My husband has diabetes, and every possible complication of the disease.
He has one leg, that is in danger of also being amputated, and that is terrifying.
I feel I need to say that I understand what he's going through is very hard.
When I say he's difficult, I have people explain to me that he's struggling and I should try to be understanding. I wonder if any of them know how close they were to a beating.
He's mean, he's manipulative, he's dismissive, he's everything but the guy I married. He hardly even looks like the same guy.
If I speak, I said the wrong thing, if I don't speak, I don't even care. I show up too late, leave too soon, don't do the therapy, do the therapy all wrong...
He is going to go into long term rehab, and there are excellent reasons for him to do so, but the reason he gave to his doctors is that he has no support at home. He said (right to my face) that we aren't the kind of family that helps each other.
We've been together for 23 years, and we had a super solid relationship. But there is nothing left of it, but diabetes and obligation.
When people ask how he is, I don't say "He's a d*** that's how he is!" I shove it way down and tell them what is going on.
And if it ever jumps out that he's hateful, they say that he's going through a rough time, as if that didn't occur to me. As if I'm having a blast. As if everything I had planned for my life isn't dying with him. As if the rest of my problems aren't multiplied by all of this. As if letting him be hateful to me is going to make him well. As if miserable years of my life aren't ticking away from me.
Nothing about the illness or the difficulty it causes would drive this wedge between us, but that as bad as it is, he goes out of his way to make it worse than it has to be on purpose just to be hateful is more than I think I can handle.
If you are about to respond by telling me how to be more more forgiving and tolerant, just... Don't.
I never want to leave him. I'm never going to leave him to deal with this alone. I remember the life we made together, the plans we had, how much we loved each other. I respect our partnership and mean to see it through.
I appreciate this forum for the challenges of being a caregiver, I really needed to sic that up.