I also understand what you are going through. My husband of 15 years was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder four years ago. There is no cure and will eventually be fatal. His symptoms at this stage are mainly behavioural/cognitive. His personality altered gradually and he became very needy and pestering. He repeats the same old negative comments dozens of times a day and would frequently complain. We would have arguments/ strong discussions that did not follow any reasoning or logic and alot of what he said did not make sense. (His condition is neurological therefore affects the brain). He spent 8 years being sacked from job after job, but would not take any advice to help himself. He was always frustrated and agitated (but reasonably normal in public) and frequently took it out on the children and myself. After one particularly aggressive and unacceptable 'meltdown' over something trivial our son did (and believe me it was really minor) I moved out that very evening with the children. His meltdowns were happening very regularly (3x week) and he would say afterwards, "What do you expect, I'm sick." It got to the point that even though he may have had a 'legitimate' excuse, it did not change the fact that our lives were being governed by his disorder. The more I tried to do to make his life comfortable expotentially my life would be made uncomfortable. I decided that as there was only one of me and my priority was to my children, (my health was being compromised as it was and to look after the children properly I needed to keep myself healthy) that separating myself from my husband was the only thing to do. He now lives away from the home. I take him with us for short holidays (2 days) and we attend church together as a family. Understandably I feel enormous guilt at 'ditching' him when he got sick, but I found the situation at home impossible as he was so uncooperative. Basically for me there was no right solution, either way someone would get very badly hurt. That was 8 months ago and I still feel awful. As we still see him a couple of time per week for meals, weekend outings and Church I feel that this goes some way towards a compromise. Its not ideal but for the moment it is managable.
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I also understand what you are going through. My husband of 15 years was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder four years ago. There is no cure and will eventually be fatal. His symptoms at this stage are mainly behavioural/cognitive. His personality altered gradually and he became very needy and pestering. He repeats the same old negative comments dozens of times a day and would frequently complain. We would have arguments/ strong discussions that did not follow any reasoning or logic and alot of what he said did not make sense. (His condition is neurological therefore affects the brain). He spent 8 years being sacked from job after job, but would not take any advice to help himself. He was always frustrated and agitated (but reasonably normal in public) and frequently took it out on the children and myself. After one particularly aggressive and unacceptable 'meltdown' over something trivial our son did (and believe me it was really minor) I moved out that very evening with the children. His meltdowns were happening very regularly (3x week) and he would say afterwards, "What do you expect, I'm sick." It got to the point that even though he may have had a 'legitimate' excuse, it did not change the fact that our lives were being governed by his disorder. The more I tried to do to make his life comfortable expotentially my life would be made uncomfortable. I decided that as there was only one of me and my priority was to my children, (my health was being compromised as it was and to look after the children properly I needed to keep myself healthy) that separating myself from my husband was the only thing to do. He now lives away from the home. I take him with us for short holidays (2 days) and we attend church together as a family. Understandably I feel enormous guilt at 'ditching' him when he got sick, but I found the situation at home impossible as he was so uncooperative. Basically for me there was no right solution, either way someone would get very badly hurt. That was 8 months ago and I still feel awful. As we still see him a couple of time per week for meals, weekend outings and Church I feel that this goes some way towards a compromise. Its not ideal but for the moment it is managable.
January 21, 2010 - 3:00amThis Comment
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