Feeling a bit mmmmm on this subject

[lolaflores]

I am a SAHM. Got chronic back problems and hip. Husband has a new job which want him to go and work away for 3 nights a week but it is difficult given my lack of mobility.
Suddenly company willing to pay for treatment. all sorts of solutions coming out of cupboard. Prior to this was on NHS and waiting months for treatment.
I feel a bit chippy about it as my pain was my problem till it got in the way of his job. have talked about it, explained how I feel. Think I sound like an ungrateful bitch but at the same time sort of livestock or something.
Or just the powerlessness of things somethimes

perfume that covers it. fear is an awful obstacle to things. I need to get better and get on it seems like a long road

Lola, I agree with perfumedlife, if you were fit and healthy, then your DH's work obsession might be annoying, but you would be able to use that time he's away to work on your own career/life your own life and have more energy when you do get together. When you are in chronic pain, all life seems hard work and impossible, and it sounds like you feel a burden and angry at being one.

Obviously getting the treatment is the way to go, but I can understand your frustration that your husband didn't move heaven and earth to help you prior to that, even though he had private insurance which may well have covered you.

I don't have a solution, but having lived a year or two (only) in chronic pain, it alters everything, including relationships. Getting this sorted will be good, if only because it will allow you to more realistically assess your relationship.

Oh lola I completely understand you about the fear I felt in some odd way attatched to my illness after a while, despite hating it and utterly petrified of going it alone ( I had to take meds not licenced in uk or prescribed here) and also a bit of me was testing my dh to see if the 'sickness and health' vow held true .

I was depressed that i'd never get bac to my 'old' self then I read somewhere that no one can ever get that back, sick or not. The march of time means we all change every day. Try and see it as just a different chapter. The treatment may fully restore your health, brilliant. It may not be the answer either, and that's scary. But doing nothing is not working. Visualise yourself feeling good, being busy, and go for it!

Your post is full of irony OP. You accuse your DH of being unsymathetic, Aspergers like (excuse me if that wasn't you), but you're not seeing how he might view you as holding him back. You have a problem, he has provided a solution - not just an engineer's thing to do but a male response in general.

Likewise, you are presumably afforded to be a SAHM because of his job. Now, I get annoyed from time to time because my DH's work seems to consider it way more important than any work a woman might do, and I earn more money than him. But I also see the benefits he brings, as an engineer. He is practical, he is a hard worker, he is reliable - he could be so much worse.

You say you hoped your DH would change once you had children. Maybe he hopes you could be more flexible. 3 nights away isn't nice, but its doable - I know people whose partners work offshore for a month or more. But tbh you don't sound compatible, and he at least seems to be trying to find solutions.

As for the operation, I wonder whether you are afraid of this more than you are letting on. It does sound daunting. That said, if it offers a good chance of fixing the problem, I'd take it. If you pass up every opportunity, every chance for change, in your life, will it make you happier? Or not?

As for the medical treatment only being offered now. Are you absolutely certain that this isn't simply due to the change of job and a different scheme with different benefits?

geegee888 I am a SAHM due to my physical issues, no other reason, that was mentioned further up also. If I was in full working order I would be at work. If I had a full time job, Dh would be in no position to work away 3 nights a week, a point he concedes. DH knows that much of his job is doeable because I am here.

He has not provided a solution to my problem, ever. His employers have potentially offered a solution. This is not due to the change in benefits of the scheme, it is an up front offer from his manager. Currently I am on a NHS list waiting for treatment, which I have chased and chased for over a year.

I have not said no to the offer. That point was made more than once in my responses. My issue is that the unseemly rush to sort me out only when the problem is DIRECTLY effecting his work. Further more, when he took this job it was on the understanding there would be no travelling. That has changed, it was not the original situation. I know things can change. I feel very much under pressure. Added to which, these injections (not an operation) may or may not work, the next step is surgery.

Thanks for your insights geegee888 about our rightness for each other.

Oh i have heard it all !

Talk about engineering a problem when none really exists.

Look into munchausen syndrome, because some of your posts, being attached to your illness for example, suggest you may have a psycological problem

symfem for you and your simplicity

mums and perfume when pain and illness (rather than perhaps Munchausens Syndrome!?) are a daily friend and companion, resentment and anger are not far behind it. It impacts on all of us in the family. Each day spent being a burden means a bit less confidence for the day (when it arrives) that I am able to return to work.
Thanks for taking the time to think in a coherent way and tease out these strands that are part of the whole picture. It has made me able to identify the feelings that slosh around in deeper parts of me but am unwilling to examine. Very honestly I told him last night about my resentments re not working and feeling so useless. It led to a much more open and supportive conversation.

I can also understand how difficult it must be for people who are perhaps not so gifted intellectually to try and piece together the disparate parts of this. But bless them they do try, don't they

Over complicating an issue doesnt make it deep or meaningful. You are being given an opportunity to allieviate pain and live a productive life. A chance many are literally dying for, and you choose anger and resentment to express your feelings of gratitude to this gift. Classic first world problem.

not sure why people are having a dig here

lola what would happen if the proposed treatment that has been magicked up by private health care is not actually successful ?

private health care doesn't have all the answers because they throw a bit of poney at the problem

or even money

It sounds as though your life is dominated by pain and I do not underestimate how difficult and debilitating that is in itself .

I had a dose of it (pain) but thankfully, for the most part, it is much better now, but I work very hard to keep it that way. The fear of going back to those days is always there... frankly it was shit.

One of the reasons looking back at that time is so sobering, is I realise now that it made me respond in a way that wasn 't quite like my pain-free self.

So I really get why you are pissed off by the context of the offer of help, but take the long view girl - take the help, God willing it will work and then...well who knows?

Get pragmatic...get rid of the pain

I can also understand how difficult it must be for people who are perhaps not so gifted intellectually to try and piece together the disparate parts of this. But bless them they do try, don't they

Anyfucker. And what if it did work. Isnt taking the chance worth it. Isnt the glorious opportunity to allieviate pain something to celebrate not embrace with bitterness and suspicion

Symfem and what if it doesn't? i am still a problem am I not? Do you not understand that basic issue? Allieviate pain by all means but to what end? To make someone else's life more productive, not necessarily mine on it's own. bitterness and suspicion have raised their heads because this generous act is not about enabling me to go back to work or lead a productive life for myself, those are handy side effects.
So, if it doesn't work, I am still a problem aren't I?
To be viewed as an impediement (oh and a sufferer of psych problems perhaps munchausens, your words I believe) is never nice.
Symfem you see how easy it is to rob people of their own feellings once you are doing them a favour and when they don't respond with the requisite level of gratitude, they are then obviously bitter and very possibly mental.
symfem in all honesty, I really do hope that this never comes to your door. Life gets turned upside down and it is hard to fight your way back up.

This is the greatest first world problem h have ever heard.

What exactly do you want ? To continue with chronic pain, until its resolved in a manner which suits you ?

Think with your head not your heart, sometimes logic trumps emotion.

You say hubbie only created this solution now. What did you do to find a solution. Did you push him to seek a solution before this. There are deeper issues here, do you fear having expectations put on you, fear of returning to work.

And i do wish this problem comes to my door. Having seen my father struggle with my mother and her chronic illness with no support, i would be overjoyed if he had your problem

symfem read the thread, answers to everything are in there. The expectations I fear are of not "being cured". As stated above. But I am begining to suspect you do not read things very closely or with much thought before spluttering out some drivel that might sound like pragmatism but sails very close to the wind of self righteous know it all with not much of a clue.
Might be wrong though, reckon I'm not.

Well i think you are wrong. But are unable to admit, hence the recourse to personal attacks, the last act of the indefensible position.
I wish you good health and the clarity to seize this opportunity to return to full fitness

Symfem you were the one with the psych problems and munchausens accusations, the personal attacks eminated in your corner. I might well be wrong, but you have done really not a thing to bring any clarity.
Thanks for your pity

I genuinely don't understand why anyone would attack someone who is in pain and facing an uncertain future where they're being treated as an obstacle rather than a person. Sure, OP might get cured and everything could turn out wonderful, but it might not. And it's not being done for the best of reasons (ie purely for her health).

Lola I hope you can find a way through this. I would probably (easy for me to say), take the treatment and hope for the best, but continue to have honest discussions about my partner about what will happen if it doesn't work.

It's shit, but it might be worth a try.

I merely suggested this may be a psychological problem. If you think thats a personal attack you need to work out your victimisation issues. Which are evident since you cant even take well meaning sympathy other than as a show of pity.

lola - what would happen if the operation were a success though? Would you want to go back to work? How would this fit in with dh's work? Is it a bit of a poisoned chalice in that you would be healthier but then committed to being a SAHM for good? But not taking the offer is seen as biting your nose to spite your face? I think you have quite a dilemma tbh. Sorry, not very heppful at all.

symfem,perhaps it can be explained in this way.And I do hope I do not make lola feel any worse than she already feels.
lolaflores's DH is doing the hurdles,and is racing to the end where there is this new job.
and lolaflores is also standing amongst the hurdles,to be jumped over by DH.
And she got slightly flattened.
Now yes,she can also pick herself up and get to the end of the race,and it might well be lovely,but she has got slightly flattened along the way.And it doesnt feel nice.

bunjes I would like to return to work, it might well inconvenince his job to some degree. I have not turned down the offer just said I felt a bit funny about it and its timing.
million that is very much it and glad you could make that a bit clearer for symfem.
I understand that my thought process might be a bit unclear to some, but as mysterious has pointed out, how to then translate that into an attack is a bit of a leap.
Most of the comments in the majority have been helpful, really they have and it is nice to know that I am in some people's eyes still an indvidual, even if with undiagnosed Munchausens's FFS!