Building a Strong Relationship While Crohn’s Tore Me Down

My boyfriend of 5 years and I will be getting engaged this year. Why did it take so long for us to commit, you might ask? We can thank Crohn’s for that.

I met the love of my life during a random sweet spot of my Crohn’s journey. I had just started Humira and it was working. 

Falling in love

I met my boyfriend at LaGuardia Airport as we were waiting for the same flight home to Florida. It was a serendipitous encounter and quite the romantic story, but I could go on and on about that and I don’t want to bore you.

But needless to say, our first 3-5 months of dating were bliss. I was feeling pretty well health-wise, although I never hit remission, I was functioning. We fell in love hard and fast and we both knew we would marry. When you know, you know, right?

Then my Crohn's hit hard

Well, soon my health took a turn for the worst. I lost an incredible amount of weight. I was bedridden.  I entered a horrible flare that lasted almost 2 years straight.

In the meantime, I saw many doctors. Tried new biologics. Got off medication and tried doing the holistic route. It was insanity.

And through it all, my handsome man was by my side and refused to leave.

The toll of Crohn's on a new relationship

Like a heart-wrenching cheesy, romantic novel, I told him many times to go. That I was ill and I didn’t want him dealing with this, but he refused. And I was so glad to have him by my side. He was and is the greatest support in my life.

After the 2 years, there was a slight glimmer of hope in improvement of my health, but then suddenly again, I was back in a severe flare that lasted almost another 2 years. Long story short, it wasn’t until about last June that I started to be able to function like a normal human being again. 

And if you can imagine, our relationship was greatly impacted by all of the ups and downs of my health.

Facing my Crohn's together

We had moments where we both came close to splitting up in the name of love. We are in our early 30s and have goals and dreams and my Crohn's was keeping these things from happening. But even when we came close, we couldn’t do it. We love each other too much and somehow we stuck it through.

Now things seem to finally be looking up. The new medication I am on has allowed me to function like a normal person again. Although I still deal with symptoms (mostly urgency, nausea, and fatigue due to anemia), I am back in the land of the living. And in turn, our future looks bright again and realistic.

What's next for us?

We plan to marry this year and soon after we would like to start a family, as that is something incredibly important to us. 

However, I would be lying if I didn’t say that every now and then I think to myself, "Am I capable of being a mom with Crohn’s?" Stay tuned, as one of my upcoming posts will dive deeper into this question...