I married into a family with significant health issues and am now the caretaker for spouse sibling. My family of origin has no experience with this type of issue. Some members of my family are not understanding of our inability to travel etc. some are. It’s a little unclear to me if op is the one complaining about smelly poop. That seems very minor.

Anonymous wrote:Married into family in which spouse and all immediate family have Giardiasis which produces explosive, watery, greasy, foul-smelling stools. The smell and mess is unbearable. They just laugh about us and say "Enjoy! That's us!" I have tried to be compassionate but am at my wit's end. Thoughts?

I don’t understand. Are you in the bathroom with them? Get some candles.

Anonymous wrote:Married into family in which spouse and all immediate family have Giardiasis which produces explosive, watery, greasy, foul-smelling stools. The smell and mess is unbearable. They just laugh about us and say "Enjoy! That's us!" I have tried to be compassionate but am at my wit's end. Thoughts?

I thought it was treatable?

Married into family in which spouse and all immediate family have Giardiasis which produces explosive, watery, greasy, foul-smelling stools. The smell and mess is unbearable. They just laugh about us and say "Enjoy! That's us!" I have tried to be compassionate but am at my wit's end. Thoughts?

Anonymous wrote:Every family has health issues.

+1

Most self-described "healthy and ambitious" families go to great lengths to hide their health issues, though. More than most.

How is it impacting you, OP?

I was the one who developed health issues in adulthood. These are probably things that were not diagnosed in previous generations because we did not have the testing and knowledge we have now.

Combining genes is like hundreds of spins on a revolver over hundreds of years ago to line up the events of you and your husband coming together and creating a child.
There’s a lot of things that can go wrong no matter what your family health history looks like and there’s tons of things that can go perfectly no matter what your family health history looks like.

I would be more concerned with family mental health over anything physical because that leaves marks on everyone who came in contact with it.

Every family has health issues.

I married a man from a healthy family who ended up with health issues.

If you're concerned about passing along inferior genes, don't have children with this man.

You married at 19?

I would think you were naive and most people marry into families with health issues. And perhaps if you develop health issues, they'll be compassionate towards you.

Invisible disabilities and mental health issues I formerly knew nothing about, yes.

Now I know most of the DSM. And the kids will too.

I can sort of relate. I come from a family with a mix of terrible genes and great genes- you either die in your 50s or live forever. But our ailments are mostly autoimmune stuff and a sprinkling of vision stuff and non-genetic cancer, so it feels manageable.

I married into a family with mental health issues and early dementia. It’s very daunting because it’s not the health issues I’m used to and permeates every part of our lives.

I think that if you’re used to seeing health issues as a temporary and discrete problem and you marry into a family with chronic physical or mental illness, that is a big shift! It can be hard if you don’t have friends in the same boat, especially if you’re in your late 20s or 30s and family health issues take you out of step with your peers.

I was curious if anyone else came from a "healthy and ambitious" family and then married into a family who had a lot of health issues? Being 19, I couldn't forsee the impact all of this would have on my spouse and myself.

Not really looking to blame or feel sorry but just wanting to see if there is anyone out there that could relate?