DH disappointing after me having cancer

[pinkfleecepyjamas]

Can’t think of a better thread title for this.

I had cancer this year; the short story is I ended up having to have a mastectomy and am now out of active treatment but it was a very very difficult year. We have young children in primary school and navigating all of the treatment around them was really hard. I also now take Tamoxifen which is an absolute bitch of a drug, I will have years of MRIs and mammograms. I am in weekly therapy for it, especially my worries about it coming back. It really has been horrible. But I am trying to move on.

On to DH. During treatment he was great, took on all the school runs, shopping cooking cleaning etc without complaint (we didn’t have much additional support). Took time off work at the drop of a hat when it was needed. Very reassuring around my surgeries, very kind. He was great. However - since ‘active’ treatment ended it’s like he feels we all just revert back to normal. And I don’t know whether it’s the experience of cancer, that facing mortality of it all, but now I just find his ‘normal’ so boring.

He never wants to do anything; I could suggest the most stress-free day out with the kids (even just a walk!) and his knee jerk is ‘no’ or ‘why do you want to do that’. We have the same day off during the week and I suggested a month ago we did something with these days together, make the most of it - the first time, I booked lunch out and it was fab, we had a great day. He hasn’t once suggested a thing since. In fact the day rolls around and after school drop off he just goes out for his long run (anything up to 2 hours) then just stares at his phone the rest of the day.

I just feel so irritable about it all. I want to make the most of my days, now more than ever. No I don’t need a huge event planned every single day, but I don’t think even a nice walk on a day off to spend quality time together after everything we’ve been through this year is too much to ask. Maybe a coffee. Even the cinema, I’ve mentioned this a few times and he’s just like ‘nah’ and that’s that (once or twice I’ve just gone by myself). We don’t have family support for babysitting so it’s so infuriating he won’t do anything with these days.

What’s also frustrating is, he’s started to broach intimacy (sex has been non existent for months, for obvious reasons!!). But I just don’t want to. He isn’t being pushy, but when he tries to discuss it I just want to push him away. I think, how dare you - you’ve not wanted to spend any time with me for weeks and suddenly I should just bloody yield to your touch. For now I keep saying I’m still working on the idea of intimacy and being naked etc since my mastectomy with the therapist (which is true) but the real fact of it is; if I felt at all attracted to him right now I would. I just don’t. Because he’s just making me feel so unwanted.

I really want to broach this with him but without it being an argument. I want to try and make him understand how unloved I’m feeling. I keep considering maybe suggesting we both go to a counselling session together. I just don’t know what to do. This just isn’t the life I want after surviving cancer.

as rude as being on your phone appears to others, it is both addictive and ‘soothing’ for the brain in the short term, not unlike sugar.

if he’s on it a lot he may well just be subconsciously self regulating/self soothing. He’s had a hugely traumatic experience.

Also, men are absolutely not wired the same when it comes to sex. We see sec as the result of intimacy. They see sex as the intimacy. So he might see going for a meal or a walk as extra effort on top of depression, exhaustion, money worries or whatver. While you’re seeing it as bonding. And he’s asking about sex thinking he would like to bond with you, and you’re thinking fuck off you arse you won’t even bond with me on a walk or at the cinema, so why am I going to have sex with you?
The absolute mismatch that is men and women.

he needs to have this explained to him kindly, as he will not get it unless you do

(I’ll add a disclaimer that some men are just arseholes who have no interest in bonding through sex OR cinema trips - but you’ll know if he is one of these or not)

My DH has stage 4 cancer and now in remission. The last 12 months were without a doubt very hard on him....but I also spent 12 months living in constant fear and anxiety. I kept all the plates of our life spinning during his treatment and I hope I supported him well. I'm so happy he's in remission but I am also completely and utterly burnt out. Like a balloon with the air gone from it I feel shrivelled. I love him with all my heart but don't know what I even want right now. I feel overwhelmed by even simple things like what I want for dinner or for a Christmas present. I could just crawl under a duvet and be left alone..... I still do my hobby because it's not one that can be easily shelved. I think my DH finds it frustrated I'm a bit flat, sad and passive at the moment. Normally I'd be better described as a force of nature!! He doesn't understand why I've just ground to a halt. I'm not sure I do. Probably I just buried all my emotions at the time to get through things and now I can slowly let them seep to the surface because it's 'safe' now. Probably he would want more sex. I feel so exhausted mentally I can't factor it in. I feel horribly selfish as it wasn't me that was sick.....the guilt makes me feel worse.
I don't know your DH, possibly he has just checked out or is lazy but if he was good before, he could just be feeling a bit like I am??

He sounds tired and disconnected

It sounds as if you’ve all had a really tough time. It’s great that you’re on the mend OP but please don’t underestimate the strain your illness has taken on your DH and others who love you.
Neither of you are wrong but maybe it’s time for you to have some empathy towards him as he’s done for you.
I don’t think he’s terrible for wanting to take things a little easier and recuperate from what’s obviously been an awful experience for you all as a family.

Yes I’ve been there too, you have my sympathy. After my surgery , which was a much tougher recovery than I had anticipated, and I was on that horrendous Tamoxifen, began my worst time. I was so down and our marriage seemed to be in a bad place, I was so angry with him. He was struggling to understand how I felt, and I felt he had stopped caring. I look back and realise we should definitely have been in couples counselling, I strongly recommend you both do that.

Please post this on General Health OP , there is a wonderfully supportive thread on there called The great recovery 4.
There are loads of people who have been through cancer treatment and the focus of the thread is on life after treatment.
I think that it will be helpful for you.x

I want to thank everyone for your really kind, considered comments. Re-reading my post back I can see how low I’m feeling and it’s like I’m making the DH the scapegoat I need for my mood. To my shame, I do struggle to remember or get in to the mindset of DH with all of this, and how much it must have affected him to (he was at all hospital meetings and some of them were dreadful). He sat in the hospital canteen during both surgeries for hours to make sure he’d be there the second I was up. He is great, and this has just been a horribly shit year for us both.

I will discuss couples counselling when I see my own therapist this week to see if she can even offer it (given she’s been seeing me for a few weeks), and then gently broach the subject with DH tonight (I do think he’ll be receptive to it though). I have always been the planner too, always, so maybe I need to just accept the plans will continue to always be made by me!

Again, thank you for taking the time to comment - it has really helped me today - I even made a few notes.

Oh thank you, I’ll see if I can get the thread moved over there

This is a very stereotypical problem without the cancer. Women generally need to feel close to their male partner to have sex. Men need to have sex with their partner to feel close. As boring as it sounds you are going to have to talk to him about this. You both sound a bit resentful of each other.

Gosh, this is your first take on OP's post?
I feel for you OP! Yanbu but the solution is good communication with your DH.

I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through the experience of having cancer really understands what it’s like. I’ve gone through a year of treatment for melanoma (and 3 surgeries before that). I finished treatment and everyone is like woo hoo! You’re all better now! I would have said the same. But that’s not how it works. It’s a hugely traumatic and life changing experience. I think he probably needs some therapy to process it and you probably need some therapy together to talk it through. Because even if his intentions are good, he just can’t understand.

As for sex, your feelings are totally normal and he just needs to process that and what it means. Dh and I haven’t had sex in 2 years. And I cannot imagine when we will again. Initially, I was literally in too much pain, could not have supported my own weight, could not move my joints in that way, just impossible. I couldn’t even sit on the floor and get back up.

Now that the physical pain is better, it’s the emotional side. I’ve literally had a chunk of my body cut off and replaced with plastic and a skin graft. I have very visible unsexy scars. There’s a good section of my body where I no longer have any sensation to touch because I had nerves removed when they took out 60+ lymph nodes. Nothing feels normal anymore. That isn’t my fault. But it’s what we’ve been dealt and Dh has to live with the consequences of that just like I do while I start to feel well enough to approach normality again. It’s going to be years rather than months or weeks and that’s assuming the cancer doesn’t recur.

yes - my husband is like this

When my husband had bowel cancer, I found the Bowel Cancer uk Forum so helpful. Posters were so kind and I was able to discuss my huge fears with supportive people going through the same things. It restored my faith in human nature. I found it helpful to have an outlet. It was a very difficult time but I was so grateful for his treatment and the fact that he survived and is fine with NED, three and a half years later.
For the first year, I was led by him in terms of outings. He worried about being far from a toilet. He just wanted to stay close to home and family. I was just grateful to be able to sit by him on the sofa in the evenings and have him beside me in bed at night. Things are more or less back to normal now. I try not to take for granted the small joys and triumphs. I won’t say every day feels like a blessing but it really did feel like that in the early days. I was frightened for a long time.
Everyone needs an outlet. For me it was the Cancer forums. I still feel grateful for normal and boring. I do hope you are able to reassure your husband that you are ok and you are looking forward to the future. He needs to be coaxed back into planning for the future whilst enjoying life in the present. I would advise you to go easy on both of you for this first year. Be very kind to yourselves. Good luck with everything and keep talking to your husband.

The other huge help to me in supporting my husband with cancer, was the help I received from two female friends. They made it clear that I could phone or text anytime of the day or night. I didn’t need to take them up on it but I knew they were there. Few men have these kinds of friendships and most women would not be happy with their husbands sharing intimate details of their illness with someone else. It helped that both friends had either survived cancer or had husbands who had been ill with cancer. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t have access to the solid support and opportunity to talk that my friends gave me.
Sorry, OP. I am trying to say that your husband might benefit from the opportunity to talk to someone. Perhaps a counsellor?

Tell him exactly what you’ve written above! He’s being unreasonable expecting you to live with no fun days out, and you’re arguably being unreasonable (though very understandably so given what you’ve been through) expecting him to forgo sex. Both of these things can easily be rectified.
(Personally as a practical matter that would help me a lot I would keep my pyjama top on in this situation..., at least for the first few times.)

I think you’re right and we had it the opposite way around. My husband always wanted to go out and do stuff, I grew up in a home where we would never just have an outing or go for a meal - weekends were spent the four of us at home.
I found it exhausting always having to go somewhere and then my husband began criticising me for not planning things. It resulted in an interesting conversation - I said I already found it really stressful having to go on an outing every weekend (at this time we had very young children), I just didn’t think I could add planning something into the mix as well. The reason I didn’t plan anything is because I want to stay at home. He said he gets depressed just being at home and feels like he’s wasting the day.
So essentially two different angles and we found ways to compromise.
Now I like a day out at the weekend!