Friends and family

One of the most difficult hurdles can be telling your friends and family about your partner’s diagnosis. Before doing this, you and your partner should discuss who you want to tell, and when and how much you want to tell them. At first your partner may be reluctant to let people know. This is perfectly understandable. However, if you have a close network of family and friends it can be more stressful trying to keep the information concealed.

Some people react to the news better than others and some will find it difficult to know what to say. Occasionally, there may be people who are unable to deal with the news and withdraw from you. This can feel hurtful. Perhaps it may help to stay in touch with these people in less direct ways such as by email or letter.

Involving people

Many friends and family offer their support straight away and go out of their way to do anything to help. There may also be people who want to be supportive but don’t know how to approach you, or worry about intruding on you at a difficult time.

If you and your partner decide that you would like to involve people, it is important to find a way of telling them that you would appreciate their help without putting them under any obligation. Discuss with your partner the things you may be struggling with, so that if people do offer to help you know what to say. It can be useful to offer a choice of tasks, such as cooking, cleaning, shopping or collecting children from school.

There may be times when you feel that although you have plenty of practical help for you and your partner, you don’t have enough emotional support for yourself. You may have a friend or sibling who is always happy to lend an ear, someone who enjoys a night out or a work colleague who makes a good sports partner. If so, try to maintain these relationships and the activities you share; they will help you feel less isolated when people are rallying around your partner.

Dealing with people

You may find that people drop in to see you and your partner. Although this is well intended, unplanned visits can sometimes be inconvenient. It might help to work out with your partner the times and days that are best for you to have visitors and let your friends and family know. This way you will not only appreciate their visits more, but also be less likely to be caught at a bad time, or give your visitors the impression that you’d rather they hadn’t come.

There may also be times when you prefer not to take telephone calls. Leaving the answer machine on so you can respond when you are ready can help in the short term. However, try not to put off calling people back as they may soon think that you are avoiding them.

Families can be complicated and there may be some people that you have a strained relationship with. You may feel that with so much happening in your life it isn’t a good time to be building bridges. Or you may want to put things aside and resolve any issues you have. What is important is that you try not to let any existing tension become worse, especially while you and your partner need to concentrate on each other.

If you have children

If you have children, whatever their age, you may worry about how they will react to your partner’s diagnosis. Very young children may not understand at all, teenagers may not know how to deal with the situation and adult children may feel they should be old enough to cope, but actually find it very hard. However it is important to be open and honest with them as children can often sense that something has happened.

For more information on this take a look at our talking with your children section