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

My situation may not be as bad as other stories that i have read here, but it is stressful and I just need this moment to vent. I'm 25 years old and I met my current boyfriend 3 1/2 years ago. This is my first relationship and two months after I met him, i got pregnant. I love my son, but i'm sad that my boyfriend and I haven't had hardly any time to go out and be a young fun couple. I would have loved to have been able to travel with him and had more time to go out on dates and stuff. What really worries me is that my boyfriend has asthma, and it's gotten worse over the years. We are trying to get insurance but the process is taking a really long time and i've been paying for all of his medication (inhalers) which don't help him as much as they used to. So he goes through those a lot quicker. He breathes much better with prednisone (steroids) but that isn't good for his health and im very concerned with how it's affecting him. His health has been a major concern for me since the beginning. I try to stay positive but he is so negative sometimes; saying he's going to die all the time. It really brings me down. I'm here typing this at 1:30 a.m. because he was coughing throughout the night and now i'm wide awake. I try hard to be supportive and reassuring but there are moments like these where i can't help but think 'Why isn't there a damn cure?' Why did my first boyfriend have to have such bad health issues?' (he's been through a lot of stuff minus the asthma). My life has just changed drastically in a short period of time and i think it's really affected me. I'm not the same person i was four years ago, it's like i've lost myself. I feel like an old woman sometimes instead of twenty five and i wasn't prepared to be a mom or a caretaker at this age. How do you deal with it? I want to remain faithful and positive it's just really hard sometimes.

I am so happy that I found this site and have found so many others who are going through the same thing that I am right now, showing me that I'm truly not alone. I am 33 years old and my boyfriend will be 53 next week. We have been in a relationship for 7 years now. Yes, there is a big gap in age, but when I met him, he was young spirited, active, happy, and could make me laugh and smile like nobody ever has, which is why I fell so in love with him. Our relationship has never been all rainbows and butterflies, even from the beginning, we've had our issues, but we stayed strong together through many negative things. He stuck by me during a time in my life when I had no one and was separated from him off and on for 3 years. However, when I finally came home to stay, is when he started getting sick. My boyfriend has COPD. He always had a little trouble catching his breath and coughing spells due to smoking for many years of his life, but it was never something that I ever saw getting this bad, this quick. However, over the last 3 years, his health has taken a huge plummet downward and because of this, so has our relationship. My boyfriend who normally weighs about 150, now weighs around 220. He is on oxygen 24/7, can't walk very far at all without gasping for air, is constantly in pain, due to many surgerys, as well as back disease. He can't lay down at night and sleep like normal people because he can't breathe if he does, so he sits up all night and all day long, dosing in and out of sleep constantly. His family doesn't do much at all to help him and because of his health, I moved him into my mom's house, where I live, so that I could help take care of him more. However, this has made things between us even worse. He is absolutely miserable, but who wouldn't be that has to live like he does everyday. And I understand that, but I feel like I have all this weight on my shoulders and I can't do anything to make him better. Because of this, I have become very resentful and I find myself being mean to him because of it. I get mad that he doesn't do anything for himself except sit there and continue to die. We haven't been intimate in close to 3 years, and all we do is argue and fight anymore about anything and everything that we talk about. It's like we are friends, but friends that can't even get along anymore... I am overwhelmed with guilt at times. The man that I fell in love with is no longer the man that I am with today and it breaks my heart because I feel so guilty for wanting to leave him because who is going to take care of him if I do... I am 33 and I feel like I could have so much more in life now than what I have settled for, especially since most of my life has been stolen due to drug and alcohol addiction. I have finally gotten myself on the right track; started working, about to graduate from college, am able to care for my teenage children again, but I am miserable in my relationship. I care about him so much and I don't want to hurt him, but every time I bring up the fact that our relationship is pretty much over , he gets very upset and I feel so bad about it. I want him to be in a place where if I did leave, I could feel like he was going to be okay without me, but I don't even know where to start. He is very stubborn and I just feel like he won't even help himself anymore. I want to find someone who I can be happy with again, but without feeling like a horrible person and I don't know if that is even possible. Please let me know if anyone can relate to this and help me figure out what I am going to do. Thanks.

I am the one in the relationship, worh the chronic illnesses. To make matters worst , some of my illnesses are not accept eyed by the medical profession . I have married 35 years to a wonderful man. I want him to leave me and live a good life he deserves. He has taken care of me and my children and, has worked hard. Have illness that i have become allergic to everythi, and imant use any hygiene products, or wear clothes because i am allergc. I stay in sores and can't breath when exposed, it is debilitating. I have to stay isolated in a special built traler and can't be around any chemicals. I want him to leave me, I have nothing to offer him anymore, and I don't want him to see me deteriarin. Everyone else has abandaned me. He stays because he is a good man. I feel quilty we have been together since jr. High school. i am 53 and been sick 4 years. I want to end my lifespan he will go on wirh his.

I am 39 and my husband is 45 years we have a 5 and 8 year old. Unlike must of the comments my husbands health problems are his own doing. He is a long time smoker suffering from severe advanced heart disease and type 2 diabetes. He does not take care of himself and he is often anger about his health and anyone who mentions it. We have been separated this year and are slowly working on putting things back together. And today he is his in the hospital waiting on a cath and surely another stint.
My message and I what I have found is that his anger, his distance from me is all misdirected anger and disappointment in himself. THis fuels his depression, which he is not treating. He is embarrassed that he is this weak and vulnerable person, it is not who he was when he was younger. And It not who he wants to be now, he is overwhelmed by the progression of it all.
I have learned that creating my own life around his has made me happy. I stay focused on him and our young daughters' needs but I do not let his health consume me as it did. I know we will be in the hospital again, I know that the emphysema will begin soon as his COPD progresses, but I knew all this when I married him.
The more I have let go of the need to be involved in his health and the need to be held back by his health, I have noticed he is taking more of an interest in me and his own health.
They are not anger at us or hate us, they hate who they can not be for us. They hate that they can not contribute as they think they should, or preform in bed as they use to or that they are a financial drain, that's why they obsess over finances or just give up on physically getting close to us. It is misdirected and isolating to both parties. That is what I have learned and my own security now in knowing that it is not me that is the problem is making all the difference in both of us.
he is happy seeing me happy and it is a great example on how to keep moving forward despite obstacles for our daughters.
There is a little spark of hope that this time it will stick, and he will exercise and not smoke. I know that it wont stick and he will be back out there smoking, eating gas station food and not exercising. But he will still be a great father, creative and talented husband and for now that is enough. It has taken me over a year, lots of anger and a separation to come to this place, knowing that I (me not him) need to move past his health if I want a life with him.
Thanks for listening to me ramble.