‘My partner told me to leave him when he became disabled – and I did’

Hannah Cole, 44, from Bromley in Kent, lived happily with partner Rich Everett, 40 – until an accident changed their lives

- EIMEAR O’HAGAN

Not long after the accident in April 2017, which left him paralysed, my partner Rich told me to leave him, insisting I would be better off without him. His own sense of identity was in such turmoil. He saw himself only as a burden – someone who would drag me down and hold me back.

At the time, I refused point-blank. I told him his disability didn’t change my feelings for him – he was still my Rich – and I told myself I would never be one of those people who walked away from a disabled partner.

And yet, two years later, that was exactly what happened. At the time, I felt every emotion imaginable, from sadness and frustration to a longing for how things had once been between us.

It’s almost taboo to split from a disabled partner and yet the brutal reality is that life after paralysis is incredibly hard – on both parties.

The last time I saw Rich walk was the morning of 21 April 2017. He’d woken up, got ready for work and kissed me goodbye before leaving on his motorbike. Neither of us had any idea that within hours our lives would be changed forever.

The next time I saw him he was lying in a hospital bed in A&E, his head and neck in a brace. He looked at me with a terror in his eyes that I’d never seen before and said, “I can’t feel my legs, Hannah.”

Rich and I met in 2012 when a mutual friend introduced us. He was funny, caring and passionate about fitness like me, and we moved in together later that year. His son Kaiden, now 14, spent a lot of time with us.