TLDR: Disabled husband wants to spend time together and I feel too burnt out too and want time to myself.
I have bipolar disorder so it’s hard to tell sometimes if what I’m feeling is appropriate.
I (35F) care for people all day. It’s my job. I get burned out on it at times, as carers all tend to do at points.
Two years after we met, my now husband (36M) suddenly started having great amounts of pain. It’s been a journey of doctors and specialists to try to get him diagnosed. Doctors thought he might have thyroid cancer during this time as well. Multiple surgeries. He is still in pain all the time and can’t work. He’s very depressed.
We’ve been together for eight years now. Married for four.
I used to think I had this deep well of compassion and patience, but I think the well has run dry. My husband finds it difficult to clean or cook due to the pain and depression. He forgets to make doctors appointments. Sometimes he forgets to refill his medications. It’s been all up to me to find and make appointments for all his doctors, get him to follow up, get him into therapy for his depression.
I feel everything is on me. And for awhile now, when I come home, I just want time to myself. When shopping needs to be done, he wants to go together; doesn’t like going himself. Sometimes I’ll just go after work by myself. He’s at home all day, so he’s bored, and when I come home he wants to do things together. I don’t. I just want alone time.
I’ve told him this and we came to the arrangement that when I come home after work on the weekdays, I will have the evenings to myself. The weekends will be our time together. Except when I’m relaxing, he keeps interrupting what I’m doing (usually reading) with things he’s come across on his phone or the TV. Or ask me if I want to do anything. I just want to read peacefully. Lately I’ve been napping when I come home and stay up later when he goes to bed, but that’s not healthy.
Even when I go to the bathroom he’ll follow me in there sometimes (our apartment bathroom doesn’t have a lock)! Sometimes he’ll joke I catfished him because I don’t play video games with him like I used to when we met. That’s what he really wants to do, play video games together. But lately I really don’t want to play video games either.
I had a lot of trauma growing up. Sexual, mental, emotional abuse. I was parentified. Sometimes I feel my life is truly not my own.
I feel it’s wrong to feel this way about my husband. All he wants to do is spend time with his wife after all. I feel sometimes he’d be better off without me since I’m starting to feel so tense when he’s around. It’s not fair to me or him.
I suggested couples counseling, but he thinks that is a nuclear option and we should try to communicate better and work it out ourselves first.
I know it might not sound like it based on this post, but I really love him. And I know he loves me. He gets up in the mornings and makes me breakfast and lunch for work. Sometimes he’ll put the towels in the dryer after I shower so they’re nice and warm.
Can anyone offer advice if they went through something similar and how they got through it? Thank you!
3 comments
I think your husband is just lazy and doesn’t feel the need to change his behaviour because he knows you’ll take care of everything. Helping someone to not drown is all fine and dandy but when it causes you to drown yourself it is clear you should first save yourself. You can’t save someone if you’re dead.
Compassion fatigue is hard. I know that sounds like an awful name but that’s what it is. You’re 6 years into this, care for people at work all day, and he wants more work when you come home.
There are other options for him to remember to make his own appointments, they suck but they exist. Like setting an alarm for when the dr is open and calling, if pain is too much or in the middle of something hitting snooze or setting for an hour later until you can do it. Case manager type people are sometimes available help through the clinic/hospital to manage appointments and get things scheduled. Depending where you live there may also be a resource through the state. You can also sometimes hire someone privately who specializes in disabilities and helping manage care. I’d have to reach out to an acquaintance who used to do that work to get more info but I know there are people that exist. The first step is seeing if he can do it though. If he’s not setting alarms and reminders it might be the first thing to try.
It sounds like you need to tell him it’s time for the nuclear option though. Counseling isn’t a last step, it’s there to help you navigate difficult parts of a relationship. You’re hitting compassion fatigue so hard but he doesn’t see the need for counseling, it may be time to make him see it. You’ve lost joy in things and are hiding from him so you don’t have to feel like your entertaining him. You no longer have energy to give. It’s not that you don’t want to, you’re absolutely exhausted. It’s time for counseling even if you have to make it an ultimatum. You need to find a better way to communicate and for him to get into therapy for his depression.
I’ve been in chronic pain for about 16 years now and I’m only 30. There are days I can’t shower or cook for myself because I hurt so much. I’m entirely unmedicated at this point (because I react poorly to pretty much everything) and miserable every single day. The depression from it sucks but all I can do is keep getting up and trying to find joy in life. My husband is my primary caregiver and our only income. It SUCKS. I still get up and take care of as many of my own needs as possible, am going to school, and have to find systems that work for me to make sure appointments get made and meds get refilled. I still fuck it up sometimes but the most my husband does with that is pick my meds up from the pharmacy. Your husband either needs to figure out how to do these things or he needs to find assistance with a caregiver through some other service. It’s going to kill your relationship with where you’re at now and that’s not fair to you.
I think you’re both right. You’re absolutely not in the wrong for feeling this way, but I think communication is bad, from both sides, and you need to set some boundaries, and enforce them.
For example: you say he follows you to the bathroom. That’s pretty intense, and i can definitely see why that would grind your gears…so, start by saying “please don’t follow me into the bathroom, i need my privacy”. If he doesn’t listen, get a lock installed, and wear earbuds if you have to while you’re in there! He will get the hint eventually.
He says couples counselling is the nuclear option. I feel like he may be afraid that if you two go to counselling, divorce may be on the table (some people have a strong belief that therapy will automatically blame the man and break relationships as opposed to fixing them) Have a chat with him and explore why he may feel that it doesn’t bode well, and offer the alternative, say something along the lines of: “I want this for both of us, we are both struggling mentally, and i feel it would be good to see someone for both our mental wellbeing and our relationship”. If you make it seem like you’re concerned about both of you, as opposed to placing the blame at his feet, he might see the light and decide that it’s for the best.
….following on with the above, I think you may need to be more clear about how YOUR feeling about everything that’s going on with you. I am not saying you haven’t tried, but maybe if you were a bit more firm with what you want and more assertive, he might just give you the space you need.
I also think you may benefit from a support network, just for you, and maybe a hobby outside the home (even if it’s just a walk around the block when you feel smothered). You mention you have some trauma of your own and you’re also bipolar, but you don’t mention being under any kind of treatment plan. I think getting your own therapist might be very helpful for you ❤️
Remember: you aren’t wrong for having needs, and you aren’t selfish for wanting those needs met, and it’s okay to want space even from the people you love and those that need you 😊
Good luck.