dreamer
New Member
Many hugs and my sympathies to you. It is hard, very hard. I am guessing you must feel abandoned and overwhelmed and anxious?
Truth is it IS hard to be the spouse of someone with a serious chronic illness. ANd your husband ? recovering drinker? Do I remember, he has diagnosis of bipolar, too?
So often amongst us here on this site we encourage each other and support each other to take care of yourself FIRST .....do what you must do for yourself. We have kids that push us beyond our own limits and many of us here have had to take drastic actions etc to preserve our own quality of life. Sometimes those things we must do for our own self are not ones we could ever have predicted we might one day find ourself doing....chronic illness changes a LOT of things in our lives and in our relationships and in our needs and priorities in our day to day life. I have been in both shoes, the care giver for a seriously ill spouse and also a seriously ill spouse, both long term. Being the one who is ill is horribly difficult, but, it is also true that being the caregiver for a chronically ill spouse is incredibly hard. And yes, add in special needs kids, of which I also had 2 but now have 3/4, suddenly....for awhile you kinda run on some denial and some autopilot, but eventually you wear out and it starts to sink in just how hard this is, and how ongoing it is......
People seldom CHOOSE timing to become overwhelmed or exhausted. I am sure husband did not choose to become this way any more than you "choose" to become ill.it just happened. Sounds like it just finally HIT him? Or finally caught up with him Possible he may be right now fighting off some physical illness, a cold, allergies, someething, something he probably is not even aware of himsef, and it could be makeing him feel even less able to cope----(and possible his body will successfully fight whatever it might be so he never does manifest with outward symptoms, such is our immune systems)
Yes, it stinks, - just like it stinks when our difficult children wear us down to our last frazzled resource and we must call and arrange to place them or psychiatric hospital them or whatever. I doubt your husband is doing this simply to be malicious or selfish or lazy.....I have a feeling he has been on overload for awhile, just as you probably have been.....but he is simply a mere human with limits of his own, too. He can only do what he can do. and good timing or not, he may very well have just hit his own personal invisible brick wall. Try to be patient, there is every possibility you can handle the weekend better than you think. There is also every possibility kt MIGHT handle the weekend just fine. You might find it turns out to be a pleasant surprise and you and kt have a girls weekend......relax the "shoulds" eat cereal, let dishes sit, whatever.....don't sweat the small stuff, pick any batlles carefully......sleep late with kt, watch a movie, polish nails, do make up......if a crisis DOES erupt, call 9-1-1.
Truth is it IS hard to be the spouse of someone with a serious chronic illness. ANd your husband ? recovering drinker? Do I remember, he has diagnosis of bipolar, too?
So often amongst us here on this site we encourage each other and support each other to take care of yourself FIRST .....do what you must do for yourself. We have kids that push us beyond our own limits and many of us here have had to take drastic actions etc to preserve our own quality of life. Sometimes those things we must do for our own self are not ones we could ever have predicted we might one day find ourself doing....chronic illness changes a LOT of things in our lives and in our relationships and in our needs and priorities in our day to day life. I have been in both shoes, the care giver for a seriously ill spouse and also a seriously ill spouse, both long term. Being the one who is ill is horribly difficult, but, it is also true that being the caregiver for a chronically ill spouse is incredibly hard. And yes, add in special needs kids, of which I also had 2 but now have 3/4, suddenly....for awhile you kinda run on some denial and some autopilot, but eventually you wear out and it starts to sink in just how hard this is, and how ongoing it is......
People seldom CHOOSE timing to become overwhelmed or exhausted. I am sure husband did not choose to become this way any more than you "choose" to become ill.it just happened. Sounds like it just finally HIT him? Or finally caught up with him Possible he may be right now fighting off some physical illness, a cold, allergies, someething, something he probably is not even aware of himsef, and it could be makeing him feel even less able to cope----(and possible his body will successfully fight whatever it might be so he never does manifest with outward symptoms, such is our immune systems)
Yes, it stinks, - just like it stinks when our difficult children wear us down to our last frazzled resource and we must call and arrange to place them or psychiatric hospital them or whatever. I doubt your husband is doing this simply to be malicious or selfish or lazy.....I have a feeling he has been on overload for awhile, just as you probably have been.....but he is simply a mere human with limits of his own, too. He can only do what he can do. and good timing or not, he may very well have just hit his own personal invisible brick wall. Try to be patient, there is every possibility you can handle the weekend better than you think. There is also every possibility kt MIGHT handle the weekend just fine. You might find it turns out to be a pleasant surprise and you and kt have a girls weekend......relax the "shoulds" eat cereal, let dishes sit, whatever.....don't sweat the small stuff, pick any batlles carefully......sleep late with kt, watch a movie, polish nails, do make up......if a crisis DOES erupt, call 9-1-1.
Linda, 
instead of turning to friends or other loved ones for support to talk things over -- their emotions run amok and they forget how to use the thing between their ears. I don't know the history of yours, but it sounds like he's overwhelmed and only knows to bolt instead of facing his issues like rational adult. 
