Do I leave my ill wife?

[cricketnut77]

Hi everyone,
I am new to this site (I came here for some independent female and maybe male advice) from people who don’t know me.

I'm 35 my wife is 38 and I've been married to her for 8 years and we have a 9 year old boy who is by far the most important thing in my life. Things were great for the first few years of marriage but then my wife developed problems with her kidneys (inherited) and had to go on dialysis. This made her very tired but we struggled on, she went part-time at work. We still went on holidays and had nice times but she had lost her spark and any get up and go..

Anyway just over 2 years ago we had the great news that she was to have a kidney transplant and they had found a good match. So she had the transplant and we both expected it to transform our lives. Well after a couple of weeks she got a MRSA type infection and a couple of other things meant she was extremely ill and was in hospital for nearly 5 months. She also lost a lot of weight (she went down from 11 stone to 7) and she became very frail. I had a lot of time off work when she came out of hospital and she gradually has got better. However she is still much weaker than she was and she has less energy than she had when she was on dialysis.

She has gone back to work part time even though it leaves her shattered and refuses to leave her job, the money is useful but we could manage without it. She spends most weekends napping on the sofa and very rarely has the energy to do anything with our son. He is very active and sporty, very well behaved and understands she is not well but I think he is a little resentful that she doesn't do much with him.

Probably the hardest thing for me to deal with is the lack of physical affection she shows me, I give her a kiss and a cuddle but she barely reciprocates and we have not had sex since we she had the transplant. I have spoken with her several times- each time she has told me she is not ready for it yet even though it is a year since she started back at work. The physical / sex drive thing went down a lot when she was on dialysis which I understood to be normal but now I feel so down about it as I have a high sex drive and making love with her in the early days was so great. One of the reasons I married her was she was so good in bed!!

I have been tempted to have an affair but haven’t - there are two women I know who have admitted to me they like me but until now I always wanted to give my wife the time she deserves.

I am not going to rush into any quick decisions but I feel that I am trapped in a loveless marriage. I am an outgoing person - I love going out and enjoying myself both with my mates and my wife but she never has any energy. It’s like being married to an 85 year old. I am an optimistic person but I don't think she will ever be near the woman I married and she will always be poorly. I know that this is not her fault which is why it is so hard but I am so unhappy.

If I leave I am willing to give her everything, house, car, possessions apart from my boy who I am certain would rather live with me. I still care deeply about my wife and would still look after her when I can. I understand that if I did leave her family (who like me - and I get on really well with - will probably hate my guts)

I know this makes me sound very selfish and probably I am but we only get one life in this world.

Any thoughts? How much time should I give her?

Many thanks in advance - I know this is very long!!

If I start seeing this on other threads I think that would be the point at which me and mn would part ways

Me too.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1248843-I-want-to-leave-my-disabled-husband-I-think-confused/AllOnOnePage

To get back to the subject of the thread. I wondered if the advice would be different if OP was a woman. This is a much shorter thread but responses were much more sympathetic. Even where they disagreed with OP, responses were much more measured.

I know the circumstances are different but the sentiment of wanting to leave an ill/incapacitated partner were the same.

Anyway, wishing the best on OP and his wife. Hopefully he will take on board the advice given and they can find a way together. It is an awful position to be in. although the OP sounded somewhat selfish. I'm sure all good carers must have faced similar feelings at some point.

A three min wait between posts and I would be gone. It would totally ruin the flow of a thread and having to go back and re read would do your head in surely.

If I start seeing this on other threads I think that would be the point at which me and mn would part ways

I think it should be an instant ban

No ifs, no buts...just out the door.

Otherwise MN really would end up fucked.

Rentahoose Not so on this link here.

In fact i posted the same link you did earlier upthread and this one too.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a1700729-Should-I-look-elsewhere-for-sex

I font think it was his gender that ruffled feathers. His post came across as her illness was getting in the way of his sex life.

LEM thanks for apologising btw. Irony of kotinka doing this is that after you wrote a pretty 'shitty' (your words not mine) post to the OP based on reading only the original post, then apologised, bluebell1977 then did the same.

So kotinka's attention seeking and unethical antics actually had the opposite effect that she claimed to seek in that they attracted more knee-jerk abuse for the OP.

I don't understand why she did it, bit embarrassing to have such a public meltdown.

And the responses on "Should i go elsewhere for sex" were no different and it was a female poster.

Blonde that's a bit of a crude analysis IMO. And sorry but gender does tend to rear it's ugly head whether you like it or not. I certainly think it was a factor on this thread.

You have my sympathy OP.

Also, I agree its does sound like she could be depressed - low energy and low sex drive could well point to that. Good luck

Yes, I think it was a lot do with One of the reasons I married her was because she was great in bed.
But there is no escaping that similar circumstances are quite tough not only on the person who is ill, but on the partner too, male or female.

Darkesteyes. Thanks for the link. I'll have a look. Missed your earlier link on this massive thread.

Sorry maypole new to the site and I thought this page I was reading was the first page I didn't realise it went back loads of pages. So yes I based my post on the OP's at the top.

Darkesteyes the responses are definitely different on Should-I-go-elsewhere thread! Much more sympathy and several advocating 'going elsewhere'. And that OP was getting some affection in her marriage. OP here is not.

Such a shame that the thread was derailed.

Many people live with chronic illness, or with a partner who has a chronic illness. It isn't always straightforward as it can outwardly seem, and there is no harm in a discussion on how to handle the situation or the emotions attached.

Lweji the 'married her because she was great in bed' comment was clumsy. But I do get it - great sex isn't a bad thing as one of the reasons to marry someone. I'd say it's a pretty good reason (though obviously one of a raft of reasons). There is no way I would want to marry someone I didn't have a great sex life with.

And IME when a man says a woman is 'good in bed' this often equates to how enthusiastic she is... men think women who really, really like sex and throw themself into it are 'good in bed'. In fact it is impossible for a woman or a man to be 'good in bed' without being enthusiastic about sex, isn't it?

So I guess I took that as the OP meaning that his wife once had a lot of enthusiasm for sex and now has none. Which is pretty hard to deal with I think.

It is interesting that there are many threads where one of the couple no longer wants to have sex (quite often because they are exhausted through childcare) but are told to remember their marriage vows and that it's not fair on the other person to make them live without sex.

There are then threads where one partner is incapable or too tired through illness and the other person has to accept there's more to marriage than sex and that one partner must put up with a sexless marriage.

Make your minds up!

Maypole, yes his gender did play a part. Sorry my post was in response to another poster saying something abut a female poster having posted in a similar situation and had received more sympathetic response. Sorry, should have made that clear.

I don't agree my response was crude tho'. He asks at the end how long will he give her. For what? We'll before they can have sex again of course.

I don't think it will be long before op is shagging someone else.

The two aren't the same though, there's a difference between able and not willing and not able and not willing.

Renta there are double standards in general when it comes to sexless marriages.
In last months GH Magazine there was an article about lack of libido and the female reporter trying out testosterone gel.

Yet when the man is suffering from lack of libido questions get asked like "Well has your partner let herself go. put on weight etc.
Woman doesnt want sex= medicate her.
Man doesnt want sex = ask if womans body shape has changed.

I have noticed the same sometimes, and called it when I did notice it.

I get that, Maypoledancer, it's just that sometimes these little comments stand out and people tend to respond very emotionally to them. I think that is largely what happened here. It can actually be annoying when you write a whole post and people pick a couple of words to beat you up with them. :)

I think it happens, and it's natural, that women tend to put themselves more easily in other women's shoes. In this case, we would all have liked our spouses to be there for us if we ever got ill.

Men, I suppose, expect the same. (Or worse: my ex supposedly expected me never to marry again after he died.) Although some people, male and female, may recognise how much of a burden they have become and try to release their partners.

But when we are faced with a huge change in the circumstances of our marriage, it's not so easy.
Hence, I hope the OP considers what he would have liked if the situation was reversed and act accordingly.

Just a few posts in the woman gets asked "has something changed in your physique"

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/dadsnet/1849618-Blokes-I-need-your-viewpoint-on-sex-affection-and-overall-male-mindset

But if you're exhausted through caring for a young family you have just as much right to not be willing surely.