions. (The opening words, spoken by the author to her understanding parents are, "I wish he would die.") HOWEVER - no matter how much this book is to be honored for its completeness and honesty, there is a warning: Not everyone will accept her solution to her husband's impotence: She took a lover, with her husband's tacit approval, "As long as I don't know about it." If you can't accept this kind of thing, give this book a miss.
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