I agree with you, Msl.

I find I often have to catch myself before I vent too much to my husband. He doesn't want to come home from a busy day at work (he works part time, two days a week) to hear me instantly grumbling and complaining or just talking about my RSD straight away. I tell him everything I feel of course, but I also rely on sites like this for understanding and support, so I'm not putting a bigger load on my husband. He has no one that he talks to about all this and worries enough as it is. So instead of me always being the taker and him the giver and me offloading everything onto him, I work really hard to make sure we're both putting in as much as we can and I'm keeping my mouth shut if I don't have anything positive to say about my RSD! I don't always get it right but thankfully he knows I'm doing my best.

Sometimes that means taking extra pain relief so we can spend time together, sometimes I'm so sore afterwards I end up crying. Most times I'm awake for hours afterwards because of the extra pain. But I'd prefer to be like that than to not do anything at all.

We also have our 3 year old in daycare one day a week, so we get a whole day (well, between 10am-3pm) to spend together and go out for lunch. I'm often a write-off by the time the evenings roll around, so getting the middle of the day to spend on our own is really important for our relationship and we both look forward to those days

If anything, RSD has made us have to be more inventive and creative in the bedroom so it's not all bad, lol