DearPrudie: All of my friends and family have had the same horrified, aghast reaction when I tell them I want to leave. Help!
Speaking as someone who developed chronic life-altering health problems a couple of years after marrying, there is no condition that justifies being unkind to one’s partner. My condition changed my husband’s life too - I would not expect him to stay if I treated him badly. —But since I put it out there for feedback, I’ll also surface another theme that I saw in the responses, in particular from disabled and chronically ill people.
Some people wondered whether you might be fed up with the lifestyle changes that have come with being married to someone with Ken’s condition and wondered if you were labeling his understandably bad moods as “abuse” in an effort to make yourself feel better about leaving. There were questions about whether this could fit a pattern whereby disabled and sick people’s loved ones get tired of them and distance themselves, using any excuse they can find.
My friends dropped me as soon as my disability was discovered to be permanent instead of a temporary injury. I got to hear through the grapevine them telling this same “we grew apart” lie. I would repeatedly explain my new limits, trying to schedule hangouts in my “good week” …post-pain treatments, only to be told I wasn’t “fun anymore” because I couldn’t be as spontaneous.
It’s interesting that the abuse gets three sentences while the alterations to their married lifestyle gets seven. I think LW might not be clear on her own priorities here. Individual counseling for all involved would be a great starting line. —Both OP and her husband are grieving the loss of the life they thought they would have together. I think couples counseling could be helpful, as well as individual therapy.
But again: You said the word abuse, and to me that’s the end of the discussion. If you meant it—and I think we should assume you did—you should get out and not let anyone change your mind.I am in my early 50s, and almost a decade ago my husband suffered a traumatic brain hemorrhage, which left him with the mental capacity of a perpetual 11-year-old. I am the center of his universe, and not in a good way. I work part time, and when I go out he’s afraid I’m leaving him.
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