When Patrick Chamberlain first met his now-wife Jessica Cox, he thought she was rude. After all, the petite brunette had strutted into Chamberlain’s taekwondo class with her arms crossed beneath her sweater. She didn’t even take them out when another instructor gave her a hug.
“I remember looking over and thinking, ‘Who is this rude person who will come into our studio and won’t even return a hug?'” Chamberlain, 33, recalls. Turns out, Cox doesn’t have arms at all; she was born without them. She uses her feet to do everything from drive to eat. “Assumptions got the better of me that night,” admits Chamberlain, who asked Cox out about three months later. The pair married in 2012.
Living with a disability often means facing inaccurate assumptions; dating with one is no different. People sometimes assume those with disabilities only date others with disabilities, for example, and others believe that “if you’re disabled, you better hook up with someone who’s not because it will just be too hard,” says Julie Lynn Williams, an associate professor in Wright State University’s School of Professional Psychology who studies disability issues. There’s also a stigma that people with disabilities are asexual, or that they should be so they don’t reproduce, Williams says.
People with disabilities can also face — and worse, internalize — negative societal attitudes like the idea that a disability is a burden. “You spend your whole life being in public and people giving you the pity stares, the questions, the curiosity,” says Cox, 33. “It takes a certain toll on you, so you’re bound to feeling like you’ve been judged your whole life and you’ll be judged in the dating arena.”
For Cox — the first person without arms to earn a pilot’s certificate and to become a black belt in the American Taekwando Association — the biggest challenge in the dating world was finding someone who would see past her physical difference and get to know the other traits that make her a catch. “Everyone, to a certain extent, experiences that judgment or insecurity while dating,” she says, “but … I wanted someone to like me for who I am, not for wanting to take care of me or someone who felt sorry for me or someone who saw me as an inspiring superhuman.”
In Chamberlain, she met her match. The couple bonded over their love of taekwondo and found that their personalities balanced each other’s nicely. Today, the fact that Cox doesn’t have arms is a nonissue, says Chamberlain, who serves as director of operations for Cox’s motivational organization.
“If you were to weigh out everything that pulls on us, that brings us together, that we argue about, that we celebrate — everything that’s a part of our relationship, the fact that there’s a disability is one of the smallest parts of that,” he says. But early in dating, a disability can be — or at least feel like — a big deal. Here’s how Cox and other experts suggest handling the relationship issues that may be thrown your way:
1. Get informed.
One of the biggest challenges for people with disabilities when it comes to romance is simply a lack of information about issues like reproductive rights, sexually transmitted diseases and birth control, says Williams, who works with educators and health care providers to try to change that. “Those folks don’t always get accurate information, relevant information and sometimes they don’t get any information about their own sexual health,” she says.
A good place to start? Williams recommends the book “The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability: For All of Us Who Live with Disabilities, Chronic Pain, and Illness.” Women with disabilities can also find good resources at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Research on Women With Disabilities.
2. Find support.
While fearing rejection is normal, disability or not, that fear can be heightened among some people with disabilities, Williams says. “When you’re a member of society that’s rejected in different ways, you may be fearful of that rejection — maybe even anticipate it more than it happens sometimes,” she says.
That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with good friends and family before crafting a dating website profile. “Get the community of support around you and know that we can survive rejection and move on,” says Williams, a little person who’s currently single. “The task is not to internalize it and give up.”
A strong social network can also help you practice discussing your disability — particularly if it’s not visible, Williams adds. “Start to get comfortable at it, so when you’re talking about your disability to someone who doesn’t know you have one, you’re ready,” she says.
3. Be aware.
Put bluntly, “you’re going to get those weirdos coming after you,” says Cox, who’s had men she’s never met propose to her via the Internet. Indeed, there are people who have fetishes for people with certain disabilities, although whether they’re “weirdos” or just people who are attracted to a certain trait is debated in the disability community, Williams says. While dating comes with risks for everyone, people with disabilities are more likely to be victims of crime and sexual assault than people without disabilities, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. The key to as-safe-as-possible dating is being aware of that — and trusting your instinct, Williams says.
“Go with your gut first,” she says. “If something isn’t right, honor it, get help, ask questions.”
4. Emphasize your assets.
When she was dating, Auti Angel’s prospective partners didn’t usually expect her to be a dancer. After all, the 46-year-old entertainer in North Hollywood, California, has used a wheelchair since a car accident left her paralyzed from the waist down more than 20 years ago. “But when people saw me dance, I shined so they could see past the wheelchair,” says Angel, who recommends other people with disabilities emphasize a trait they’re proud of while dating. “Before entering the dating world, do a self-reflection and see what it is that’s your best quality personality-wise and character-wise,” she suggests. “You can focus on that.”
Highlighting the positive is a research-backed route to finding a good relationship, says Terri Orbuch, a psychologist and researcher at the University of Michigan known as “The Love Doctor.” She recommends making a list of 10 of your best traits and recruiting friends and family to help if necessary. “When people are positive and optimistic in general, as well as about themselves, people are more attracted to that person,” she says. By contrast, “negativity breeds negativity.”
5. Disclose with discretion.
That’s not to say a disability is a negative trait or something to ignore. “I’m always one that encourages talking about disabilities as freely as you would any part of yourself because it’s nothing to hide, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” says Williams, noting that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to when or how to discuss your disability on a date.
But any trait — particularly one that can be emotionally charged like having a disability — isn’t necessarily something to dwell on early in a relationship, says Orbuch, author of “Finding Love Again: 6 Simple Steps to a New and Happy Relationship.” It’s better to reveal information about yourself slowly over time. “As you feel more trust, as you feel more comfortable with that person … you gradually reveal more parts or information about yourself,” she says. “It makes you more exciting too.”
Fill the space by asking your date about himself or herself, suggests Orbuch, whose research has found that the No. 2 factor that increases attraction (after positivity) is showing an interest in the other person and being a good listener. “You don’t have to sell your strengths and talk about your limitations or weaknesses, regardless of a physical disability or not,” she says. “Change the focus of the first date.”
6. Don’t settle.
One month after her car accident, the man Angel thought she would marry left her. “Wow, now I’m damaged goods and I’m not going to be able to find anybody who’s going to love me in this condition,” she remembers thinking. But as Angel grew more self-assured, she realized she had simply been attracting the wrong type of guy. “I was like, ‘OK, if I accept myself, somebody else will accept me,'” she remembers. “That was my biggest hurdle — more than getting over the paralysis.”
That’s often the case for the young women without arms Cox mentors. She encourages them to be confident in their differences and reminds them good guys do exist — they just have to look in the right places. “[Don’t] have that lack of faith that someone will say, ‘Oh it’s so rare you find someone so nice,'” she says. That attitude irks Angel, too, who sometimes hears people praising her (able-bodied) husband of nine years for marrying someone in a wheelchair. The truth? “I married an amazing man,” she says, “and he married an amazing woman.”
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Dating With a Disability originally appeared on usnews.com
