How do I tell him I won’t be his carer?

[Icantbeacaregiveranymore]

Been with DH 20 years, in that time I’ve cared for numerous people (some his family, some mine) including our two disabled kids.
He’s been diagnosed with COPD which will require a lot of care.
I don’t want to be his carer.
The dc are finally getting older, and more independent with their disabilities and now I feel like I’m being forced to give up my life again.
My entire adult life has been on a back burner as I had DC early in life, I planned to go to university & back to full time work but if I do this DH will suffer.
I am only mid 30s, he is older than me but I have told him for years he needed to take better care of himself but he didn’t now this is the result.

We’ve had a massive arugment this evening as he came home and asked me to cook dinner as he’s going back out and I told him I am sick of putting my all in everyone else and getting nothing in return and instead of talking about it he’s just gone out.
I don’t know what to do. Caring is lonely, Ive spent a good part of 18 years being lonely and I just do not want to do it for another twenty sodding years!

No it is about care, housework comes into care. I cared for mutiple family members and believe me housework was part of it one point I had to get laundry people involved to take all the washing to be washed as I was drowning in it. (Mutiple bed covers due to mutiple accidents etc) I know COPD isn’t like cancer but that’s one thing I dread. i couldn’t deal with that again. It’s also things like cooking, helping them into the bathroom, chasing doctor appointments, organising district nurses, etc.
I just cannot do that anymore I think i’m quite burnt out as a carer right now I am doing an ECHP for one of my children & they have a lot of medical problems I am at the hospital every month just for them alone. It’s a lot.

It’s probably best your just not in a relationship especially with an older man. I mean part of a relationship is that you look after each other (in sickness and health if you’re married). I’m widowed and will never live with or have another serious relationship because I never want to care or see a partner die again.

Why only 50%? If you have been doing a higher percentage to facilitate him then why wouldn’t he now do the same?

If you resent and dislike him and if there's no way back from this you'll have to separate. It's not about a COPD diagnosis.

And that anger is telling you something!

Sounds like he's massively taken the piss and never pulled his weight.

He doesn't even look after himself! He will take and take, and grind you down.

Get rid!

You don’t have to be. You can firstly find out what sort of care he needs and buy it in. Some of it may be free.
Can you imagine finding out you have a terrible condition that takes away your dignity and then only to find your wife of many years doesn’t want to support you through it.

“isn’t his fault completely he has a friend who encourages that behaviour.”

He is an adult. Not only that, he is a father.

You overlooked bad things early on because you were very young. Your frontal cortex was still being wired up. Your brain has literally been shaped by this relationship.

You have born his children. You have looked after his children with additional needs. You have carried the domestic burden all this time. You owe him nothing. The only people in the world that you have responsibility for are yourself and your children.

Good luck. Make sure you put that 6 month alarm on your phone and have some very specific measurements of change. What would you need to see? What would ‘good enough’ look like?

That sounds like a start @Icantbeacaregiveranymore but make sure he sticks to his side of it and you definitely get on with your degree.

As I said upthread, I have a 16yo DD. It’s never the fault of the 16yo girl who is groomed by a 24yo man. It is down to his predatory behaviour and a failure of the adults in the girl’s life to protect her.

She has ‘overlooked’ many ‘bad things’ over the years. She has carried the domestic load and childcare while he goes out drinking. He has continued to make choices that damage his health. Where has the care been for her? How did he step up when she was looking after adults and children and getting burnt out? Drinking and smoking. He has made choices that now mean she is done with caring. She needs her own autonomy and to live her own life. May be now he will step up and ‘adult’ properly but I very much doubt it.

Take the illness away for the moment. He is not a good Husband and has no respect for you. Do you want this to be the kind of relationship you have in your life ? No? well then leave and start a fresh life and discover yourself.
As for his illness, he is choosing not to help himself so why the hell should you help him?
Please don't waste another day of your life with this waste of space🌿

My advice is - Please prioritise yourself, your self care and your ambitions.

You need to look after yourself to continue to support your kids. If you continue as you are it sounds like there's a high risk of complete burn out and massive resentment towards him.

Do the uni thing.

I would make it clear to him and any health professionals you come into contact with that you are unable to care for him. Make sure he's not telling people that he's got a partner at home who will do xyz so they put in max care.

Are you able to access any counselling, sounds like you've been/are going through an awful lot xx

But it's all in the past so it is irrelevant to the current situation. There's no point blaming anyone now. The OP has to do what is best for herself now.

There is a point in pointing it out. He’s a groomer, who as a grown man, targeted a 16yo child. Their relationship was built on that power imbalance. Very important.

He’s a competent adult in his 40s. Why would you be the person looking into adaptations to make his life easier? He can do that.

It sounds as though you’ve become so used to looking after your children that you automatically take on any caring needs as your responsibility, rather than recognising him as an adult with agency.

At 16 parents or guardians would have given permission. Not many parents would these days. Travellers perhaps.
And if so such is the expectation that the domestic world is where she would be. And for men drinking and smoking and expecting his dinner cooked would be perfectly the ‘norm’ in that society. I am not advocating that this is good but I do sense what we have is a clash of cultures.

OP, I was in an 11 year relationship with an addict (cigarettes and alcohol). I gave him an ultimatum and he managed 6 months of sobriety which was bliss, I felt the relationship was on track and things were getting better. But of course he slipped back into his old ways and I was heartbroken.

Giving him 6 months is kicking the can down he road, if he sees you're serious, he'll do all the things to pass after 6 months (and any slip ups will be minimised "oh my vape battery died so I had to buy some baccy!" "Oh it was Bob the Troublemaker's birthday and he kept buying me drinks" "I had a really bad day so needed to" "I had an amazing day and had to celebrate" etc. etc.). You might even try to deluded yourself... "Well he did do the dishes last night, which he's never done before, so I'll let him off".

At the end of the six months I guarantee you he will start to fuck up more and more and slip back into his old ways, and you'll be back to square one, except with six months wasted time under your belt and feeling more demoralised than ever.

Use these six months to work out what you need to do for yourself and your kids; come up with a plan to leave. I guarantee you will come off much better if you leave him - resentment and anger weighs you down like nothing else. Trust me, I've been there!

From reading your posts one would think that you are much, much older than 34…. You are clearly burnt out and justifiably fed up with your life. Not surprising - you’ve never had a chance to enjoy your youth and have fun!

Time to put yourself first. He is an adult. He had, and still has choices. He is only 42, for goodness sake! He could live another 42 years if he were to put his arse in gear and bother to do what he needs to do. His choice.

Whats the saying - don’t put yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. You go and grab your life with both hands!

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver

If there is a cultural angle to this, and it is not clear, the OP will need to consider whether she would be cut off for her community if she left.
Whether that is different ethnic community, traveller whatever. Completely cutting off from your community has really traumatic impacts on people.

She has lived a life where she feels put upon for a long time. And doesn’t love her husband. I would suggest she talks to someone who she can trust in that community whatever it is, to talk to them and ask for help.
She might be surprised. Influence I wonder from male relatives might be more powerful to him than from her. And other women may rally around to support her too.

It’s not about blame IMO. It’s context. And important context. He got together with her when her frontal cortex and personality were still developing. He has helped to shape the way her brain wired up and the person she has developed into. He may have chosen someone younger and more malleable on purpose (I would bet good money on from the bits she has shared about him) or he just happened to fall in love with a much younger person. Either way, it’s important that the OP recognises that the decision she made at 16 was not a decision she should be bound to now she’s older. My god if I was tied to some of my decisions from that time my life would be absolutely shit!!

Leave soon, before gets so ill or bedbound that you feel guilty for doing it. If you leave while he's still mobile, he's got time to make arrangements.

Make sure he has a will sorted and life insurance. That conversation might make him realise this could all end terribly and soon for him.

On that note, make sure both of you have the above anyway. Sadly he has to help himself and he might not. At some point you might need to accept that you might end your marriage over this.

Excellent!!
You seem to have had a really good constructive conversation @Icantbeacaregiveranymore

Keep to your guns and remind him of tge agreement of ‘he slips up’.

And I’d say, seeing that you’re very likely suffering from carer burnout, take time out for yourself now. Even before going back to Uni.
Being a carer is exhausting, esp after so many years. You need a break, some breathing space. And, from my own experience, you’re not going to get it unless you take it itswim.

Tbh, when people ARE ill, they dont always have the energy/ability/brain power to look for those adaptations.

And when you care for your other half, you want to help them. Again pretty normal, standard behaviour.

The difference is between offering support because it’s either truly needed or because you want to and that support being expected whilst you do nothing about helping yourself.
It’s the last one that is problematic

I disagree. There is no point dwelling on that now.