Thank you haha! Someone posted this screenshot so I used it as my profile
Aaah yes I read about which side to get pierced and that in some cultures the left is linked to female reproduction and pain relief? I wasn’t much of a tattoos and piercing person either, but just fancied a subtle nose stud
Re your nose piercing, that's interesting about the left side as my acupuncturist uses a point on the left side of my nose for energy! It's right where a piercing would be.
Here’s Shanes gag inducing IG post for anyone who wants to read it. Shane sure does have a “burden” complex. I’ve never noticed how often he speaks for Hannah but he does it a lot. He makes it seem like he just needs assistance for a couple of annoyingly difficult tasks like brushing his teeth and getting dressed. Other than that, he’s good to go. Right.
I recently had a relatively tiny insight into receiving care from a partner and it's such a mindfuck. I have quite severe long covid (aka PASC) and when I had a relapse earlier this year, I was housebound for about 6 weeks. I could just about get myself to the toilet and back to bed, but that was it. I ended up being moved into my boyfriend's place so he could help look after me and it *immediately* effects your relationship. Not necessarily negatively, but it's a totally different dynamic. I had to ask him to do things like blow dry my hair for me, as well as cook all the meals and generally wait on me for things as I needed them.
My partner supported me and cared for me without complaint as it was what needed to be done, and because he loves me and wants me to get better. However, if it were a much more long term status of being housebound, I think we would have had to have looked at getting professional care in so that it didn't keep affecting us and him so much. Even now, being intimate is still something that feels a little awkward, as we had the carer and receiver situation for a while and he's now worried about hurting me in some way. He was emphatic that I wasn't a burden, BUT, it did add to his own pressures of things he needed to get done. It did stress him out. We both have therapists and I think that has been such a help in keeping us both sane through my slow recovery.
Anyway, essay over! My ultimate point is, there is so much complexity to being a caregiver and receiver in a relationship, with difficult emotions, experiences and day to day joys and struggles. S&G could do so much good by talking about these things, so that they're less taboo. They could focus on how they keep the caregiving and relationship side of things separate (or not) and how they navigate some of the grey areas. I wouldn't care if they didn't pitch themselves as activists/advocates, but they're actually creating harmful expectations of what caregiving from a partner should look like.
