How do you see past the anger where your spouse has self neglected for 20 years and now we are both paying the price?

Welcome to our world. Yes, anger and resentment is part of the progress along with experiencing anxiety and fear. I'm picking up on all of these feeling from just reading your blurb of information. I'm feeling grief in there as well. I've been there myself.

Yes, you still love your husband and it is okay to blow off steam. Yes, you can be angry at a sick person. I'm widowed and married my third husband later in life. I got mad as well. I wasn't so much angry at him, but at the fact that I knew our time together was being cut short. Yes, I was angry. He was diagnosed with cancer and it wasn't fair. We were only married for three years before he died but total time together almost nine years. He came into my daughter's life and my grandson's life at a very crucial time. I met him through my daughter.

It was a hard three years with some respite. We were able to travel at times. If I had to do it over again, I would do it. I grieved for three years straight.

Diabetes can be due to genetics and lifestyle. I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. I'm older now and I know when I go back to the doctor in a month, I'm going to get a stern talking to. One thing about diabetes, you never know which way things are going to go with it. You learn to manage it through diet and exercise.

Smoking can cause tooth loss and other problems. Your husband will have to take one step at a time. His situation is self-neglect.

For your mental health, you can speak with a pastor or priest at your church. Since you have been married for quite a number of years, I don't think getting a divorce will be the best option and will only add more stress to your situation.
A good therapist is a must to help you deal with your anger and resentment.

I refer to Elizabeth Kubler Ross and the stages of dealing with acute and chronic illnesses. Even though she was the pioneer on identifying the five stages of death and dying, most illnesses and emotions of both the sick person and the family members go through emotional cycles. Sickness is full of challenges. Put yourself in your husband's shoes. His health is shot, and he knows it. Now, if he is stubborn sick that is another story, but either way, emotions can be managed. Whoever wrote those marriage vows were writing from reality. Pull them up online and meditate on the words of them. They are written in order from youth to old. Sometimes experiences and deaths come prematurely and some couples don't make it to old age, but those vows still apply.

I was talking to my minister neice after my husband had passed. I told her that the main objective of marriage is to help us to grow spiritually. We bring our baggage from our family of origin, but the real work takes place in these marriages. In couples counseling, the therapist looks at a couple's family of origin and having something to identify. You may not feel the growth immediately, but it will eventually come to fruition even years later. I had grief therapy after my husband died, and I did not accept what I learned in therapy until last year six years later.

As far as having a perfect marriage, I'm sorry to tell you this, but that only happens on television or in the story books. There will be sickness and ill health especially as we get older.

Take the advice for making your life easier such as diabetic prepared meals, home care services to help with appointments. Go get your hair and nails done while the aide is in the home. If you have hobbies, work on them. As for waiting on your husband hand and foot, set some boundaries. It has to work for the caregiver or it doesn't work at all. It sounds like you need some tweaking so you can free up your days to enjoy life more.

The first step is calming your nerves. People on these boards and other platforms cannot decide what course of action. Follow your own gut.

@burntcaregiver you have assumed I don’t care about my husband , I am pretty sure I never once mentioned divorce. I am not resentful that he broke his leg ,anyone can break a leg . I said I know I sound selfish , yes perhaps I am but I giving him my utmost and he would not get better looked after in any top hospital . When you refer to me as my dear you come across as condescending and patronising towards me when I came here to look for help as to how to get over my anger towards him wilfully neglecting his health . I have gone though many major other personal traumas with him, I wasn’t running away from sickness .
you last paragraph is particularly uncalled for .

to all the other really supportive posters who actually read what I was asking for I thank you .

You've been given good advice.
I was a Planning Commissioner for 2 years,so I'm big on long range planning.
Cities crumble without it. Do some serious planning of your own. Divide your finances, select your POAs, make sure Trusts and similar documents get done NOW.

It's also hard to adjust. Don't do so much for him, to keep the resentment level down. I was overwhelmed and hopeless, and hate that feeling. Get some HomeCare people coming in to help you.

Make "I Will Survive" your theme song. I wish you luck.

Patience, you are a new poster, your husband John is only 55, so you must be the same age or a bit younger. You have every reason to be angry. He has not looked after his health, his body or you. Now his body is paying the price for his neglect and he “wants you waiting hand and foot”. He has gone out of his way to ruin the rest of your life. His own as well, but that was his choice.

You are NOT selfish to be angry about this. You deserve to put yourself first. You think you “know he will get moving again”, but it seems very doubtful that he will be even remotely ‘well’. If he can’t work again, what are you going to live on?

I’d really suggest that you consider applying to separate your finances now, so that you can keep at least a bit rather than have it all spent on him. This is not divorce, and it is commonly done when one partner is going to need a lot of expensive health care. When their share of the finances has been spent, they can apply for Medicaid. After that, see how you feel about him. In your shoes, I would certainly be considering divorce. That way you have some chance of living the rest of your life as an “outgoing happy person who loves meeting friends, reading & travel” – to quote your profile.

Book a solo Holland America Alaska cruise and go for a week by yourself if you can afford that. Solos have to pay for two people, but 2 summers ago I was able to get a balcony cabin for $1500 total. I met up with a group of solo travelers and we had a great time for the rest of the week.

Just when we think life is about to settle down, WHAM, a health crisis has hit my husband and I, one after the other, since 2019. I've been his caregiver from 2019 to 2022, and then he's been mine since Jan of 23 when I was diagnosed with cancer. Some poor lifestyle habits brought dh to his state of bad health, granted, and I had some moments of thinking it wasn't fair to me that our lives were SO disrupted as a result. But my main goal was getting him thru the crises so we could get back to normal life again. And we did, for a little while.

Now HE is probably thinking what a giant pita it is to have to take care of ME for 16 months now. Sigh. The tables have turned and his gig is way, way longer and more involved than my gigs with him ever were.

Its what love does. Sure we gripe and complain sometimes, rightly so, and we don't call ourselves selfish for doing so, either. It's hard and it sucks. And the fear and the worries just permeate everything to the point where we question WHY? Why ME? It's life on life's terms, I guess.

I thought retirement was going to be a time to relax and travel, not be struck down with serious mobility problems from cancer treatments. Or worrying about DHs memory issues from too much anesthesia, or if he'll be here next month to drive my sorry self around since I cannot. Or if I'LL be around next month to keep him on track and yada yada.

So we just need to take things one day at a time and focus on the NOW, which is all we have anyway. The future isn't guaranteed to any of us. I pray your DH recovers well, that he gets on antidepressants to help YOU cope with HIM and the crying, etc. And that the 2 of you can forge a good life together moving forward, without "just" caregiving ahead. Because it's hard.

Best of luck to both of you.

It sounds like you are exhausted. You are probably just as depressed as your husband and wondering when are things going to get better. They may not improve.

Yes, you are legally married but you don’t have a true relationship.

I like Zippyy’s idea of speaking with a therapist. I hope you will find a solution to this misery.

Wishing you all the best.

I assume he is not working. I hope he has filed for Social Security Disability. See if he qualifies for Medicaid in home. Thet way you can get an aide a few hours a day. Maybe, you will need to divorce him so he can get help.

By not taking care of his diabetes prior, he may already have done damage to his body. My GF was a juvenile diabetic. Even though she took care of it, in her 50s she had bad heart attack. By 60 she had a leg amputation by 63 her kidneys gave out and she passed.

I would be angry too.

No, you're not being selfish! But you do need to identify and defend boundaries (so maybe talk to a therapist) and think deeply about your future which is the only thing you can control. Sometimes people need to be allowed to have the life they "planned" for: bad health, divorce, etc. There are even instances in the Old Testament where God allows people to have the bad choices -- and consequences -- they insisted upon.

Although I really don't like throwing around the "d" word (divorce), he needs to know this may be the consequence, and sooner rather than later. Or maybe a trial separation until he proves he is willing to do what it takes to take better care of himself.

You didn't cause any of this and you cannot fix him. All you can do is make decisions for yourself, and that's why talking to an objective therapist may help.

If your husband is depressed he should consider meds for this as this would be the "easier" thing to deal of all his current issues and may help him to move forward in taking responsibility for himself.

I wish you clarity, wisdom and peace in your heart as you sort through things and make decisions!

Your spouse was neglecting himself for 20 years?
You stayed but basically went on with your own life?
That's an option. But it seems this hasn't been a marriage for decades?
Now spouse is ill and you are suddenly a nursemaid.

My DAUGHTER is over 60. I say that to show you how much life you have left. DECADES of it.
Unhappily, for a diabetic, life even with GREAT care can be daunting. Diabetes attacks the kidney, the heart, the vascular system even with the best of care. So the blame game is neither here nor there in this.

The truth is that this isn't only about anger at HIM, because YOU made the very poor decision to stay in a marriage that really wasn't one. The consequence has just dropped on your doorstep. I suspect the one you are most angry at is yourself, because now if you leave this marriage, which hasn't been happy for decades, it looks like the proverbial rat jumping off the sinking ship. Not saying hubby is a ship, or you a rat, just saying it now "looks bad", when in truth you weren't really fully a wife and you don't wish to be a caregiver.

I would go to counseling. I think you have decisions to make.
This is your one life. You will have to decide how you wish to live it.
You haven't been truly honest with your hubby unless you DID tell him "You are neglecting yourself completely, and I need to tell you that when you crump I am not staying on as a nursemaid, but am going to leave and get on with a life of my own"..
IF you said that, then to my mind you are free and clear.

You owe truth now with and to yourself, and to him.
You need to decide for yourself whether you choose to stay or to go. There's just no way around it.
I am awfully sorry. For your husband and for you. This is one with no good answer. If you find a way to leave, do division of finances, start a new life and still remain a supportive friend to your spouse, then that to my mind, after decades without real love, is about the best outcome anyone could expect?

I sure wish you both the very best that can be in these trying circumstances.