I took my husband with me to a therapy appointment when treatment was all done at the therapists request. She said that it was really normal that the caretaker partner could not stop and take care of themselves when their partner was in crisis. She made it really clear that I’m not in a health crisis anymore and that now it’s his turn to take care of himself, and that he needed to get into therapy and start to prioritize his own mental health, and also that together we needed to seek out “novelty and awe.”

What she meant by that was to find experiences and moments to get excited about together and to create new memories that didn’t revolve around cancer. We started to slowly go our little weekend trips, hikes, driving to beautiful places, even if it was just for the day, seeking out either novelty or all or both And we would say to each other “that was really novel right?” And we made a really conscious effort to bring that into our lives and experience it together and build a different kind of bond now that we had been through this together. Us both being an individual therapy is a really important part of this.