Feel like I’m playing an extra in my husband’s life instead of the starring role in my own.

[HÆLTHEPAIN]

It’s long, apologies.

I’ve posted before about my ‘issues’ with my marriage due to my ill health and lack of having a life. And that my husband has recently taken up lots of new activities, leaving me to do pretty much everything in the house. He does do the dishwasher and remakes the bed (after I’ve stripped it) every other week but the rest of the household stuff, including all the admin, falls to me. I do have cleaners once a fortnight but they only really do surface level stuff and the rest is left to me. Because of my illness, this literally leaves nothing left energy wise for anything enjoyable. I don’t work, my husband does full time but as I say, what I do in the house leaves me with nothing left energy wise for myself. The kids are older now (both teens) so take no looking after but there’s still the general life drudgery that caring for a family brings.

My husband has now taken up 2 extra activities on top of the one I mentioned previously which means he’s now out of the house from early until late every Weds, as well as every other Saturday from early until late and then on Mondays he does a sport for an hour but is out of the house for 2. This also means that the other days he ends up working later to catch up on things he might have missed on the Mon and Weds. As well as the fact when he’s out running, he’s up and out early so falling asleep as soon as he’s had food on the evening.

As I said in my other thread, and in the interest of fairness, he has taken up the activities because of a T2 diabetes diagnosis and I get that he needs to be active and it’s great for his health. That said, it’s like that’s all his life’s about now and he’s out there getting a life while mine’s getting worse but I feel like I make sacrifices for him in terms of my health by doing what I do in the house, yet he doesn’t sacrifice anything for me. Yes, he works, and I know that’s important, but he’d be working anyway.

I’ve previously asked him to take some of the slack in terms of the household stuff but he’s always said it’s too much and he has nothing left in him after work. I never pushed back on that because I thought it was true. But now he has enough energy and inclination to take up all these new activities.

I also suggested we join a local health club so we could do something together as I could manage the normal pool and hydrotherapy pool (we can afford it) and because I wouldn’t be physically able to go without him. He said there’d be no point as he’d not be interested in the gym or pool aspect.

Like my title says, I feel like I’m just an extra in his life but my life is just fading away and I don’t know what to do. Also, sorry for rambling!

Please help.

Reading your posts I wonder what are you doing together? Maybe this is what needs to change. It could be going for a drive, playing a card game, watching a film, cooking together. Something that brings connection.
and I agree with @DullFanFiction
Yes he has a recent diagnosis- maybe it shocked him and this is his reaction. But doing things together. So saying something like I enjoy spending time with you DH. It’s can. Can we do X on Friday.
maybe he’s got too much in his own head.

If you can afford all of these activities for him can you afford a cleaner more regularly?

I also agree with previous poster that there are possibly some things you could let slide in the house, would anyone really notice? Get the teens to do their own beds and laundry, and alternate weeks of hoovering/bathroom cleaning.

I totally empathise with what you said about your DH going and picking up the hobby you'd wanted to do together when you were younger, but he had no interest in doing it with you then. That must hurt.

because I wouldn’t be physically able to go without him -> This seems like the crux of it. I think you're craving a more intimate, supportive relationship. But:

1. Realistically, that's not what you have at the moment. Even if just for yourself, if DH leaves or you leave, you need to take steps to be happier and more independent.

2. Even if you wanted to save your relationship, TBH the best way to regain someone's lost interest is to be independent and happy yourself first.

I don't mean in the sense of playing games – you shouldn't have to "win" anyone's approval and attention – but on a more universal psychological level. We all prefer contented, fulfilled people to energy / mood vampires.

3. Even a supportive, intimate relationship can tip into a very unsexy carer relationship. I appreciate there's no danger of that atm as your DH doesn't seem to be much of a carer for you, but just be aware that even if you had what you wanted, you'd have to take steps to make sure you were also thriving independently and bringing something of your own to the table.

For now, could you afford to throw a little bit of money at the problem? Hire cleaners, or use disability allowance to get someone to help you get to activities?

Yup, actually it doesn't have to be sports, given your condition! In fact, even if DH doesn't want to participate, you can pick up a hobby activity that is less physically demanding but still fulfilling and social

Op how long did have being the one with main financial responsibility? How long did he go without carving things out for himself?

and do you only, now, want to do things because you are envious that he is?

This will depend a lot of how severe the OP is.

And it will not happen if she spends all her time cleaning and cooking and looking after everyone else when her body doesn’t have the ability to do so.

Something has to give in first.

I have to say it’s enlightening to see that so few people think the DH should do more. And so many are proposing a cleaner more often….

Even if you wanted to save your relationship, TBH the best way to regain someone's lost interest is to be independent and happy yourself first.

How can someone be ‘independent’ and ‘happy’ in a situation like this?

Would you say that to someone with stage 4 cancer?
I doubt it.

Yes it’s shit when your partner gets ill.
But a minimum of understanding and compassion doesn’t go amiss.
And that starts with ‘helping’ with the housework etc… rather than treating the situation as of the OP was a SAHM with no health problem.

I’ve not worked since 2017, so 7 years of a 20 year relationship. When we first got together I worked FT and like I said, when I worked PT, I picked up all the slack with school runs, being off when the kids were ill and the majority of the house stuff so that he could concentrate on his career. Then I got ill and plodded on for a few years before giving up work.

And no, like I mentioned in my previous post I wanted to do one of his new hobbies for a long time when the kids were little, but he didn’t. We both didn’t really carve out much time when the kids were smaller bar his Monday hobby and the odd catch up with friends for something to eat/drink. Weekends tended to be family time at parks and play areas and then seeing grandparents.

You don’t work and don’t have to look after young children. You have to do most of the housework (with some assistance from a cleaner and husband). That sounds like a very light workload TBH and I think YABU.

You are able to manage it so I assume your illness is not severely debilitating and you don’t need carer yourself?

Why don’t you join the fitness centre yourself? You don’t need your husband to go with you?

I think your husband is having a reasonable balance with activities, exercise and taking on full financial responsibilities for the family. It could be that he doesn’t want you to hold him back, or he enjoys these activities better without you.

It does sound like he is not interested in spending time with you, or losing interest in you, sadly to say.

@DullFanFiction thank you so much for your supportive comments - you’ve really explained thing so well. Sorry to hear you’re a fellow ME sufferer too.

This really resonated with me in your earlier post “Even more so because i was masking being ill, always pushing myself (i wanted to still be useful, feeling like I had a role in the family. Because that’s what our ableist society is telling us: you’re worth nothing if you don’t participate) so he only saw someone ‘who is a bit tired and so what?’ It’s only when dh saw me in bed for days that he truly acknowledged how bad things were.”

I don’t think DH does know, not really, despite me telling him, because like you, I mask. He sees me being able to do the stuff I do and thinks I’m ok, but it doesn’t seem to click with him that if he suggests going out for a meal for example (not that he does that often anymore) that I might not be able to manage it and that that can directly be linked to the drudgery that I’m doing. So then I feel ‘boring’ for not being able to do that fun thing.

I really need to work on stopping but it has just become so ingrained in me to ‘do’ because otherwise what is the point of me? I hate who this illness (and probably peri) had made me become. I used to be so outgoing, so full of life and now I can barely leave the sofa. I’ve already deteriorated over the years and can do less and less. I don’t blame people for not understanding either because we know how badly ME is represented.

Thanks again.xx

You should probably read my updates. They will answer your comments. Also: this is relationships, not AIBU.

Do you do dates etc with him or are you too tired with the household stuff?

I think part of it might be having too much clutter could you work together on streamlining everything and getting rid of a lot? I have done lots of this since watching 'sort your life out' on iPlayer and it really helps

Yeah she should just lie in bed and rot.

I love how your answer to my suggesting she do something LESS physical (hence acknowledging her condition) is to just suggest she just rot instead 😂😂😂

About the cleaner, I'm going to be 100% brutally honest here. There's not much housework to be done in a household with mostly grown teens and cleaner.

But if my DH had a forever illness that meant I was 100% funding them with FT work, AND doing virtually all the housework, that would require a lot of love and sacrifice from me. I'm not saying that shouldn't happen, but it would be a carer/charity type situation, like caring for a dying partner.

I agree OP should respect her body's limits and perhaps the best way is a cleaner. Of course she can turn her DH into a martyr and slave as you suggest, but I don't think she wants that either.

Sorry I should have read all your posts.

From your initial post I did suspect something like ME/fibromyalgia. This is a difficult one because it can’t be proven on a blood test/scan, and many people don’t view it as a “real illness” so it can be hard to get sympathy. From the outside there is nothing to see that is wrong with you (no arms missing etc) and your husband may just be losing patience with you, or losing attraction for you if he sees you as being lazy/making excuses. You do sound like your life has become a shadow of your former self from your own post.

You might consider doing activities you can manage on your own, like yoga/joining a hobby group, or even some form of work again. That might help you get out of your rut.

I don’t think DH does know, not really, despite me telling him, because like you, I mask. He sees me being able to do the stuff I do and thinks I’m ok, but it doesn’t seem to click with him that if he suggests going out for a meal for example (not that he does that often anymore) that I might not be able to manage it and that that can directly be linked to the drudgery that I’m doing. So then I feel ‘boring’ for not being able to do that fun thing.
What is the drudgery? The standard household tasks? I'm sorry but I feel you're probably not clear with him what you expect?
You're not happy with him doing hobbies you didn't have time to do when dc were small, but isn't that standard? You're more tied to the house/them when kids are small?
Maybe he's not suggesting meals out as you've said no so often?
Are you suggesting things? Re all the cooking am assuming it's just the evening meals if he and dc are out at work/education? So if there's 4 of you everyone can take a night each to make dinner?

If you have the money, and it seems you do, then could you hire a carer to come to you several times a week? You could include one or two 'social visits'. My mother has one once a week. When she was well enough she was taken out for a meal, now they visit, get her lunch, do some clothes shopping with her etc.

It makes a real difference being able to get out. A carer could take you swimming or to the hot tub and help you in and out.

It's time for you to star in your own life.

You can't stop him living his life because of your ill health. If you are well, then you could be going out and joining hobbies too.

Yeah. The drudgery is the standard household stuff like cleaning the loo daily, wiping the bathroom round, wiping the kitchen, making the bed, laundry, budgeting, cooking (yes, just evening meals), organising the grocery shopping - the mental energy of remembering when everything runs out or is needed. There can be quite a bit of laundry, especially when the cleaners have been because they strip the beds. And when he comes back from his hobbies. I also do the not so regular more deep clean stuff like doing the oven or cleaning the hair from the shower plug - soul destroying that that’s what my life has become! I know not all of these things are done every day of course.

I’m also the one who does dentist, docs, opticians, hair appointments etc. I order their clothes and often have to go out to return them. Again, I know these things aren’t every day or even weekly but even something like just taking a return to the post office is using my energy overdraft. I also take the kids here and there when needed. Occasionally I take his mum to appointments and wait in the car (I don’t mind, I love his mum). And again, I know these things aren’t daily but even one of those things a week on top of the stuff I do every day can have a significant knock on effect. And what it all boils down to is that by doing these things, that may not seem much to other, non ill people, is that by doing these things, I literally have nothing left for me.

Also, I do suggest things but at times it might fall that I’m ‘ok’ when he’s got other plans. Not always of course, but frustrating when it does. We do have date nights but they’ve become fewer.

OP I'm so sorry for all the replies from people who clearly don't know what ME entails.
I totally understand where you're coming from, it's such a difficult situation.
I am in a similar set up, and I use up all my energy doing housework etc, just to try to stay relevant, and to acknowledge the fact that I'm not pulling my weight financially. It's very hard.

This!! I do as much as I can because I’m acutely aware how much I don’t contribute financially anymore. But it’s having the effect that my life is slipping away from me more and more.

It’s robbed me of who I am. The outgoing, feisty (in a good way), hardworking, hard playing, fun loving person my DH fell in love with is no longer recognisable. I would never do anything to hurt myself, and I’m not actually depressed - (been there before) - I’m more frustrated, but I do wonder sometimes what the point of my life is.

Can you get personal independent payments? Could pay for a carer to come to the pool with you? Doesn't have to be obviously a 'carer' more a companion but would help your health and start getting your own life/identity back

I’m also the one who does dentist, docs, opticians, hair appointments etc. I order their clothes and often have to go out to return them.
How old are the teens? They should at least be doing the majority of this. Especially laundry.
Can the oven clean be passed to the cleaner to do?

it doesn’t seem to click with him that if he suggests going out for a meal for example (not that he does that often anymore) that I might not be able to manage it and that that can directly be linked to the drudgery that I’m doing

Sorry OP, I'm not trying to pile on but what is the drudgery, in actual terms?

You keep saying "drudgery" over and over rather than concrete labels (chores, housework, cleaning, cooking) which makes me think it's more about boredom and monotony?

But even if it's not, and it is the actual effort of chores you struggle with, must they be done daily or there and then? Cooking – surely you don't need to if you're going out for a meal? Cleaning – if a cleaner comes once in a while and if the teens are responsible for their own bedrooms (they really should be at this age) and even communal chores, must it be that time sensitive for you?

Can you carve out protected time (and rest time before that) every evening for activities with your DH or just yourself? You don't have to do anything if you don't feel like it that day, but just know that in general that time is protected to prioritise your MH and wellbeing.

I listed stuff in my response to WhereIsBabyChambre in an effort to explain - hopefully that helps a bit. And no, not everything has to be done there and then but some things are regular and for those that aren’t, it can still be a energy hoover!

I am going to try and work on making me the priority. In fairness to the kids, they do keep their rooms tidy. That said, they don’t do much else. Mostly because my nearly 18 year old is just finishing her a levels and it’s been a busy time for her. Their rooms get cleaned when the cleaners come.

edited - I mean me the priority in terms of having a life too, however that looks. I’ve taken on board all the comments and will definitely look into stuff. I don’t know where to begin as it’s quite overwhelming but I’ll find something to start with.

I'm not the OP but I'm in a similar position. Today i have put on the washing, put the dinner in the slow cooker for tonight. Seen kids out to school. I'm pretty much done in terms of energy. Lots of pain.
@BeGutsyCat I'd imagine with teens that's exactly when the OP is needed. Lifts, sports, homework, just general chat and support.