I'm the sole earner in the house.
It steals my sleep, it takes away my enjoyment of meals, it makes me think carefully whether it's more important to be warm or to be cold but know the bills will be covered.
I inwardly cringe when I'm given a meal that contains three ingredients that could be used in separate meals. My heart drops when I go into the kitchen and see he's cooked more than we need of something that isn't suitable for freezing and I get really annoyed at finding half a packet of something left open and not sealed and put back in the fridge. I found flour moths had got into the cupboards where he hadn't decanted ingredients into glass jars - I had to throw out everything because I found them inside the bags - and I cried.
I'm waiting for the results of a redundancy consultation at work. I feel sick with fear that I'm going to be out of work in just over six weeks.
If I get ill or made redundant, there is nobody taking up the slack. I have no choice about staying in the job unless I can get something else in the meantime. I can't physically do my job anymore - it causes me pain every single day. And it's massively stressful, thanks to the 'Oh, we all work unpaid overtime, it's what we do' pressure. But the illness and the pain means I'm not anywhere near as employable as somebody twenty years younger who has none of those problems.
If I 'fail' or can't take any more, we're fucked. Homeless, hungry, cold. It's all on me. When the cooker stopped working, I had to decide whether that was more important than the gas bill. (It wasn't). It's my problem that the microwave is worn out and unsafe. It's my problem if we run out of toilet roll. It's my problem if one of us needs a prescription, bus fare, a pair of socks or shoes resoling.
I have two pairs of knickers because the others have worn out. He has four pairs of boxers (I finally put my foot down about the two pairs that were so knackered, they looked more like loincloths). We share socks and shoes because we're the same size. I've had no choice but to buy some clothes and shoes suitable for interviews, as I look like shit. but I'm too scared to wear them in the meantime in case they get damaged, so I'm still in the one remaining pair of work suitable trousers where the seam has been repaired so many times, it blisters my inner thigh. I need new glasses, an eye test and dental treatment, but none of these things are happening because a) I can't afford to do anything about them and b) I can't afford to take the time off in any case.
If I earned a fuckton, perhaps I wouldn't be quite so worried (or as tatty). But it would still be my entire responsibility to keep that job.
The responsibility pervades every aspect of my life. It's all on me.
So yeah, it's pretty fucking stressful, actually.