Navigating Love, Consent, And Benefits In Disability Marriages

We look at marriage and disability through the lenses of consent, caregiving, benefits, and church practice, naming why simple answers fail and what faithful support can look like. Real stories show how love and realism can live together when the community shows up.

• the missing dialogue on adults with disabilities seeking marriage
• benefit loss risks and marriage disincentives
• caregiving realities in physical disability
• consent and capacity for intellectual disability
• counseling, mentoring, and supported decision-making
• real-life examples and attendant care models
• practical roles for churches beyond stereotypes
• a commitment to accessible gospel and ongoing conversation

If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the Indispensable-People blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People

Transcript

The Missing Conversation On Disability Marriage

Benefits, Barriers, And Hard Tradeoffs

Physical Disability And Lifelong Caregiving

Consent And Capacity In Intellectual Disability

Counseling, Mentorship, And Realistic Supports

Lived Stories And Support Models

What Churches Can Do Next

Keeping The Conversation Going

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, hey, my name is Tracy Coral and welcome to Indispensable People. I'm a pastor, a teacher, a missionary, a mom, a wife, and I believe that every person should have access to the gospel so that they can know Christ, grow in him, and serve him with the gifts that he has given. Over 65 million Americans have a disability. That's 15 to 20% of every community. And over 85% of those individuals do not attend church. 90% of pastors believe that they are a disability-friendly church, but only 20% of parents and families agree. Let's dive deep into hard topics, big questions, perceptions, stereotypes, and so much more. So in individuals with disabilities who would like to get married. So this is probably one of the trickiest subjects to come across. And if you just do a light Google search on disability and marriage, the majority of everything that you're going to see is going to pop up about disability marriage and the church. Okay. Or disability ministry and the church. Here's what's going to pop up. It's going to be in reference to disabilities and families that are impacted by disabilities and how a marriage is impacted by basically a child with a disability. And one of the things that popped up when I was looking to see what Google had to say was that churches can support couples affected by disability by establishing dedicated disability ministries. Basically saying that the disability ministry becomes a support to the family and a hope and helps to foster engagement in the church so that parents can avoid caregiver burnout. So, and the the supports that are suggested are respite care, ministry programs for discipleship, and other, you know, educational training and resources. So that didn't answer the question, right? If we're talking about marriage between individuals with disabilities and how that works and ministry and all other kinds of things, well, first of all, it's there's no straightforward suggestion, answer, or direction. Now, if you look at dis those with disabilities and marriage outside of the realm of the church, the number one thing that pops up in that search is talking about their benefits. And one of the big topics of issues, and I have been impacted personally by it, not in my family, but in ministry, is that if two people who are receiving benefits due to disability are married, are married, then the possibility of those individuals losing some sort of support is big. And and I currently have individuals in my disability ministry who want to be together, want to be married, but do not marry because they will lose their their benefits in in some type of way. And so they want to live together and they want to have all the benefits of marriage without being married. And so that's another, you know, area that becomes very, very difficult because it's a it's a real thing. But a lot of people get really antsy around the discussion of people with intellectual disabilities getting married. However, it happens every single day, but there are very gray lines that cause have cause for concern. So understanding that someone with a physical disability marrying someone without a physical disability becomes a choice for that spouse to become a caregiver for life. And so that means they might be providing physical care, medical, medical care, all different kinds of things that they're accepting. And I would say a lot of individuals who are they there might have been an accident somewhere along the line. They were already married and now they have stepped into that caregiving role. And but there are also individuals who choose to marry an individual with a physical disability because, you know, we marry someone not for their physical capabilities, but for the love and care that goes into that. So moving on into the more sticky, tricky piece of it is the individuals who have an intellectual disability and to what degree their intellectual disability impacts their consent, their understanding, and all of that. And that's where things get tricky because whether or not there's full understanding of life and marriage and companionship and all of that, people desire fellowship, right? That's a piece of who they are in whatever way that that looks like. And so we it's hard to be on the outside of that and go, okay, well, if they live together, then what are the implications of that? What are the long-term consequences? You know, and when I say live together, I mean when if they would choose to become married, because then there are intimate things to consider, there are relational things to consider, there are responsible, like can they maintain a household? Can they pay bills? Not to even to mention the whole dynamic of the marriage relationship, right? So then you you put into all of that altogether and it becomes a very sticky, sticky relationship. And I don't think any of those guidance and direction can be, none of it can be cut and dry. It's not a, if it's this, it's that. If it's that, you know, if it's if it's that, it's this. And I would say that's probably why if you do any research on looking for resources to help individuals with disabilities to look into marriage, there's little to none because it is so very individual specific. And providing guidance on that can be very tricky. When you go from the physical, we need to understand that that spouse needs to know what they're stepping into and caring for another. What, you know, the the choices of life that they may be understanding that they wouldn't experience or wouldn't experience in a typical way. So there's a lot of mental preparation that goes through that. So, you know, marriage counseling and all of those kinds of things, I think across the board for anyone who's interested, that starts the conversation. That starts the, you know, the mentorship into what could this be? What would this look like? Help me to walk through those kinds of things and make sure this is the right choice. And I don't mean that just for a person who is marrying someone with a physical disability, I mean that across the board for those with intellectual disabilities, for those who have medical conditions and considerations that they would bring into the marriage. So on both sides, if unless you know both people have a disability of some sort, or if it's a one-sided disability, the person with a disability has to understand what they're walking into, and the person without a disability has to understand what they're walking into, or the two people with disabilities have to understand what they're walking into. So as the church, we're considered we're we're gonna take into consider the scriptural pieces of marriage, right? Then we need to help them realize the day-to-day realistic pieces that come along with it. And if that is a true consideration with that, you have to look at the support that would be needed to if any is needed to navigate their marriage situation and how that would come to be. So I didn't really come on here to talk about marriage and disability with any answers because I don't think you can call it a cut-and-dry situation on how you would guide, direct, mentor, and counsel individuals with disabilities or the spouse that would be marrying someone with a disability. It's not one-sided, it's definitely a walkthrough process of understanding and checking for understanding, like I said, as concerned to an intellectual disability uh with consent and so forth. And in that making sure the person understands what they're walking into and what the expectations are and the potential consequences could be. I don't mean for this all to sound negative because do people with disabilities get married? Absolutely. Should they be able to get married if there's a level of understanding and consent that they are capable of? Absolutely. Does that put on a different need of support, need of care that could be within the relationship and also the mental and emotional that come along with that? Absolutely. So it's a delicate situation that needs the care and consideration of it. And it's okay to look for resources to access other information to pull from people who may have walked through the situation. I am a friend with a great lady who her and her husband were together. He was in an accident and she cared for him for the entirety of his life until he passed away. I also have a really great friend who was born and has cerebral palsy, was born with cerebral palsy, and she has lived her whole life without an intellectual disability, but also needs someone to dress her, clothe her, feed her, provide transportation for her and all of those kinds of things. But at the same time, she's also graduated from college with a journalism degree and is currently married. However, she has a caregiver or an attendant, whatever you prefer to refer to it, has come into her home that provides care for her. And her husband is also I I'm not sure of his diagnosis, but there it is a physical disability and but not as extensive as her needs. And so, but he can't provide the care that she would need. He couldn't lift her or, you know, do different things like that. And so they depend on someone else coming into their home. I'm also, like I said, I have a couple who very much love each other and want to live out the married life, but are making decisions at this point not to go forward in it because of the financial consequences of it. So we've walked through all kinds of great things and hard things and lots of questions as we try to support, guide, mentor, and provide the proper resources to these individuals and not getting it all right because again, it's a it's a delicate situation of understanding and walking through. But if there was a couple that came into your church that or had been there for a while and they said we're gonna get married, they would walk through the marriage counseling and they would, you know, step into all of those things. And so the church can come alongside of people with disabilities in whatever form that looks like and help guide and direct, not based on our stereotypical beliefs of disability and marriage, but of the scriptural basis and truth and real life experience that those individuals would choose to walk into. Again, it's it's not an easy, straightforward answer. However, marriage is a very important piece of life to the church, and there's no reason that we should step out of it, but step into it in the best ways that we can support, guide, mentor, and counsel through. So accessibility comes in all kinds of forms and all kinds of needs, and we do that so every person can know Christ, grow in him, and serve him with the gifts that he is given. I can't claim to have all the answers. I can't claim to know all the things, but here's what we are gonna do we're gonna keep this conversation going. We're gonna make the accessible gospel available to individuals with disabilities in our churches and in our communities so that every person has the opportunity to know Christ, to grow in him, and to serve him with the gifts that he is given. If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the Indispensable People blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.