So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy's big challenge is not having a Parkinson's patient for a husband. It's having me for a husband. I happen to be a Parkinson's patient.
Interpretation
Michael J. Fox emphasizes that the real challenge for his wife Tracy is not his condition, but rather being married to him as a person.
In this quote, Michael J. Fox highlights the idea that relationships involve complexities that go beyond physical conditions or challenges. He suggests that while having Parkinson's is a significant aspect of his life, the emotional and relational dynamics in his marriage with Tracy add layers of difficulty that aren't solely about his health—it's about their partnership and the love they share, which can sometimes be even more challenging than the illness itself.
In practice
In a discussion about the challenges faced by caregivers, this quote can illustrate the emotional aspects of living with a partner who has a chronic illness.
I find as long as I acknowledge the truth of something, then that's it. I know what it is and then I can operate. But if I overestimate the downside of something or the challenge of something and I get too obsessed about the difficulty of it, then I don't leave enough room to be open to the upside, the possibility.
My whole life, meeting people is like a blind date, because I feel like they've already seen the video on me.
There are no moments you have frozen in amber. It's moving, it's changing, so appreciate what's good about right now and be ready for what's next.
There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.
Certainly people have a lot tougher situations than I've had to deal with. But I will say we are all dying from the moment we are born. This is not just rehearsal.
I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm an activist, I'm a writer and I'm just a student of the world.
Once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas.
So we gave up. I'd finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be seen. We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.
We all want to get along well with other people, and one way to do this is to help people feel good about themselves. If you make a person feel smart and insightful, that person will enjoy your company.
People are in one of two states in a relationship,” Gottman went on. “The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It’s like a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, he’s just in a crummy mood.’ Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
Because trans people are marked as artificial, unnatural, and illegitimate, our bodies and identities are often open to public dissection. Plainly, cisgender folks often take it as their duty to investigate our lives to see if we're real.
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