Divorce and collapse of the intra-familial relations in patients who suffer from Tinnitus, Vertigo, Dizziness or Meniere's Disease

The common denominator of Tinnitus, Vertigo, Dizziness and Meniere's Disease sufferers is the “healthy appearance” of the patient. Many of the patients are jealous of suffers who can show their wound, x-rays film of fracture in the leg or abnormal ECG.

Such a condition, when a patient complains that he is suffering but people around him do not understand what it means is a source of stress in the family. When the inter-familial relations include unhealthy patterns of communication, the stress increases the events of misunderstanding.

In some of the families it is impossible to prevent the separation of the parents, and the children are becoming the victims of the stormy divorce process.

Statistical data is not available, but tragic cases of families that collapsed are well known.

The story of Dalia and Dave is a typical case. Dalia lives in the central part of Israel, and came for treatment after two years of suffering. Experts of ENT did not help. In spite of her medical condition Dalia continued to work as a manager in a Hi-Take (Medium size) company, and received many complements from from here employers. Her husband, Dave, worked in another Hi-Take company, but was fired repeatedly. The couple has two children who attend elementary school. Although Dave was fired from work, the couple succeeded in providing their children with all their materialistic requirements.

Dalia, who is known to be a serious, hard working lady – did her best to follow my instructions, and after a time, she found relief in her Tinnitus. She felt better from month to month.

Unfortunately, along with the regression of her symptoms, Dave became irritable, chronic complainer, dominant and unable to show empathy to Dalia. Dalia tried to save her marriage by going to marital consultation, vacations with Dave and attempts to help him find a new job. Dave was not cooperative.

Their eldest son started suffering from frequent asthmatic attacks. Dalia and Dave knew their relations have an impact on the emotional condition of their asthmatic son, but Dave did not change his behavior.

Dalia realized that she could no longer be flexible, and decided to talk openly with Dave about the future of their marriage. Dave (most probably) as his last attempt to be the leader of the family, claimed that he objects changes, and that they have to decide about one of two options: continuing the marital relations as it was up till now, or divorce.

The choice was up to Dalia. Dalia did not wait -The choice to divorce was immediate. The process of separation was hard. Although Dave promised to enable the divorce, he deliberately created many obstacles on the way to the promised separation. Finally the process was finished and the family was disintegrated.

What is the association between Dalia's Tinnitus and the divorce? It is unclear. The personality of Dave is very rigid. He was unable to regulate his behavior according to the social and familial circumstances. Dave was used to control his sick wife. She was weak, hard working, good tempered, accepting his commands and trying to satisfy his wishes. When she recovered, she changed. She came back to her own pre-morbid personality and started to see her own psychological needs, but Dave could not understand it. He wanted to control the family life.

When Dalia was sick and needed support and empathy, he could not identify these psychological needs in her. His functioning as a loving husband included taking her with the family car to the clinic, and that was all. He could not express any emotions regarding the hard times that she is experiencing during the sever Tinnitus.

When Dalia recovered and wanted to discuss all these issues, she realized that separation from him is not a big loss for her. After all, when she experienced the biggest distress of her life she did not receive the psychological support that she expected from him.

 The separation of Dalia from Dave is not a typical outcome of all the families of patients who suffer from Tinnitus. In many of the families it was the exact opposite: all the family showed unity in giving support to the patient, and following the recovery the bond grew stronger then before.