Spouse support during surgery

[LucyLoo1972]

I had suffered horrific gallstone pains for three years and finally had surgery. I suffer from anxiety and was apprehensive about having a general anaesthetic and this surgery in the middle of studying for my PhD. due to childhood trauma, I was always a perosn to get on with everything myself and never ask for help. When it came ot having the operation and general, my husabnd didnt offer to accompany me for the surgery. He just dropped me off outside the hospital fro the operation. In hindsight, I realise that I could have used emotional support as I was terrified. Would you expect your spouse to accompany you for surgery?

we never really had conversations about anythign that needed talking about and I dont know why. I haven o clue why I couldnt say what I needed as he was Theo only perosn in my life I felt safe with.

What did you ask him to do? I’ve had lots of surgeries (cancer). Dh generally doesn’t hang around. He drops me off in front of the hospital and gets on with his day and I let him know when I’m ready to be discharged. He’s only come in with me once (it was a big 9 hour surgery and he needed to know what to do after so needed to speak to the surgeon). He’s never waited around the hospital and after the big one, I’m not even sure he came back that night, maybe not til the next day.

But I didn’t need him and I didn’t ask him to. I don’t think it’s a natural assumption. I probably wouldn’t hang around if he was having surgery, unless it was like life or death. I’d just assume he’d tell me if he needed anything.

It sounds to me like you are focusing on this one incident to give you clues about your relationship and your life, but you probably aren’t going to get that from it. I wouldn’t focus on the past. Focus on rebuilding the life that you do have. Life doesn’t always work out the way we’d hoped. I got cancer after getting my PhD and had to give up my academic career because I just couldn’t do it anymore. But there are things I CAN do that still give me a lot of satisfaction. I’m grateful to just be alive because I might not have been if circumstances had been slightly different. You have to put your energy into the present and not the past.

It isn't too late and you haven't lost everything. You can recover from this. It will take time but you really, really can and you can get back the things you love.

I read your other thread and it sounds like your husband is quite controlling and you've lost your voice. Keep working with your therapist, maybe look at what life might look like without your husband. What life could be like if you made your own decisions. You absolutely can get back to work, doing the things that you loved.

I started an MSc in my mid fifties and took a career "swivel". Re-entering the workplace is absolutely possible, particularly with someone with such a high education.

No. I had gallbladder surgery a few years ago, and it would never have occurred to me to ask him (or anyone else) to hang around, getting in people's way. Mind you, he was a surgeon, so he would have just laughed at me & told me not to be ridiculous 😂 And I was desperate for the op, as in so much pain so I was hugely enthusiastic.

thank you. I really didn't see it becasue in so so many ways he was the opposite of controlling, in fact so laid back that the problem was nothing ever got lost. it's hard with my academic career because my research on a sensitive subjecf was what tirgiggerd the breakdown. I was diagnosed later with CpTSD from childhood which meant I was a fawning people pleaser.

im 53 now ut I was 44 when I ahd my breakdown. I worked so so very hard for my academic career as a sociologist of religion after being a minister for 20 years prior to that. I blame myself for nothavign any boundaries whatsoever. my husband would never discuss anything. the mental health issues run very very deep and I have physical problems too off the back of those. but the worse thign is I feel I dont even inhabit my own life anymore. I knew I was feeling anxious prior to submitting my phd but again my husabnd didnt massively support me in practical or financial ways during that tiem.

It sounds like you've had an incredibly difficult time, and I'm sorry you've been through so much. Congrats on submitting your PhD!

I'd have expected my husband to accompany me, and wouldn't have expected to have to ask. However, it's important context that that's the norm for us. It sounds from what you said about always having handled things on your won that perhaps it has (rightly or wrongly) become the norm that you don't need/want support and he has made an incorrect assumption.

I haven't had time to RTFT (sorry), but in isolation I'd say this was possibly a breakdown in communication based on your relational norms rather than a cruel or thoughtless act, although I did see you mention that he is potentially generally neglectful which would put a different slant on things.

If you didn’t say anything he cannot read your mind. I would expect my husband to stay with me IF I ASKED HIM TO but not if I didn’t and he had eg work to go to. You’re unconscious for most of it.

I didn’t go with DH when he had surgery because of Covid. It was what it was.

Thank you kind friend and I am so sorry that happened to you. I don’t know why I blame myself so much because if I had got a physical illness I wouldn’t have been like this. And the trouble with the kevel of mental illness I have which was a kind of psychosis is that it totally scrambles your mind so I don’t even know what’s true it not about anything anymore