Well, I guessed there would be some come-uppance, but for a while there I thought I’d got away with it. No such luck. Over the last two days, my husband has switched out of "coping" mode, and we’re back to a very familiar and painful place.
Again, it’s my working that’s the issue, my lack of flexibility, now captured in the phrase “5-day-week-family”. “I never wanted to be a 5-day-week family,” he says. That's true. At the time he became really ill, he was running a little venture that was a 7-day-a-week job. He says "that was flexible" but it wasn't. It was demanding (on all of us). For the last year he was doing it, it prevented me working (at all), and for the entire two and a half years interrupted most weekends and the significant majority of our evenings. I was alone (with a small baby) for five nights out of seven. In the meantime my husband was getting so tired that I'd need to have our daughter for long stretches of the day as well, because even if he wasn't doing paperwork, he'd need to rest. He was working (but earning no money). I couldn't work because he was either working or resting and there was a baby to look after. Without the illness, we could have done it (we could have shared both work and childcare). But the only way to enable him to keep working at his labour of love while he was ill was to give over my life to that cause.
I couldn't do it. I have a life too, and what the illness seems to constantly ask of me (via my husband as a conduit) is to give my life to it too. Sacrifice all my desires and ambitions to the monster that has consumed the husband I love. Like it didn't have enough of me, already, having swallowed my husband.
So, here we are, back at the nub of it: that he feels angry that my work is prioritised (because it earns money) while his work isn't (because it doesn't). And maybe he's right, maybe it's nothing to do with his illness. But him being ill means I can't discuss it with him (he gets angry), and he was the only person I used to be able to sort things out with. Without him, I'm lost.
*
This argument came about because I was trying, for the second time, to get him to enter into some conversation with me whereby I could explore my feelings about some stuff going on in my birth family at the moment. So I could share it with him on some deeper level, so I wouldn't feel so alone with it, so that he would know what I’ve been going through.
But he’s having none of that. He is not the slightest bit interested in what I’ve been going through. He’s been going through far too much as a result of my recent spell of work, and this is where it starts coming out. (When it is over; when I am taking extra time off to help him recover).
And I feel gutted, because I didn’t realise he was in that place. He’d done such a good cover-up job that I believed him. I thought he was tired, yes, but I still thought he was right next to me. Instead, it turns out that he, my husband, is miles away. And the one who doesn’t know me (but thinks he does) is here. He’s pissed off with me. And he’s no protection from the one I call Brian, who has probably been woken up by the arguing. The stranger husband won’t stand in Brian’s way when he comes. He just can’t care about me right now. He’s ill. That’s the only thing he can think about.
3 comments:
Oh dear. It's all gone wobbly again. I do feel for you both, as I've said before.
My guess would be that your husband is in 'survival mode'. I remember a time near the beginning of this phase of illness when all I really wanted (if I'm honest --- but couldn't admit it) was to be cuddled up and spoilt like a poorly child; I felt that vulnerable and ill and lost and confused. I couldn't cope/bear with the responsibility of anything or anyone else but myself BUT because I'm a responsible, caring adult, parent, partner I drew myself up to my full height,and, as best I could, I put on a good show and got on with it ---- as well and best I could. This wasn't very well and usually not for very long but at least I felt I was showing willing.
Inside I was seething and resentful at times. *I* wanted to be looked after. I wanted everything to be dropped for me and my pain to be recognised ( I'm sure it was actually -- just didn't feel like it). It's just that you cannot act like that as an adult, certainly as a parent so you keep schtum. Your husband sounds like he is a caring chap under normal circumstances so maybe this is what he is going through.
My partner was in the very same position as you: juggling childcare, earning money ( I couldn't do that at all) and that wasn't comfortable either because I felt so useless and disenfranchised and, despite the fact that part of me wanted to be treated like a poorly child, I didn't like *feeling* like a poorly child and infantilised (if that's the word). I don't think my partner enjoyed taking on the responsibilities of two people and the care of another sick adult, either !!
I think all you can do is be aware that your husband is in survival mode (i.e. just slogging though each day, each moment, trying to get by and yet still protect himself --emotionally and physically), that this mode sometimes manifests itself as 'Brian' and that there's probably no real malice --- although it probably feels like there is. That probably makes you feel like 'kaka' ... and makes it worse because you cannot turn to the one person on whom you rely to talk things through.
Maybe you have to look at other avenues, people onto whom you can offload ---- a friend, counsellor --The Samaritans when desperate. You don't have to be suicidal to use their services (God forbid !). They are just a voice at the end of the line. Maybe even one of the people on the support line at Action for ME.
I do hope you can work through all this stuff, seperately and together. If nothing else, you have a 'virtual' group of people to listen and respond.
Take care of yourself and each other.
i worry about you. i worry because there is so much you have to hold back as an everyday matter of your own survival. i worry that your husband's illness has shifted again.
i worry, because i don't know either of you or this illness and because the emotional torture i feel here ... might need different input. From someone who knows more.
I also feel this should be for YOU. Don't get me wrong .. i am just very, very worried having read this.
Reading cusp's response i think i may well be knee-jerk panicking due to my own ignorance ...
and of course my only experience of men has been very similar - but they weren't ill!
*hugs
Thanks Cusp. I appreciate your comments. Once he came out of his withdrawal phase he explained it all (exactly what you said about 'survival mode' etc). He hasn't been very good at explaining things up until now. He's generally seemed to become very angry that I couldn't *guess* what was going on for him. But I never can. Particularly, I find it hard to see through his "coping" mode. He really looks well, and fine, and seems happy - and I so want to believe it... so I *do* believe it. And then am really surprised when he gets angry and withdraws once the overload period is over. I simply *have* to get better at managing this.
Shell, that's sweet of you, but you mustn't waste your energy worrying about me or what's going on. I would hate to think you were worrying about me while I was having a really nice weekend! (Because my husband and I we have managed to find (sooner than usual) some kind of resolution.) My husband is fundamentally a good man; that is what has made this illness feel particularly like a tragedy to me. I had a bad first marriage and a string of dysfunctional relationships before finding the right person, a good and decent man - my husband. He's still good and decent underneath... he gets lost, neither of us can find a way through to him sometimes... but he is not going so far away from me now when he retreats, and he is more rational more quickly (than a few months ago). I think we may, at last, be going in the right direction.
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