“Keep The Love Alive.” Inspirational Disabled Woman Shares Her Story

Rachelle Friedman was due to get married in the summer of 2010. Four weeks before her wedding she was left paralysed from the neck down, after being pushed in to a pool on her Hen party, by a Bridesmaid.

In a freak accident the bride-to-be hit her head at the bottom of the pool and suffered a C6 spinal chord injury, leaving her quadriplegic. 

The accident made the couples' relationship stronger than ever.

Rachelle and fiancé, Chris Chapman, eventually married in July 2011. She decided to share tips on how the pair have kept their love alive in an inspirational blog post on The Mobility Resource.

The ‘10 Tips to Keep the Love Alive in a Relationship with a Disability,’ includes accepting each other for who you are, never going to sleep angry, showing your partner you are deeply in love with them and lastly, realising that you may just need to move on.

On their wedding day.

Rachelle ends her post with the honest and poignant message that disability does change the dynamics of a relationship but ‘”love is love.” 

“It may be the ugly truth that your first step in having a stronger relationship is to end the one you are currently in,” she writes.

“The advice for someone with or without a disability is the same. Real love is looking past imperfections, growing with each other and not being able to imagine a world where your partner isn’t in your life. It’s been said that we accept the love we think we deserve. And we all deserve real love.”

 

Rachelle’s full post on how to maintain a strong and healthy relationship with disability, can be seen here.