The Caregiving Wife's Handbook

This is a great book for you or for your friend who is a family caregiver. Yes, there are so many books and handbooks and workshops now for caregivers but still not enough that really attend to the marriage or intimate relationship between patient and partner.

“The Caregiving Wife’s Handbook” is written by Diana B. Denholm, PhD, LMHC. She is a board-certified medical psychotherapist so she covers a lot of ground in CancerLand. She knows cancer and other serous diseases; she knows medical professionals and their roles and perspectives and she knows families and couples who have been and who are in the thick of it. And she knows wives.

Like having a very close friend who is also a caregiver, Diana Denholm talks with us about the fear, anger, resentment and critically how to determine whether your caregiving is keeping your man dependent or if it’s appropriate to his actual needs.

One of my favorite chapters in her book is called “The Big C”…and C doesn’t stand for caregiving or for cancer—it stands for codependence. That’s another unspoken concept in CancerLand where martyrdom is celebrated and burnout rewarded. Not so for Denholm.

I’ll write more about this book and these helpful ideas in the next week.