This week I had my last of twelve sessions with a counsellor. During our sessions, in which I was trying to work out what exactly I was hoping to achieve, we worked towards the conclusion that I needed to find ways to be happier in my caring role. The problem seems to be a multifaceted one to do with me, why I am a carer, what being a carer means for me and the impact it has on me. I've just read an excellent article on postnatal depression and how talking about it helps. For this reason I shall chatter away to you about how I'm going to work through this, and hope that my sharing will be of some help to someone. Here goes.

Let's start from scratch, shall we? I've never been a barrel of self-confidence. I remember once in a lesson when I was about 17 we were all asked to go around the class and list three good things about ourselves. I cried off because I couldn't think of anything. Is that a bit bad? Not to be able to think of anything good about yourself? I don't know that I couldn't list anything, if pushed, but the idea of saying them out loud felt, and still feels, vain and boastful. What this has to do with caring is another matter.

I think it's probably true to say that, all other things being equal, I would regard myself as the junior partner in our marriage. R can do a whole load of things I can't do, like cook and fix things and make things. She knows DIY and has a good knowledge of household medicine, she knows how to look after our animals. I feel that against that I bring very little to the table. If she were fit and healthy she would be working and earning and doing just as well as me. It's really only because of her health that I am both carer and sole breadwinner and I feel, as a consequence, as if I'm contributing equally. I need to be a carer, because if I'm not then I don't feel useful.

Of course this isn't the most disastrous truth in the world. The problem, both for me and for R, is the extent to which I need to care. In the first place – am I stifling her? Am I insisting on doing things for her that she could do for herself, simply in order to feel like I am contributing? What about me? Am I pushing myself too hard, continuing to try harder and expect more to make things better for R in order to make myself feel better? Because there are two inherent realities that I need to have a grasp of in order to be able to be a good carer and a good husband and do the best I can for myself at the same time. The first thing is that R has a serious health condition and I can't make her entirely better. The second is that I must learn to value me for who and how I am, not for the extent to which I am of value to others.

Now I always like to try and end on a positive note if I can. But sometimes, like now, if what I'm trying to do is be completely open and honest that isn't possible. The progress I have made, which has taken 12 weeks of sessions with a counsellor, is to realise that which I have just narrated. To achieve it is quite a different thing. A couple of weeks ago I wrote in this space about how being a carer meant I should have no lack of self-belief when faced with a new job. I was able to convince myself for a time, long enough to go through the interview. Digging out and fixing the real doubts that lie beneath the surface is a different challenge altogether.

benjaminpmoore

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