The way we do this was rebuilt around an illness and it is better now

Four years ago my husband became seriously ill and everything we had built over a decade stopped working inside a fortnight, because most of it depended on things he could no longer do. We could either let it go or rebuild it, and rebuilding it while he was frightened and I was exhausted is the hardest thing either of us has done. It is better now than it was before, and I would not have believed that at the time.

Fifty two and fifty four, the Bronx, married twenty six years, fourteen of them with me leading, and he is well now, with limits.

What we learned is that the duties were never the point, which is easy to say and very hard to believe while you are watching your whole arrangement fall over. We rebuilt it around what he can reliably manage on a bad day rather than a good one, which meant making it smaller and far more exact, and the smaller version turned out to have been the load bearing part all along.

We would like to know couples who have had to do something similar. Illness, a job going, a parent moving in, anything that made the old shape impossible.

Not looking for a third and not looking to play with anyone. Not looking for advice about his health, which is thoroughly covered by people who are paid to have opinions. Not looking for a couple who want the inspiring version, because eight months in the middle of it were not inspiring at all.