An Interview with Lucjan B
Living alongside a partner with chronic illness can be challenging in ways that are often invisible to the outside world. Lucjan B, husband, writer, and founder of Worry Head, knows this first-hand. Through his writing, he offers guidance, empathy, and honest reflections for partners navigating relationships affected by endometriosis and fibromyalgia. In this interview, Lucjan shares his journey, the lessons he’s learned, and the insights he hopes will help couples support each other without losing themselves.
What inspired you to create Worry Head, and how has writing about your journey shaped your relationship?
Before the words endometriosis and fibromyalgia entered our life, all I knew was that my wife was struggling, and nothing made sense. She was exhausted all the time, in pain that seemed to move around her body, and no matter how many appointments we went to, we left with more questions than answers.
For a long time, I watched the woman I love go from dancing, laughing, and dreaming about the future to barely being able to get through a day without collapsing into bed. I felt like I was losing her in slow motion, and I didn’t know how to reach her through the pain.
When she finally received a diagnosis of endometriosis, and the following year fibromyalgia, it was both a relief and a heartbreak. Relief, because we finally had names for the invisible monsters that were stealing her life. Heartbreak, because I realised there was no quick cure, no magic solution I could “fix” for her as a man who just wanted to make things better.
In those early days, I had nowhere to put my fear and confusion. I was supporting her, going to work, trying to hold everything together, but inside I felt completely alone. That’s when I discovered blogging. At first, it was just a private outlet, a place to pour out my thoughts, to make sense of what was happening to us.
Over time, I realised something important: almost everything I read about endometriosis and fibromyalgia focused on the patient, which is absolutely vital, but very little talked about what it’s like to be the partner standing next to them, feeling helpless, scared, and sometimes lost. I didn’t see our story anywhere.
So, Worry Head slowly transformed from a vague idea into a very personal mission:
- To write honestly about loving someone with endometriosis and fibromyalgia.
- To show partners, especially men, that it’s okay to struggle, to not have all the answers, and to still choose to stay.
- To remind women that having these conditions does not make them a burden or unlovable.
Writing about our journey has changed our relationship in ways I never expected. It forced me to really listen to her, not just with my ears, but with my heart. I now ask deeper questions, and I’m less afraid to talk about the hard things: intimacy, fear of the future, money, exhaustion, resentment, grief.
It also gave my wife a new kind of safety. She could see that I wasn’t just “coping” with her illnesses, I was actively learning, growing, and building a life around supporting her without losing myself. Sometimes she reads something I’ve written and says, “I didn’t know you felt it that deeply.” Those moments bring us closer.
Worry Head started as therapy for me, but it became a bridge between us, and a hand reaching out to others walking a similar path.
Looking back, what is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you earlier about supporting a partner living with chronic illness?
If I could go back and talk to the man I was at the beginning of this journey, I would take his shoulders, look him in the eyes, and say: “You cannot fix her illness, but you can rebuild your life around love, flexibility, and understanding.”
I wish someone had told me early on that practical support and emotional safety are just as important as medical treatment. Chronic illnesses like endometriosis and fibromyalgia don’t only attack the body, they also threaten dreams, careers, intimacy, and identity.
One of the hardest truths I’ve learned is that some relationships struggle or even break under this weight. It’s not always because someone is “bad” or doesn’t care enough. Often, it’s because:
- The pain from endometriosis can make intimacy terrifying, not romantic.
• The bone-deep fatigue and nerve pain from fibromyalgia can make normal daily life feel impossible.
• Infertility, repeated losses, or delayed family plans can quietly shatter both partners’ hearts.
• Financial pressure builds when one partner can’t work the way they used to.
I’ve heard from many women who were left when pain, infertility, or exhaustion became too much. I’ve also heard from men who stayed but felt completely lost, ashamed of their frustration, guilty for feeling overwhelmed when they weren’t the ones in physical pain.
So, the advice I wish I’d been given is this: Find or create a life that allows you to be present.
For me, that meant building an online business and turning to blogging so I could eventually work from home, be there for my wife during flare-ups, and reduce the fear of “What will happen if she can’t keep working?” But it doesn’t have to be blogging. It could be remote work, flexible hours, a different career path, anything that gives you more presence and less distance.
I also wish someone had told me:
- You are allowed to grieve the life you thought you’d have together and still fully love the person in front of you.
• Your partner’s endometriosis and fibromyalgia are not a personal rejection of you. Pain is not a choice.
• It’s not “unmanly” to cry in the kitchen because you’re scared of losing her, or because she’s in agony and you can’t take it away.
Yes, some men do walk away. But others stay, learn, grow, and become softer, stronger, and more patient than they ever thought possible. I want to speak to those men, the ones who want to stay but don’t always know how.
If someone had told me sooner to focus less on “fixing” her and more on building a flexible, compassionate, sustainable life around both of us, I would have spared myself years of feeling like a failure simply because I couldn’t cure her.
Supporting a loved one with endometriosis or fibromyalgia can be emotionally and physically exhausting. How do you balance your own well-being while being present for your wife during difficult flare-ups?
There’s a quiet kind of exhaustion that comes with loving someone in constant pain. You don’t just see it, you carry it in your own body. At one point, I realised I was holding my breath every time she winced.
In the beginning, I tried to be everything, all at once: caretaker, provider, problem-solver, emotional anchor. I almost disappeared as a person. That doesn’t help anyone, not her, not me, not our relationship.
Over time, we learned to talk honestly about something many couples avoid: boundaries.
My wife told me many times she felt like a burden, like her illnesses were “too much.” She worried I’d be happier with someone healthy, someone who could give me a more “normal” life. Hearing that broke my heart. Not because it wasn’t understandable, but because she truly believed her worth had been reduced to what her body could or couldn’t do.
We had to sit with those painful feelings together. I told her: “Your worth is not measured by your energy levels, your fertility, or how much housework you can do. You are my wife, not a project, not a problem, not a burden.”
But I also had to be honest about my own limits. I was burning out quietly. So, we made some agreements:
- I am allowed to be tired and overwhelmed too.
• She is allowed to rest without guilt.
• We both need time that is not about illness, time where I can write, go to the gym, breathe; and time where she can read, sing, learn, or simply be herself beyond the label of “patient.”
Caring for myself doesn’t mean caring less about her. It means I can show up as the man she needs long-term, not just sprint until I collapse.
On flare-up days, our life slows right down. I might cancel plans without apology, make the environment quiet and soft, help her manage heat pads and pain medication, and be there to listen when the tears come. And when she finally rests, I also check in with myself:
- Have I eaten properly today?
• Do I need a walk, a shower, a breath of fresh air?
• Is there someone I can talk to, even briefly, who understands this life?
Having a shared vision helps too. For us, that vision is building a life where both of us can breathe, through my blogging, through flexible work, through choosing rest over perfection. When I remember why I’m doing this, the weight feels a little lighter.
Balance, for me, isn’t a perfect scale. Some days I give more; some days I need more. But we keep coming back to this: we are a team. Her pain is not my enemy. Burnout is. So, we fight that together.
Through your writing, what message do you most want both men and women to take away about love, support, and chronic illness?
If I could sit across from every couple walking through endometriosis and fibromyalgia, I’d want them to walk away with this: You are not broken for struggling and your relationship is not doomed because illness moved in.
Chronic illness has a way of whispering lies into both hearts:
- “You’re too much.”
• “You’re not enough.”
• “They’d be better off without you.”
• “This isn’t a real relationship anymore.”
I want my writing to be a loud, stubborn “No” to those lies.
To women reading this who live with endometriosis and fibromyalgia:
You are not a burden just because your body demands more care. Needing rest, pain relief, or help does not make you less lovable, less worthy, or less feminine. Your courage in waking up each day and facing pain that others can’t see is extraordinary, even when you don’t feel strong at all.
To men and partners reading this:
You are not weak for feeling overwhelmed, scared, or unsure of what to do. You are not a failure because you cannot fix what medicine itself struggles to treat. Your job is not to be a superhero, it’s to be human, present, and willing to learn.
If you take one thing away from my writing, let it be this:
- Keep talking. Share the ugly truths, the fears, the anger, the grief. Don’t leave the room emotionally just because you don’t know what to say.
• Keep choosing each other. Not in a perfect, fairy-tale way, but in the small, daily decisions: making her tea, going with her to the appointment, admitting when you’re tired, asking for a hug instead of withdrawing.
• Get creative about your life. If traditional work, routines, or roles no longer fit, you’re allowed to redesign everything. Work-from-home, flexible jobs, slow weekends, adjusted expectations, these are not failures; they are acts of love.
• Protect both hearts. The chronically ill partner needs validation, safety, and belief. The healthier partner needs rest, space, and emotional support too. Both matter. Neither should disappear.
Love in the world of chronic illness doesn’t look like a movie. It looks like heat pads on the bed, slow walks instead of long hikes, changing plans last minute, laughing on the good days, holding each other on the bad ones, and saying, “We will find a way through this together,” even when you’re not sure how yet.
If my words do anything, I hope they make at least one woman feel less alone in her pain, and at least one man feel less ashamed of his struggle to cope. And if they help even one couple realise that their story is still worth fighting for, even with endometriosis and fibromyalgia in the middle, then every sleepless night I’ve spent writing has been worth it.
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