When my husband Rick and I promised to love each other in sickness and in health, neither of us imagined how fully our marriage would one day be asked to live inside those words. Because a serious health crisis does not happen only to the person whose body is sick. It happens to the marriage. It changes roles. It changes routines, plans, intimacy, independence, and the future you thought you were creating together. And yet, even through chronic illness, through cancer, through surgeries, pain, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty, our marriage did not simply survive. It continued to thrive. So how does marriage remain connected when life delivers a crisis neither one of you planned for? That is what we're talking about today. Hey there, welcome to Before and Beyond I Do, real talk about marriage at every stage. I'm Susan Odolano, Intuitive Relationship and Marriage Coach. We have another meaningful episode for you today, and I'm so glad you're here. So let's just dive in, shall we? Welcome again to the station for marriage education and powerful transformation. To say that this episode and this topic are highly personal is a complete understatement. Now I know couples take that vow in sickness and in health, but most of us do not know how deeply we mean those words until we're actually asked to live them. This episode will be based on the journey Rick and I have lived together as husband and wife, but it is also for you. Whether you or your partner are navigating hormone issues, thyroid, gut issues, allergies, autoimmune conditions, cancer, MS, ALS, or any other illness, the experience does not remain contained within one person's body. It touches both partners and it touches the marriage. Now, unless you grew up with a parent or another family member who had a chronic or terminal illness, you may have entered marriage with no real understanding of how profoundly illness can affect the life two people share. Because let me tell you, it does. Sooner or later, almost every marriage will be touched by illness in one way or another. The big question is, how do you navigate illness within a marriage and continue creating something conscious, deeply connected, and extraordinary together? Let's dive into that. But first, I want to acknowledge every person listening who is living with a chronic illness, loving someone through one, or facing the uncertainty of what comes next. And I have to dedicate this episode to my husband Rick, the most extraordinary man I know. Now, some people are born with an illness. They grow up knowing that their health may always be a part of their relationships or a marriage. And some people quietly wonder whether anyone will ever choose to love them through one. Other people begin life very healthy and experience a huge shock, a shock of their lives when illness suddenly changes everything. Now, my own journey literally started in utero, but that's a whole different story. But my real journey began when I was eight years old. Now I'm not and have never been an outdoorsy girl. But as kids were sometimes taken on family trips we would not exactly have chosen for ourselves. And this is not a diss on my dad. He's an outdoorsy guy, and at 86 years old, he still is. Now, our family had taken a few camping trips when my brother and I were young. And on this particular trip, when I was eight years old, we went to Crater Lake, Oregon. And I didn't want to go, but I kind of had to. One day while we were there, I began feeling pain in the back of my neck. It lasted long enough that I finally went to my dad and he looked at my neck and he saw what appeared to be a tick. Now, at that time, and I won't date myself here, but I was young and it was a long time ago. There is very little public awareness of tick-borne illness. Now, my dad tried to get the tick out, but he couldn't. And he took me to a local doctor. The tick was removed and we went back to camping. Now, at that time, we had no idea that the tick had left something behind that would follow me for decades. And over the next decade, odd health issues began to creep into my life. Nobody suspected that Lyme disease might be the culprit. Now, so many illnesses are misdiagnosed, overlooked, or affect the body in ways no one expects. When doctors can't find an explanation, the person who's suffering may begin to feel unseen, totally dismissed, or disbelieved. Now, before Rick, and I've mentioned this, I was in another marriage. And during that marriage, I experienced a series of medical issues and surgeries that ultimately led to me having a full hysterectomy. They even took out my appendix, which I had no clue about until a few years ago. But my then husband could not have been less interested in my well-being. I had gone through multiple surgeries that affected my body and many areas of our marriage, and he seemed pretty annoyed by all of it. Meanwhile, I was living in constant pain. And I remember being in the hospital after my hysterectomy. My ability to carry children was gone. I was okay with that decision because my health depended on it, but my then husband didn't even want to come to the surgery. And I've said this before to avoid the wrath of my family, specifically my dad. He finally showed up afterward and walked into my hospital room. For one brief moment, I thought, wow, maybe he really does care after all. He checked on me for about five minutes and said he had other things to do when he left. I later discovered that he had gone to an call an ex-girlfriend from the hospital and then went to a strip club. Now I am going to have an infidelity episode, but it's going to air another time. This was just my experience. And unfortunately a very difficult experience. But I'll tell you, living with unexplained medical issues inside of a marriage where I felt profoundly uncared for was really painful. The hysterectomy ended some of the physical pain I had and some of the issues I had, but other symptoms began coming forward. Less than a year later, because of this, so many other issues were coming forward. And issues in the marriage got deeper. And my then husband did not want to repair a thing. And so ultimately I asked for a divorce. A longer story, but that's the reader's digest version. I did a tremendous amount of emotional healing, personal growth, spiritual growth. I did what I call the work or the inner work. And I like to say that, but I was exploring the idea of what it would take to become the woman I needed to be to have an amazing marriage. But the symptoms in my body had been that I had been experiencing continued to get worse. Now there's a really cool story about my now husband Rick and how he and I met. It's on my website, www.susanorlano.com, in sort of small bits and pieces, and I may share it in a future episode. But for now, I'll tell you that we met in a graduate school program that we both took later in life. Now, early on, while sitting in pain, I was determined to finish that program, even if I had to do it on a gurney. My legs were in pain. My entire body was hurting. Walking had become difficult. Just sitting like a normal person hurt. And there was this really kind man in school that kept offering to carry my books. Now I've never been somebody who finds it easy to ask for help. And I know some of you can really relate to that. So accepting Rick's offer to carry my books was pretty difficult. But honestly, I was struggling. So I did accept his sweet offer. And then it just became a thing between us. Every time we would go to school, and it was a one-week end a month program for two years with a couple of weeks of practicum work each summer. And it was spiritual psychology, which was the degree. But in that time, this kind man Rick and I became fast friends. Even after everything I had experienced in my first marriage, I still deeply believed in marriage. I mean, otherwise I wouldn't be doing the work I do. And I wanted to be married again. I also decided and declared to myself that I would rather remain single than settle for the wrong relationship. And at the same time, my body was descending further into mysterious illness that nobody could explain. At the time, I was still working as a high school teacher, but my symptoms eventually became so severe that I had to go on an extended medical leave. And for some reason, I knew in my heart I was not going back to teaching. And for some reason, this man in school, Rick, kept wanting to get to know me. And at first, I had no idea he was interested in me romantically. I thought we were just friends. And I was trying to make sure I didn't rock that boat. But he was. And I thought to myself, who would want to be with a woman who has all this health stuff going on? That was part of my inner story. But about six months after we met, knowing that I was already ill and that no one could tell us what was happening to my body, and after many discussions, he wanted to marry me. And even working through my deepest fears about feeling like a disappointment or a burden, I said yes. And on May 14th, 2001, we eloped and we made those vows to each other in sickness and in health. Now, for any of you who judge yourselves or believe that an illness makes you too difficult to love, I want you to know that it is possible to be loved fully just as you are. Our marriage was always bigger than my then undiagnosed illness, but the illness eventually became front and center because what was happening to my body became unbearable. And more than 30 doctors had not been able to explain my symptoms. But I finally was formally diagnosed. There was no question, no doubt, that I had stage three Lyme disease. And it traced back to that tick bite I got on that camping trip I didn't want to go on when I was eight years old. Now, Lyme disease can create symptoms throughout any part of the body. And fortunately for me, my brain was fine and still is. And that is not true for a lot of people. But by then, the symptoms I did have became so debilitating I was bedbound. I could no longer work as a teacher. I had rashes across my face, arms, legs, my body was so swollen with edema. I had so much pain, I couldn't bear it. I was beyond fatigue, my hair was falling out. And yet Rick looked at me as if I was the most beautiful woman in the world. And finally, after the diagnosis, as I began treatment, which was also really difficult, Rick cared for me. He did things for me, supported me, helped me through what was happening. And I did everything I could to care for myself and participate in my own healing process. Now, people often talk about a month of antibiotics as though it is the cure for Lyme disease, but that is generally associated with cases caught very early, like within two weeks. Mine had not been caught early. And for six years I went through that treatment and so many other things. There were more doctors, energy healers, homeopathic practitioners, traditional doctors. And I can't even count the people that I saw for help. I improved, but I was still far from fully recovered. And during those years, walking remained difficult, and I lived with constant pain. Rick tended to me. He loved me, he cherished me, he nurtured me. But there were also moments where it was incredibly difficult for him. Now, when one partner takes on the role of a caregiver, even when the person who is ill is doing everything they can to care for themselves, the caregiving partner still needs time away from that role. So during those same years, we did finish grad school together. And I started this business a few years later. I completed online training, which was barely available at that time. That's how long ago it was, and became certified as a relationship coach, earned my professional credentials, and I was really sort of blown away at how resilient I was. None of it was easy. And Rick supported me every step of the way. He totally believed in me. And together we continued learning the delicate balance between his helping me and his taking time to care for himself and do his thing. And that is not just about illness. That's simply marriage. Within a marriage, there is a me, there is a you or the other person, and there's an us. All three need time, love, care, and attention. So we had to create, we had to get creative and we had to navigate that because my need for help sometimes overlapped with his need for rest and time to himself. And neither one of us were wrong. None of that's wrong. But the work was learning how to honor both of us while continuing to care for the marriage between us. And that is the key point of this episode. No matter what is happening within or around a marriage, the two of you must continue to create the marriage and consciously care for it. The crisis, whatever crisis comes in, cannot be allowed to become the entire relationship. And when I say that my marriage to Rick was always bigger than any illness, I do not mean that illness did not affect us. It absolutely did. But we had committed to creating more than a healthy marriage. We had committed to creating a conscious one. We continued doing our inner work, as I call it. We used the tools we had learned. Both of us were personal growth junkies. So we had learned a lot of tools and we used them. We created things together. We kept communicating. We kept adjusting. We kept paying attention to what each of us needed and what our marriage needed from us. Illness changed many parts of our lives or lives, but we continued growing our marriage beyond what any illness could take away from us. And that takes intention. That takes accountability. That takes trustworthiness, emotional safety, creating intimacy, loving each other through circumstances neither one of you chose, making clear agreements, honoring the other person's needs as well as yours, and certainly continuing to do your own inner healing work. Illness does not suspend the work of the marriage. It may change what each partner can give in any given moment. It may require roles and responsibilities to shift depending on the moment. It may demand more flexibility, more patience, more authenticity, more compassion than either of you knew that you even had. But the marriage still needs to be tended to. Because even when one person's body requires more care, both people still have hearts, needs, limits, fears, and longings that absolutely matter. And maybe what matters the most, and I do say this matters the most, in any marriage is commitment. And I just I don't mean commitment only when staying commitment feels convenient or easy, or the day you say I do. I mean commitment to the agreements, the vision, the vows you made to win each other, even when honoring them feels hard. Commitment is an everyday thing. It's not a one-day deal. And it is not truly tested on the easy days. It's going to reveal itself in the moments when life just doesn't look anything like what you planned. It's not going to be easy when both of you are exhausted, when both of you are scared, overwhelmed, uncertain about what comes next. This is when commitment becomes more than the promise you once made, the vow you once made. It becomes a choice you continue to make every single day. And every single day, Rick and I say to each other, I'm committed to you. I'm committed to us. I choose you, and I choose us. We don't say it because every day is easy. We say it because commitment is not something we want to leave buried inside vows we made years ago. It is something we choose to speak, practice, and renew every single day. Through illness, fear, exhaustion, change, uncertainty, those words remind us that neither one of us is facing life alone. We're still here. We're still choosing, and there's still an us worth caring for. Lyme disease did not simply stop affecting me. And over nearly 25 years together, I'm sorry, beyond 25 years together, medical issues, other medical issues came too. Some were mine, some were Rick's, giving me an opportunity to care for the man who had so lovingly cared for me. And I'm grateful to it, Not that he had anything, but I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to care for him. And then unexpectedly in late 2024, cancer came calling for me. Fortunately, I'm in remission as I record this. But through all of it, we never wavered, not even once in our commitment to each other or in our choice to remain together. That commitment could just not be all talk. We would still say, I choose you and I choose us. But those words, even if you say them, anybody says them, has to be supported by actions. Commitment had to look like showing up, keeping agreements, telling the truth, asking for what we needed, making difficult adjustments, and continuing to care for each other and the marriage, even when both of us were completely exhausted. It required consistent intention. It required creativity. And I use that word a lot because I believe marriage is a creative process. So this required a lot of creativity when our circumstances changed. And it required continued growth within ourselves, between each other, and certainly in the marriage. Now the words reminded us of what we had originally chosen. Our actions made that choice real. We could not always control what happened to our bodies, and neither can you. And we can't control what life places in front of us. But we could continue choosing how we would made it together, and so can you. Now, I'm going to pause for just a moment, and when we come back, we'll talk about what it actually takes to protect your connection, to care for both partners, to continue creating a conscious marriage when illness changes the life you thought you would have. Hey there, Susan here. As you're listening to this, if something's hitting home for you, I'm gonna give you the best place to start. I have these first aid kits. Now, these are free and they're designed to stop the bleeding in moments of conflict, tension, and friction, even if you're on Cloud9 planning your wedding. Now, if you are preparing for marriage, the premarital first aid kit will help you navigate those moments and start having the conversations that actually matter. If you're already married and things are feeling disconnected, stuck, painful, all of that, the marriage first aid kit will help you stabilize what's happening and start shifting the patterns that just aren't working. These are things that will stop the bleeding. You're gonna find the right one for you in the show notes, or you can go to www.susanortolano.com and you can download them there. Now, let's get back to our episode today, shall we? And we're back. If you're still listening, my heart thanks you for allowing me to share this through the context of my own deeply personal story. But now let me tell you what is possible in the midst of all love, kindness, fun, intimacy, trust, belly laughs, playfulness, respect, adventure, closeness, connection, and a beautiful, thriving, conscious marriage. Illness may take your marriage on a different journey than the one you had planned or even imagined. But different doesn't have to mean lesser. Rick and I rose to meet the life put in front of us, and we still do. And you can rise to meet yours as well. If you are navigating illness or any other unexpected crisis, I want you to know what is still possible. No one will ever truly understand your direct experience, but nobody else has to. I know how hard it is because you want somebody to understand what you're going through. But all they have to understand is that is how it is for you. They're never going to get into your head, they're never going to feel your experience, but again, they don't have to. And I know how beautiful, bonding, sweet, playful, intimate, and profoundly close a marriage can become, even in the midst of circumstances you never would have chosen for yourselves. And no one else will create exactly the marriage you create, and nobody else has to. You don't have to give a rat's ass about what anybody thinks about your marriage. It is your marriage, and whatever happens, it is between the two of you. Your marriage does not need to look like anybody else's. Every marriage has its own story, its own strengths, its own challenges. And whether you are the person living with illness or the person caring for a spouse who's ill, you are not less deserving of a beautiful marriage. You are not less worthy of being loved, cherished, desired, supported, and chosen. Illness may change what your marriage asks of you. It does not change the worth of either person within it. So how do you continue creating a conscious, extraordinary marriage when illness is part of your life? You begin by refusing to allow patient and caregiver to become the only identities in your relationship. You're still two people, you're still partners, and there's still in us a marriage that needs care. That means making room for the truth of both people. The person who's ill needs to be able to say, gosh, I'm really scared. I'm hurting. I need help. Can you get this for me? Can you rub my back? Whatever it is. And the caregiving partner needs to be able to say, I love you. I'm here and I'm tired. I need time out. I need a break and I need help too. And neither truth cancels out the other person. So ask each other, what do you need today? How can I support you today? What do I realistically have the capacity to give? Ask yourself that. What can I give today? Where might we need support outside of our marriage if you do? And what does the relationship need from both of us right now? And it's so important to ask these questions because every day is different. You also need to create very clear agreements with each other, whether you have illness or whether you don't have illness. That's a requirement in marriage. And you gotta revisit them when circumstances change. Protect moments when you are partners rather than patient and caregiver. Continue creating affection, continue creating connection, continue laughing. Whatever ways are possible for your circumstances, you can create within what you got going on. It may not always be equal between the two of you. It may not always look like it once did, but both people still matter, and your marriage still matters. This is where, again, marriage success as an inside job becomes something you just live. You can't control every diagnosis, symptom, loss, or unexpected turn in life, but you can continue taking responsibility for how you show up, how you care for yourself, how you care for your partner, and how you tend to the life you're creating together. In sickness and in health is not a promise that illness will never frighten you, never show up for you, never exhaust you, or never change you. It is not a promise that you will always even know what to do. It is a promise to keep turning towards one another to figure it out, to tell the truth, to again ask for help, to make room for both of you, to protect fiercely the love, intimacy, marital friendship, and commitment that exists beyond the illness. A health crisis may become part of your marriage story and your life story, but it does not have to become the author of those stories. You still get to decide how you will meet it. You still get to choose each other every day. You still get to create a marriage filled with the tenderness, laughter, extraordinary love, even when the journey looks nothing like you thought it would. And today, that is exactly what we have created together. And what I still have, and while I still have some better days and some challenging ones, I run this business that I love so much. I have been blessed to create a life I love and a marriage that is conscious and extraordinary. And I know if it's possible for me and what I've been through, it is possible for you. If you got this going on, it is possible for those who have other crises happening. It is a choice, it is a conscious choice to make together. It is a commitment every single day, not just the day you said I do. Or for those people who are engaged and who are planning a marriage and planning a wedding, do not let illness frighten you away from that because you can still have a marriage that is conscious and extraordinary. Now, Rick Ortolano, there are no words for the love, the gift of you and us that I've experienced in this marriage. I thank you for choosing me through every version of this journey and for allowing me to choose and care for you too. I am committed to you, I am committed to us, I choose you, and I choose us. And for you listening, illness or crisis may change the life you imagined, but it does not have to take away the love story you continue to write together. Don't let it.com, and your action and results may be featured on an upcoming episode using your first name only because I like to keep your privacy. Now, if you're ready to go deeper with this work, go to www.susanortolano.com. You can check out the services I offer, and know that all links and resources are in the show notes. And if this episode resonated with you, be sure to follow, share it with somebody you love, and leave a review, hopefully a nice one, as it helps this message reach more couples. So I will say until next time, this is Susan Ortolano, intuitive relationship and marriage coach. This is Before and Beyond I Do. Real talk about marriage at every stage. And always remember marriage success is an inside job. Bye now.