Pete – How has your relationship with your spouse or partner changed?

My wife and I didn’t have the best relationship anyway. I wouldn’t say it’s her fault, and I wouldn’t say it’s my fault, I would say it is both of our faults. I led a much more shallow existence before my spinal cord injury and I think that we met on that same level. When things got critical in our lives, we weren’t able to come together for one another’s benefit. I won’t blame the spinal cord injury on the demise of our marriage, but our marriage fell apart shortly after that. I think that in part because it was such a struggle, also in part because I was learning so much of the value of loving relationships. And not due to either one of our faults but to both of our faults, I think we weren’t able to find that mutual respect through vulnerability in our relationship. And so it crumbled.