Relationship with OH now that my dad has cancer

[Ttc321]

Hi all. Never posted in relationships before but here goes.
I have been with my OH for 7 years and we have a baby. I found out my dad has cancer when my baby was only a month old, and I have coped ok so far. He is waiting to start his treatment at the moment, and Recently i keep having anxiety about everything, I don’t want to lose him, I love him so much and I feel like I just couldn’t be without him, we are really close and do a lot together. The reason I’m posting on here is because my OH doesn’t really seem to understand what I’m going through, he has never experienced a death in his family or any kind of illness in his family, and I think that he finds it hard to talk to me about it as he doesn’t really understand how I’m feeling. I have the baby to deal with and sometimes I feel like it’s all to much, I’m so busy yet I feel so lonely and sad, because I feel like I don’t have anyone to talk to. When I try and tell my OH about how I feel and how I am so anxious and worried he just says that “I know you are, I am too” or “I would be too” and “I don’t know what to say”. I feel like I have to put on my happy face every day and pretend I’m not so upset inside because nobody really cares. I’m hoping my dad will be ok but I can see he is deteriating and isn’t himself.. and I’m just desperate for his treatment to start soon as I just want this to be over with. My OH is lovely and I love him to bits but I can’t stop myself from getting into arguments with him, and I feel like he is being really thoughtless a lot of the time, I spent all day crying one of the days trying to express how I was feeling and then We had a big argument over something stupid, and he was shouting at me and making me feel worst, and I know that my dads cancer is not an excuse for everything but I am hurting right now and I just don’t want to bicker or argue I just need some comfort and support and I just feel like he doesn’t really care or understand.

I'm sorry about your dad, I hope his treatment goes well.

My mum died very suddenly last summer, she'd been a bit tired, got a chest infection, was diagnosed with leukemia then died all in the space of 2 weeks. As you can imagine it was a huge shock and very traumatic for me. My husband was fairly hopeless. He didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything really. His family are very emotionally repressed and never talk about how they're feeling. As a result he is too. I know that he would have liked to find the right words and offer some kind of meaningful support but he didn't know how.

Have you spoken to him about how you feel?

My dh didn’t know how to help me when I was struggling and suggested I went to a professional. I’m so glad I did. It was like I needed the green light to do so.

I’m very people oriented and tend to be who friends call if they are struggling. However my dh needed more of different to what I could give so he had counselling.

In both cases we couldn’t help each other in a way that was most effective. It doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with us, or that we didn’t care. Best thing we did was seek outside help.

Have you thought about contacting McMillan? They are there to support loved ones of patients too and were invaluable to me. Sounds like you need it so please contact them

www.macmillan.org.uk

My exh didn't understand when I lost my mum 18yrs ago.

Unfortunately it built a lot of resentment on my behalf that contributed towards me pushing exh away.

Try talking to your dh and Macmillan as others have suggested