DH is seriously ill and I don't feel as sympathetic as I should

[FinnyStory]

He's mid 50s and potentially has a life threatening illness, although hopefully it will be treated, we have a long road ahead.

We've had a terrible night, he's been in a lot of pain but eventually the pain killers have kicked in and he's now fast asleep and snorring loudly . I have not been back to sleep. Today he will rest all day while I have to do a day's work.

It's not his fault and mostly I am kind and considerate but I don't know how to get through today and I'm feeling angry with him. Whilst basically a decent bloke, he's one of those middle aged men who could never be told about smoking/drinking/eating well, so whilst it would be OTT to say this is self inflicted and he never drank to huge excess etc, I do feel he could have protected himself and therefore me and DC better.

Is it usual to swing between feeling very sorry for him and being actually quite angry with him?

I know this isn’t AIBU but YANBU. My dad has a long term, chronic condition that isn’t necessarily lifestyle related but his lifestyle makes his symptoms worse and I know my mum (all of us, really) go back and forth between ‘you can’t tell him not to smoke/drink, it’s one of his few pleasures now’ and ‘but maybe if he didn’t smoke/drink his symptoms wouldn’t be so bad and wouldn’t impact on him and the rest of us so much’. When a partner is diagnosed with a critical illness it’s a really difficult time and it’s completely normal and natural not be Florence Nightingale about it! I think there’s a lot to be said for how women/men are socialised around caring for people too. Men are many multiples of times more likely to leave a partner after a diagnosis, whereas women are much more likely to shut down their own feelings and be a good little carer about it all.

Is there anywhere you can speak to partners of others with the same diagnosis, maybe a specialist forum for the illness? I find it quite difficult talking to anyone who doesn’t have direct experience of my dad’s condition as they see him having a whisky or two in his wheelchair and think ‘poor bloke, good on him’ and generally it makes me look like an awful person when I point out how much harder it makes my mum’s life dealing with wheelchair transfers when he’s half cut. Families and friends of the diagnosed have a little more understanding of the reality of the day to day.

Most of all I’d just say be kind to yourself. It’s perfectly normal and acceptable to feel resentment about the actions he’s taken that have led to this situation and there’s no black and white narrative where he’s the poor afflicted and you’re a bitch for thinking anything other than ‘my poor husband, I will nurse you back to health with every shred of my being and at any cost to myself’. It’s far more nuanced than that.

Also I agree with PPs, a sensible conversation today about how you’ll manage nights like last night again is needed. No guilt tripping on the ‘I have to work to earn money to support this family’ stuff (if it’ll make him feel useless/defensive/not contributing) but a balanced conversation about how you both need to take all the steps you can to ensure nights of bad pain can be preempted and tackled better. Good luck and take care

NC for this. I could have written this post and now I am so relieved that people are saying it is normal, if only I had known this 20 years ago. My husband had cancer and I had just given birth to a prem baby, we had been married just a year. I wasn't angry but I certainly wasn't as supportive as I could have been. I kind of 'switched off' and now I recall very little of that time, whereas he remembers all of it clearly. I just seemed to carry on as normal (as normal as you can anyway) and his cancer and treatment was an annoyance. I feel so guilty now and have for the last 20 odd years because I feel I wasn't as supportive as I should have been. He doesn't seem to hold it against me at all - in fact he said he feels guilty as I was diagnosed with PND after it was all over and he didn't notice! The only thing I can say is PLEASE try your hardest to hide it from your DH, I know that had my DH died I would never have got over the guilt of being so blase (for want of a better way of putting it).

OP I could have written your post right down to the ridiculing of me for years about a healthy lifestyle.
Encouraging my dd and my stepchildren to laugh at my rabbit food mentality .
Extremely frustrating... and imo irresponsible ...
When he went through heart surgery( as a direct result of his lifestyle according to the doc ) he declared himself as good as new and had a drink 10 days later ....
I feel your pain and wish you well ...

I shrug 🤷‍♀️ and have decided what will be will be ... I can’t control it and I’m damnedif I’m getting into running battles with a grown man

You think I should hide these feelings from DH? I think it's important he understands why I sometimes struggle to be sympathetic.

I must admit I’m surprised at these responses and I think a man complaining about his wife’s illness would rightly be given short shrift.

I’d say it’s normal if his lifestyle has brought this on that you would feel angry, but the thing is some people who neither smoke or drink can have chronic illness too, I have , it’s the luck of the draw, lack of sleep is horrendous, is there a way that you could sleep in separate beds , that way you could get sleep hopefully, you will have days weeks months of swinging between anger and sadness for him, a lot is fear

I think you should share them, but carefullymand pick your moment.

The last thing younwant to be doing is licking someone when they're down.

And he'll be scared/angry/grieving etc too, plus facing whatever the treatment regime is.

The general rule is that you don't dump inwards (ie towards the people most nearly affected) But you need to find a way for you two, the most and second-most affected person to emerge as functioning unit that gets you through this.

It's unfair, of course it is, but it's happened.

Who can you turn to for support (ie he dumps outwards onto you, you dump outwards - onto who?)

Take your time - you may be in this for the long haul. Wait until lack of sleep and other stresses are absent or minimal before attempting potentially emotional conversations with him

To be honest if he’s not obese and only an occasional smoker / drinker his lifestyle wasn’t too bad. Compared with most in this country.

I work in cancer services and believe me we have lots of ‘rabbit food’ people also admitted with cancer. Not saying that he has cancer but it felt similar.

The feelings you have are all normal. Often it’s a reaction to fear about losing him, the change to your lives, having to be his carer, finances, etc. And the questions of could it have been prevented if he’d been healthier. Some relationships are also better than others and that may also impact how you feel.

@bluesapphirestars

I must admit I’m surprised at these responses and I think a man complaining about his wife’s illness would rightly be given short shrift.

Yes, I think he would. And it wouid be wrong.

More people than the patient are affected by the big, scary health conditions. They also need support - the time around diagnosis is one of the most stressful parts, as so much collapses at that point, but so much remains uncertain.

All sorts of reactions come out.

Carers need support too

I don't think you should discuss with him now your feelings of anger and resentment, he is ill and will be hurt by your choice of timing. He is pain and will not take it well, and it will damage your relationship.

Instead ensure self care comes first, you need an hour off every day (even if you need to rope in help) Do you have other people that can help out? Older children? His or your parents? Friends? This should not all be on you. Organise other people to help and keep him company.

If you like the gym, dog walking, run etc when keep that up daily. Limit your interaction to ensuring his comfortable, has food etc and then go and have some time to yourself, chat to friends. If you can hire help then do.

I have been on both sides of this (not lifestyle related) and it is not fun for either party. Try to keep a sense of humour, it is not forever.

op make sure you make some time for yourself generally, do something you enjoy, i don't know, do something frivolous, go to the salon, don't want to trivialise this at all but sometimes the small things matter ...have a coffee with friends, watch something you enjoy on TV, take a luxurious bath, go for a walk, read a nice book...remember you are not defined by his illness and taking care of yourself will benefit everyone in the end

YANBU.

I have repeatedly said to DH that if he continues to eat badly and drink too much alcohol and gets ill as a result of it, I don't see why I should bear the burden of having to look after him.

Hasn't made any difference. I thought he might be more inclined to a healthy lifestyle due to Covid risks being higher for overweight men in his age group - but there's always an excuse for his behaviour.

'I'm on holiday' 'It's the weekend' "celebrating a good deal at work' 'Had a bad day at work' .... etc ... etc...

Pillypocket666

So a carer should shut up and put up at any cost?

I left my husband when he was terminally ill with cancer- was that also something that should never happen?

I think your feelings are valid but it doesn't sound like your DH had a dreadful lifestyle to be fair.

I think serious illness doesn't always bring out the best in the patient or the carer. Caring for someone who is very ill is extremely hard and you totally have the right to vent about it but maybe not to your DH.

Your feelings are normal. Do you have a spare bedroom? If there are likely to be bad nights then one of you needs to use it because lack of sleep is a total killer on top of everything else.

Like a PP I've had chronic pain problems but not kept people up at night but I did put some effort into working out the pain management with one eye to the people around me. He needs to put that effort in.

DH has chronic health problems which have required a lot of care at times and alongside wrangling work and family it was a killer. We hit crunch point when yet again his parents undermined his treatment and he realised he had to do what I'd done and manage with one eye to his own family of growing DC (who were old enough to cotton on to the severity).

Do you have some kind of support group to hook into - even if its just a few people going through similar experiences? Might help the DC too.

@speakout

Pillypocket666

So a carer should shut up and put up at any cost?

I left my husband when he was terminally ill with cancer- was that also something that should never happen?

Unless the partner is abusive then I don't understand how anyone leaves a terminally ill partner but I don't know you or your reasons, that's only my opinion.

Op, it’s absolutely normal to have these conflicting emotions. My dad was a 40 a day smoker most of his life. I lost him early to lung cancer. We constantly told him to stop for the sake of his health, but he didn’t. 15 years later my grief at losing him is still tinged with anger. Currently going through similar with mother, who after he died, piled the weight on so she’s classed as morbidly obese, no exercise, no healthy diet, recent diagnosed with heart failure, so we are losing her too. I feel it’s self inflicted and am angry with her. Be kind to yourself and accept dealing with these issues doesn’t mean you have to be a saint. It’s a normal way of grieving for the life you wanted is now being taken away from you and so you will be feeling lots of different emotions.

I am so shocked people think this is ok. You sound awful. No I don't think you should share your feelings with him. How bloody selfish can you get

I take it you have looked after a non cooperative ill partner whist holding down a job and managing a family?

From what you've said OP, your DH hasn't led an extreme lifestyle at all and he's not obese either. Yet you're angry with him for having a serious illness, assuming that it's down to the lifestyle you deem to be unacceptable . Poor man.

Anger can be a coping mechanism to protect yourself from feeling scared at how serious it is

This is a really important point and its one area that a support group can help with. It gives you a safe space to vent without twats telling you how much better they would manage everything.

I have one cancer and am currently being tested for a second (wholly unrelated) one.

The uncertainty at the beginning, when there’s a good chance something is badly wrong, and you don’t know what you’re facing is one of the very hardest times

Yes to taking time to look after yourself. But for heaven sake do not talk to DH about your feelings right now. He’s got enough on his plate without having to deal with other people’s feelings.

Find a different confidante. Look after yourself, so you can look after him.

It is also worth seriously considering how it would feel if you were in this position? How would you like to be treated? Would you expect your dh to be kind, gentle and considerate?

If he is in a lot of pain, frightened about the news, barely sleeping and trying to cope with this and now your anger it is going to cause lasting damage to your marriage, and how he sees you.

His lifestyle does not sound overly indulgent or dangerous, but you are coming across as quite cold and unkind.

Bear in mind that I have never forgotten who was there for me in my hour of need - and who was not. This is a real test of your character and his, and your marriage. Your choice, but if you love and care for him at all you will at least show some compassion for his predicament until he is able to look after himself again. Now is not the moment for point scoring.

Take care of yourself, by all means but to start laying out your grievances at this point is quite cruel.

I agree with those saying don’t tell him.
I think you need to make some time for yourself, whether to sleep or a hobby. Speak to others, a friend or relative as an outlet to your frustrations and be supportive to DH.