The Sweet Side of Support: Navigating Health Challenges in a Sugar Relationship

Going through health challenges while in a sugar relationship can feel scary and confusing. You may not be sure what your role should be or how your partner expects or wants you to show up for them. Here is a story from one couple, Marisa and Steve, who realized that their health challenges brought them closer together.

Marisa

When I was in my twenties, I started to have bouts of vertigo that left me completely dependent on my family to take care of me. It was awful. I couldn’t drive, so I lost my sense of independence. I couldn’t work, so I lost my income. I couldn’t help around the house, so I felt like a burden.

But, I think one of the hardest things about dealing with vertigo is the number of people who assumed that I was faking it or being dramatic. I literally had “friends” tell me that other friends of mine were talking about it behind my back, saying that they thought I just didn’t know what to do after college, so I found this perfect solution that I could magically make disappear whenever I was ready to leave the house.

You can imagine that it was a dark time. Not only because my friends were saying those things, but because I worried that my family also believed them and just didn’t say anything. And there was a part of me that wondered if there wasn’t some truth there. Maybe it was some psychosomatic thing having to do with my anxiety about becoming an adult. That’s the thing about having a health condition like vertigo: it confuses everything: your social group, your family relationships, your sense of self.

Luckily, my doctor recommended surgery pretty quickly, and while I was terrified of the consequences (possible hearing loss, face paralysis, or the surgery just being unsuccessful), I hated how my life was going. So, I did it. And I still feel so lucky that the surgery worked as well as it did.

I got my life back, and I immediately started making changes: I dumped those terrible friends, I started helping more around the house, I enrolled in an online nursing program, and I made a plan to move out as soon as possible.

The big kicker, of course, was the medical debt. My family is middle class and comfortable, but I had recently graduated from college and now had this mountain of medical debt.

My mom has this saying that goes: sometimes you have to trade one basket of problems for another, and that’s what this post-surgery reality felt like. Yes, I was happy to not have vertigo anymore. But now I had to deal with a whole new kind of stress.

One thing about my family is that we’re not close-minded when it comes to alternative lifestyles. My older sister already had a sugar daddy, and he had even come over to meet my parents. So, it wasn’t such a big scandal when I made my sugar baby profile and started looking for a boyfriend of my own.

I often say that the second luckiest thing to happen to me after my surgery being successful is that I met Steve two weeks before his stroke. I mean, think about it. If he had had his stroke before we met, he wouldn’t be on the sugaring website. And if he hadn't had his stroke at all, or it had come later, I don’t think we would have bonded the way we did.

As it turned out, the timing was perfect. And I’ll let Steve take over and tell the rest of the story.

Steve

Marisa probably already mentioned that it was lucky that she met me two weeks before my stroke, and I guess if we’re living in a universe in which having a stroke is lucky, I would agree with her.

That’s because, on first impression, I didn’t know if I was really interested in pursuing something with Marisa. I know that sounds harsh, and it’s honestly because I was a self-absorbed buffoon at that time. Her constantly positive attitude was off-putting to me, especially because I was at my most stressed during that time in my life. Truly, if it hadn't been a stroke, it would have been a heart attack; that’s how much pressure I was under and how poorly I was taking care of myself. I was a mess, and deep down I knew that someone like Marisa was not a good fit for the asshole that I was. In other words, I wasn’t looking for the girl next door.

Still, I figured that I would schedule one meet & greet with her to really make a final decision. And we did end up hitting it off pretty well, well enough to set up another date for the following week. I still wasn’t ready to commit to anything. But she was cute as hell, and there was a sweetness about her that I liked. So, I thought I’d give it one more chance.

Only, the thing is, I had a stroke. It happened early in the morning, and I was at work already, so I was taken to the hospital immediately, thank goodness. I was unconscious for three days and completely loopy for a week and a half after. My date with Marisa had come and gone, and getting in touch with her felt like just one more thing on a long list of to-dos in this new reality that I hadn’t quite accepted yet.

As it turns out, I didn’t have to reach out to Marisa. She had already tracked down my assistant (all my emails had been forwarded to her), and by coincidence, they happened to know each other from school. Looking back, this could have been a completely fireable offense, but my assistant told Marissa where I was being treated, and Marissa showed up immediately.

Marisa probably didn’t know it at the time, but she was a literal godsend in that moment. Without her, I would have been completely alone. My family was back east and had their own hectic lives. I never had kids. I was trying to figure out how I would go about hiring a live-in nurse for the recovery process that every single doctor on my team warned me was going to be long and difficult. But as soon as she showed up, I just knew that I wasn’t facing this thing alone. She wasn’t going anywhere, and I was in good hands. She shared with me her experience of having vertigo and feeling completely helpless. And she told me that she wanted to help.

It’s five months after the stroke, and Marissa has been living in the guest room of my house from the beginning. She takes care of me during the day, drives me to my PT appointments, eats dinner with me, and then studies for her nursing degree in the evenings. And I’ve come to see what a gift it is to have someone with a good attitude with me while I move through the recovery process.

I don’t know what the future holds for us. We’ve talked about the possibility of her moving out and having her own place once I’m more mobile. That way, we might be able to start over from the beginning and build a real relationship. But, for now, I just feel grateful that we met each other when we did and how we did.

Marisa

Marisa here, again! Steve poked fun at my bubbly attitude, didn’t he? But in all seriousness, I think my positivity was an important element in maintaining our relationship over the last five months. Anyone with experience with stroke recovery or major health challenges will know that most days are tough and you need to stay positive in order to keep moving and grooving.

That being said, you also need to acknowledge the difficult moments as well. There were times that I knew that Steve needed his space, and we found out pretty quickly that he would be more comfortable with a hired nurse to do some of the more intimate tasks of bathing him and things like that. Luckily, it was never difficult to talk about exactly what my role should be.

I guess the advice that I would give to anyone going through this kind of experience is to be flexible, communicate (a lot!), make space for the bad moments, and never lose sight of gratitude.

Steve doesn’t know it yet, but I have already found an apartment complex nearby that I’m ready to move to when he’s further along with his recovery. And you can bet that I’ll hold him to that second date he owes me!