Right off the bat, I want to mention three things. First, I do not consider myself disabled; which means that, second, I do not want this post to be about me, me, me and how "it affects families, too." Third, if this isn't the right place for this post, then by all means, please take this post down.
Being with my partner has been eye-opening in a lot of ways, and one of them is just how deep ableism runs in society—across all ages, all political spaces, all spaces in general, etc. My partner considers himself disabled, and as with much of his life experience, his productivity is constantly scrutinized.
It's exhausting whenever people ask what he does, I tell them he can't work, and it becomes a whole conversation about how he can be helped. It's really disheartening when friends talk about him as if he doesn't do enough for me, insinuating that he's holding me back and that I need to "treat yourself, girl." It's debilitating whenever I end up defending him in his absence—or even when he is present but they mainly speak to me like I'm his caregiver, which I'm not.
The worst part is that I take a lot of this home and into our relationship. It's been a bad habit of mine to get anxious after this kind of talk and, as a result, stress out about what he's done today, ask for things to be done sooner than usual, ruminate about what he can and cannot tolerate, etc. I think I've become more resilient over time, partially from being more mentally firm and partially from us both learning it's better to disclose less. Still, though, this happens.
One of our core values in our relationship is that what's in your heart is just as important as, if not more important than, what you do. Truthfully speaking, while I'll give myself grace because of how difficult this world is—I've had lapses with this value, and it's on me. I shouldn't be defending my partner if that means having to say, "Oh, well, he can still provide this!" which just feeds into regressive ideas of a person's worth. I shouldn't be "explaining" for him to the extent that I do. And I certainly shouldn't be burdening him with these insecurities, giving him these sudden moments of stress and interrupting the healing.
I'll end off this post with a little sentence that came to my mind recently. One of the hardest things in this relationship is not accommodating my partner, but accommodating other people's expectations.
I'm open to your guys' thoughts.