In sickness and in health but he's reached his limit

[AskingTooMuch]

I hope someone can help me. Apologies if this has typos etc but am tapping away on phone with DH sleeping next to me.

We've been together 10 years, 3DCs (DD1 is mine from previous relationship but we got together when she was tiny, he's her dad in every way that matters). a couple of years into our relationship I got very I'll and ended up having some intestine removed. It affected me in many ways but I made a good recovery all things considered. DD2 was born 2 years after the accident and we married when she was a baby.

Then I had DS and had a cesarean. There were complications with scar tissue from my previous issue and things got worse from there. Don't want to go into too many details as ongoing negligence claim against the hospital. DH amazing throughout and was pretty much a single dad for 18 months when I was very sick.

DS is now four and a year ago I had a colostomy. I'm 36. This has been very difficult to accept and I am still struggling. But the hardest thing is DH's reaction. He was always the driving force in the negligence claim etc and always convinced I could be 'fixed' and this has hit him so hard. He keeps saying I have been ruined.

I still love and fancy him and want us to have a full, intimate relationship. But he won't go near me or let me go near him sexually. Cuddles etc fine but if I do anything sexual he gets almost angry. He says it (the colostomy) is disgusting and he's not a freak with a fetish etc.

I have begged him to get counselling but he refuses. I have told him how devastated I am at his rejection but he says it's not his fault he finds what's happened repulsive. He says he still loves me the person but can never accept what has happened to me and the thought of touching me (near 'it'), repels him. He asked me to stop being sexual at him as it will make him leave.

I don't know what to do. I am still a sexual being even if I have a bag of my own waste (what he keeps saying), on me. But finding someone else feels impossible - anyone would be put off even if I didn't have 3 DCs and no job. And I don't want a fetishist, I want a normal family life.

I know people in my situation can and do have that but DH says their partners knew what they were signing up for and he is still with me and still loves me so what's the issue. But it's not enough for me and how can I come to terms with this if DH is so revolted by me?

He has said in the past that I would be better off dead. This was in the heat of the moment when we first got the news that a colostomy was my only real option, and just after the op itself.

It goes along with thinking I am ruined and stuff - he doesn't say "I wish you were dead", he thinks I should feel that way? Perhaps. I don't know.

I don't think I'd be better off dead and I have said so, but it's hard to put that forward calmly.

The DCs are a difficult one... I am not sure how they feel about me anyway. DS helps me out when DH isn't here, and can (just), remember what things were like before. She's happy that I am more mobile. She was so excited when I could come to her 'meet the teachers' evening at the start of term.

DD2 and DS are still small and are far more bonded to DH than to me. That's something I can work on I think, to help with my feelings of... just despair I think, at what is happening. I was thinking I might be better able to face the future if I had a closer relationship with the younger DCs.

DH thinks I am the unreasonable one. I suppose on some level he's right - I can't make him want to have sex with me.

DH thinks I am the unreasonable one. I suppose on some level he's right

No , hes not , theres nothing reasonable about what hes doing .

If hes so miserable , so repulsed , thinks youd be better of dead ect then why on earth is he still there ? Would you stay with someone you felt this way about ? I wouldnt.

He says he still loves me the person, me the co-parent. But like a deep friendship or a family member. He doesn't wish I was dead, as I said, but perhaps he thinks I should feel that way.

He is still here because he loves me and he loves the DCs and, I suppose, he'd also say because I/we need him here. He is very firm that he would never abandon us. That's his words "I am not going to be someone who abandons his kids".

you have used the word ashamed a few times, and I think there are some very good reasons why your dh should be ashamed

He is thinking less of you as a person because you have been through so much

He is thinking of bringing another woman into his marriage by having sex with someone else

He is putting you down in front of the kids

He has not loved and cherished you (taking words from C of E marriage vows)

However you have nothing to be ashamed of, you have accepted surgery that will enable you be a more involved with the kids. Well done you, I'm very impressed with your ability to keep going both before and after surgery

I would value highly a colostomy and its bag if it kept me alive! Look at all you can do! If you choose to go on a hike along a stream with your kids, you can, as you are physically able to do that. You can bake cookies with them, as your mind is clear. You can roll on the grass with a puppy, and revel in being alive. You can enjoy being outside in the sunshine, smell fall leaves burning (I know, I know), enjoy the scent of line dried clothes, dance with your children.

Life is good! The problems he has with your body w its colostomy are all in his head. He has some strange views on it! I mean really weird ideas.

Please show him this.

You have all the opportunity at your disposal to bond with your children now that you are feeling better. Don't worry about that. A mother is something very special and nothing can substitute a mother. My mother was exeedingly ill for 10 years before she passed away nearly 10 years ago now. My dd is named after her and I have always loved my mother dearly. That's not to say there weren't difficult times because of course there were. Those were mostly tied in with it being very hard seeing her so ill. And all that comes with it, like a bag in your case, is a reminder of the illness and that can make it very hard. In my case it mean wanting to leave the room when nurses came home to care for mom. Its a natural protection mechanism of course, however, I was a child and your dh is a grown man. Your children will be hurt if you are hurt because they will notice, this is what I mean. Your illness wont damage your children but your dh's behaviour towards you might.