Thursday 29 March 2018

My marriage is falling apart after our son was diagnosed with a terminal illness


I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but my post was taken down on the relationships subreddit, and I just need somewhere to talk about it. I'm sure a few parents might have some insight? Thank you to everyone in advance.My husband and I have been married for 18 years, and have one 16 year old son. We’ve been through good and bad, but have always come back to one another and have come out stronger. We had bad days, good days, okay days, but I’ve never been doubtful about why I married him. I always knew that I loved him, you know? There was never that feeling of “why.” I just always understood that we were meant to be, and that the hard times were proving it.Im not going to go into the particulars, just for the sake of privacy and personal comfort, but our son was diagnosed with an illness that had the capacity to be terminal. We immediately started treatment, and got into couple’s therapy, so we would be our strongest for our son. Recently, we got the news that treatment hadn’t been effective and our son likely isn’t going to live to summer. For the past 8 months since diagnosis, we’ve been crumbling and this has just been the final wrecking ball. I can’t describe it, but when we go to couple’s therapy, I feel like it’s a waste. We yell over the little things, we don’t hold each other and cry together, we hide our feelings from the other. We’ve stopped sacrificing for each other but still expect it, and I’ll admit I do it all too. I’m failing in this relationship. I get so gut-wrenchingly angry when he doesn’t turn the TV off, or when he leaves a mess behind. He yells and slams cupboard doors when I don’t do the dishes when I said I would or when I let our son break curfew. We’ve stopped listening to our counselor, it’s just that first response that kicks in.Every little thing explodes. The other day, my husband was taking PTO and I was working, and I asked him to clean the house because it was messy and my sister was visiting. When I came home, he was watching TV on the couch and the house was even worse than when I’d left, and I was so tired and I got so angry I just went upstairs and cried. I laid in bed for an hour, just sobbing and feeling sick to my stomach I was so upset and angry. Then, he came upstairs and told me how ungrateful I was and I told him to go to Hell and slept on the couch downstairs and cried more. Last night, I came home from work and he got upset with me because I’d forgotten to bring home groceries because I forgot it was my turn to make dinner, and I was so angry I screamed into a pillow and hit our mattress, because I felt like he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t get to be mad with me. And I cried again, and I keep telling myself that we’re both dealing with this and we both have a right to be upset and we’re both losing our son, but I’m so angry. I’m so tired of coming home and feeling like I’m going to cry the second I see the man I’m supposed to love. I’m tired of all of this.But I feel like I need to stay. I feel like this is going to pass after our son dies and we’re just buckling under the pressure. And I don’t want our son to feel like this is his fault. I don’t want him dying feeling like he’s the reason we divorced. He needs us both, and he’s too fragile to go between houses. But if this is the grief we feel before he passes, what’s going to happen when he’s actually gone? If couple’s therapy is this ineffective, where are we going from here? What do I need to do? Am I being selfish? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2uuDEzn

No comments:

Post a Comment