full image - Repost: My 10-year relationship is at a breaking point due to my partner's personal tragedies, and I feel terrible about it (from Reddit.com, My 10-year relationship is at a breaking point due to my partner's personal tragedies, and I feel terrible about it)
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Hello everyone.I have ended up in a dark time in the tenth year of my relationship. The love for my partner is great, but we have been through a lot together that has affected us collectively and individually. As the years have gone by, more negative thoughts have come, and I don't know what to make of us.There is no doubt, my partner is the one of us who has been exposed to the majority of the tragedies here.Before 2019, my partner and I had a good and problem-free relationship. We met back in 2014 as two very different people who were immediately attracted to each others differences. A young lad straight out of high school (me), and a man who was well on his way in life. It was the start of a summer that continued for several years.We have had a lot of good experiences, traveled the world thin, seen a lot - we have lived life well together.Like all couples, we've had our disagreements, but never anything we couldn't meet in the middle or find a compromise that made us both happy.However, our happy days were later to change when my partner's health suddenly changed for the worse. Since 2019, he has suffered a failing heart, had to have a pacemaker, a blood clot, a chronic immune disease, additional heart failure, and finally, had the pacemaker replaced with an ICD.In addition, he has suffered the loss of his dream job, has been exposed to a long course of harsh medication and constant fine-tuning of this, so that side effects of side effects could be dealt with. Not only that, he has had to go through the loss of two more jobs due to his health crisis, and has now reached a year of unemployment.As his next of kin, I have witnessed a man on his knees. For the past five years, I've been with him from one hospital room to another, holding him through mental breakdowns, helping him through physical rehabilitation, and trying to keep his spirits up during dark times. We have both been incredibly affected by the whole experience, where we both didn't know if he would get through it and if the disease or the medication would be the end of him, as he kept getting gravely ill from one or the other.Even though everything has been bleak, we always had the attitude that we figured it out together – we had to move forward. I had to push him forward so he wouldn't give up. He didn't want to whine. We had to train, keep him active, learn more about his illness, etc. A lot of time was spent with both of us thinking about the future and what it might bring. We tried our best to move things in the right direction, even though it was hard. All our time was spent holding hands and hoping for the best.His health is better today (e.g. he can walk quite normally without the need for assistance, no longer gets dizzy, no longer wakes up with anxiety attacks), but I feel and see that he is in a completely different place in life than he was before 2019 – and I can't blame him for that either. No one would be the same as before when you have been knocked down by your own body.In the course of the past two years, he has become enormously passive in his attitude to the world. He can laugh and be happy, but there is nothing that gives him energy or motivates him. He wakes up in the morning, leaves the bedroom, lays on the couch, doomscrolls social media, then falls asleep until I get home from work or the gym. He comes out, says "hello" and goes back to his regular spot on the couch.The job search seems completely abandoned. The laptop remains untouched until the end of each month, when he suddenly gets busy filling out his unemployment benefit card. I try to help him find jobs, but he easily dismisses them with an excuse or forgets to apply. I keep saying that he should just ask for help with his applications and CV if he wants a second opinion, but it's never accepted - maybe because he's not looking for anything.He has become indifferent to his surroundings. It is my regular task to take care of the whole household, even cleaning up the mess he leaves behind during the day because he "overlooks" it.I've tried to push him into action and get him off the couch with various ideas and tasks so that he doesn't become one with the furniture, but nothing has worked yet. I have pointed him in the direction of exercise, hobbies, networks that could get him out among other people, doing something, talking to people who have had similar experiences, but it has not been of interest to him. Even when I finally manage to get him out for walks in nice weather,we always have to get home quickly so he can sit on the couch again.He has even become completely indifferent to his personal appearance, which he used to care about. The beard and hair is no longer kept nice, but left to its own devices most of the time, until I say something. His clothes are starting to no longer fit his body, because he is physically inactive and gaining weight. His body has become so stiff from inactivity that he can barely pick anything up from the floor, and several times I have had to help him because he can't reach whatever he has dropped.I've tried to talk to him about my concern about his lack of activity and commitment to everyday life – that he actually seems depressed and that we should take it seriously – but he dismisses this.I'm scared of what the future looks like, and my emotional life is in turmoil.I feel bad for my husband everyday. The world has been unbelievably hard on him. None of it is fair in any way, and I don't want anything worse to happen to him. I wish every single day that something good happens to him and I wish I could take away just one of his many problems. All I can do is support him.At the same time, while all this has been going on, I have had to build my own future, finish university and find a full-time job. I have had my own struggle, juggling with uncertain temporary jobs and unemployment benefits. Fortunately, I now have a permanent job, but I'm only in an underpaid civil servant position in a government agecny, which I'm fortunately happy with because it gives me a sense of some stability.I am disappointed that he is not doing more to find a job. I can't feed two people alone - especially not on my low salary and in our current housing situation, and he knows that too. When I ask him what he is looking for and what positions he has applied for, he can never tell me anything about it. The clock is ticking every day, and if I lost my job now, we would have nothing. He is putting us both at a huge disadvantage by not trying his best.I am angry and annoyed with him too. I don't feel like there has been any space or respite for me and he is holding back my social life. I had to be about him for so many years. He has become very insular in his personality, and taking a break and going out with friends, or meeting someone after work, has been frowned upon several times because I "don't prioritize him", even though I have done it for several years. My social life has been under-prioritized for several years because he has been my focus and I miss other people in my everyday life who are not colleagues. Nights out, dinner plans, coffee chats, etc. have had to be canceled because he got angry that I "had to do something again".Going to the gym after work has been scrutinized several times because, in his view, it took time from "us", which turned into a longer argument, because I "could just do it at home". The opportunity for having space for something other other than just the two of us feel restricted and continuously sabotaged, and I'm afraid that this will have consequences for my social life in the long run.His social life has dwindled over the years, and he very rarely sees his friends anymore - twice a month at the most, when things are really crazy.Our sex life has been non-existent for several years due to his physical condition, and this is hugely frustrating. We tried an open relationship, but I can tell from him, it's not what he wants, and I don't want to hurt his feelings. Sexually, I have unfortunately lost interest in my partner. I don't even recognize his body anymore because he has lost so much muscle mass due to so much time of inactivity and his lack of desire to train his body back to normal is bothering me immensely, because it will only bite him in the ass, which he has been informed about by doctors and health personnel more than once. I crave having some physical contact, and having someone who wants me - but being with others would feel like cheating on him, and I don't want that.I feel terrible for feeling this way about my husband. He can't help the circumstances, and I can't blame him if he feels tired, burnt out, and can't take it anymore - but I feel like I'm up to my neck in quicksand and the water is slowly coming in. I am not ready for a life, where I have to be responsible for two people singlehandedly.Sometimes I feel unreasonable in my thinking - that I shouldn't make demands, because things just are the way they are; that I am thinking too much of my own needs before his. But other times, I get indignant, because I want some energy in my everyday life, space for friends, and to have a sense of a future ahead of me. Everything I *could do* feels put on hold.I also don't feel like much is being given back from him. I try my best so that he can focus exclusively on the things he needs to do. I offer my help with everything, but it is ignored. Honestly, I feel like it's all taken for granted – that I'm taken for granted, and no consequences are understood for the choices he makes when he doesn't use his time wisely.It seeps into everyday life, and it affects the way we interact with each other. We don't communicate the way we used to, and the fatigue shows up in our conversations. There is not the same love and care for each other anymore.It sucks the joy out of our life together, because in the end I feel like I'm just waiting for another disaster. I play my part in everyday life, but it gets harder and harder the more burned out with the relationship I become. I have sleepless nights, where my brain goes into overdrive, where I think through the worst-case scenarios; we lose everything, and where I have to take care of both of us, dealing with it all on my own.I want so badly for both of us to be happy - but I feel like it's all ruined and sometimes I can't help but feel... that it's my fault. I want the best for both of us, but the water is coming in fast, and I don't want to be burned out before I even had a start on my own life - but I also don't want to cause by partner any hurt.Am I completely unreasonable in my views? Should I just toughen up and get my act together? Do I have it all wrong?
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