Living with and possibly leaving a sick spouse - a heartfelt story from a reader looking for advice

I'm happy to have read this too. Obviously not happy to hear other people going through problems but happy to hear that I'm not alone.
My wife was diagnosed with MS 11 years ago and we have been married for 10. She was a vivacious, fun loving young lady who was working as criminal barrister at the time and loving life in London. Five years ago our beautiful daughter was born and this coincided with a rapid decline in my wifes mobility, the onset of incontinence and other nasty symptoms. Trying to juggle all this as we adjusted to becoming parents was a challenge to say the least. The element which rendered the situation nigh on impossible was my wifes challenging behaviour. She has become extremely cantankerous and negative towards those closest to her (including our daughter). She refuses to take part in any meaningful exercise, diet and takes no responsibility for household chores, finances and even her own personal hygiene. We have not had marital relations in years now. I feel like our only connection is our daughter and that the only reason I am still there is that I feel that if I leave she will lose everything (she lost her ability to work around 5 years ago due to lack of mobility). Sometimes I day dream about leaving and the new MS free life I could lead. However for the time being I'll dig deep and hope that things improve.

I have spent days packing up my share of our marriage. I also got him the bits I'm taking but that he will need - and then I stopped and thought why am I doing this? Caring for him is ingrained. I try very hard not to cry. I must keep focused on packing and trying to find a home for me, my pets and my 80yr old mum. When I am settled I can look at my broken heart.
I realise now that while I have lost him, he has lost himself. He said to me people dont seem to care - oh if he could hear what they are saying to me. He belongs to a service group - most of them know and they are disgusted with him. Our doctor, who is also a friend, called him a b@#&*#! and said it was the best thing for me. A very close friend said he was a disgrace. They all raise our vows.
My husband doesn't have to look after me. He just watches me get hurt. This is all about sex and my drug induced weight gain revolts him. He told me hes not even interested in me, with a look of revulsion on his face.
I feel destroyed inside. I will not love again.

Dear what kind of woman. I am faced with EXACTLY the same situation. The only difference being that we are not legally married. My partner was diagnosed with PPMS about eight months after we met. I decided to plough ahead against the advice of family and friends. At the time of my decision, I was sure it was the right one. Most days I feel it still is. With primary progressive as you probably know the course if the disease can be aggressive and unpredictable. He will most likely be wheelchair bound within months. He has deteriorated considerably but his mental state remains for the most part fairly positive. So far the bad mental state days are few and far between. Once in awhile he will look to pick a fight because he is frustrated. Always by his limitations. What advice to give you? I can't because I haven't figured it out in my own life. However as mentioned by another poster, be kind to yourself and take care of yourself. You are clearly patient and kind to him but unfortunately he is unable to reciprocate. I would say this to you. If you begin to forget what it means to be happy. If you cry more now than laugh or smile, then it may be time to rethink your life. I personally know that this is not an easy thing to think about. I know!
Whatever you decide to do, you will have supporters as well as critics. Be deaf to the critics. Unless they have walked a mile in your shoes, they do not know your life. Sending you lots and lots of love. Elizabeth.

The person you married is gone, replaced by a sick person who has to develop a different life for himself (to deal with the illness). Take care of yourself, and let him take care of himself. You are both in shock, dealing with your own reasons for being angry, fearful, guilty, etc.

Be kind to yourself, and forgive him as best as you can. You can't rescue him, and you are drowning while attempting to do so. Frogive yourself for not being able to do the impossible.

You each have a chance to develop better lives apart from each other, instead of sticking together in the hell that you're both currently experiencing. I wish you both the best!

I'll tell you what type of person leaves their sick spouse - my husband. Nearky 20yrs and I helped him raise his kids, supported everything he did, ran his home eceveven though I was in pain from rheumatoid arthritis, got back on deck as fast as possible after every surgery and was back in the kitchen ten weeks after a brain stem stroke. ..when the drs thought I'd still be in hospital. .and I get this because hes "run out of puff"
Bull. Run out of puff runnirurunning two relationships more like it.

I'm looking for advice too although I am in the reverse of this situation. I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome which was very manageable until I fell pregnant, at which my body fell apart. As a result, I have been left a whole host of other issues so my husband and I have both had to quit our jobs, me because I struggle with day to day things and him to look after me and our daughter. But I feel trapped and often wonder if I even want to be with him anymore.

I love him, I do, but he doesn't get me or my illness and he's really not cut out to be a carer. Before I met him, I knew where things like my keys and bank cards were but since my illness, most of the time I have no clue as I never need them and he has a tendency to move them around. I get really stressed out which worsens my condition especially as he always blames me for him moving them or doesn't remember moving them at all.

On top of this I feel like I get no co-operation from him when it comes to meals and money. Having spent so long with mobility issues, I have gained a lot of weight. I desperately need to lose it as it doesn't help me get better and I have been refused treatment because of it. He provides all our meals and he appears to be unwilling to do any changes that would enable me to lose weight. To the point where he is barely cooking and either ordering us take-aways or dragging us to restaurants. When he does cook, he never takes into consideration my medical dietry restrictions and will rarely cook vegetables.

I don't particularly want to be apart from him, but I often feel for my own health and benefit that I cannot stay. On the same note, I feel I cannot leave. I wouldn't easily manage our daughter and he's made it very clear that should be ever split he would fight for sole custody. I definitely don't want to live separately from her and I worry about her well being if I wasn't there to try and even out the bits he can't be bothered to do.

My husband and I have been together for going on 8 years but just got married last month.

Shortly after we met and began dating he let me know that he had lost both his kidneys when he was a child and now had a transplanted kidney that he had received when he was twelve.

This didn't change anything for me. Growing up my aunt had battled diabetes and kidney failure, it was something that my entire family had battled my entire childhood so it was a condition that I was familiar with.

For the first three years of our relationship everything was fine; he had regular doctors appointments, had to drink tons of water and had to take insane amounts of medication to keep the kidney going but this was nothing that I couldn't handle.

Then in 2010 his kidney failed; the next two years consisted of constant dr appointments, in home dialysis, traveling to other states to get on the kidney transplant list. For two years the only time I left the house was to go to work. I hooked him up to his dialysis machine every night, cleaned the sight where the tube was in his abdomen, sat in the ER with him on countless nights and even got tested to give him one of my own kidneys.

During this time the man I fell in love with disappeared. He became depressed, he no longer had any energy, lost every bit of his sex drive and pretty much just treated me as his nurse. Although I thought about leaving occasionally I always pushed the thoughts away and reminded myself of what he was going through.

In 2012 he received his transplant from a deceised donor. After the transplant things took a while to go back to normal, although it did take a while.

But in the past year everything has changed. He has been having horrible migraines and barely sleeps. His kidney is fine but he cannot seem to get rid of these migraines. At times I seriously consider the possibility that he has developed split personalities, sometimes he's perfect and is the man I fell in love with and that I married but then there are other times that he becomes a completely different person. He throws things, cuses, calls me every name you can think of, breaks things, blames me for anything and everything and more.
I just don't know what to do. When he's good, our marriage is great, it's far from perfect but we work together and things are fine. But when he's stressed or in pain and the other side of him comes out all I can do is cry and pray that something changes. I just don't know else to do. I try not to argue back, telling myself that he's in pain and he's feeling out of control but sometimes I can't help but yell back. I honestly just don't know what to do anymore, I really don't