I'm Having a Hard Time

This is going to be a completely selfish and self-serving post.

I haven't let on much to anyone, but I am having a really hard time lately.

Because my husband is having a really hard time.

The cumulative effect of all he's been through this year is weighing on us heavy right now.

No, there hasn't been any one BIG thing. It's been a bunch of small-ish (compared to, say, being in the ICU with a tube down his throat being told he was going to die) things.

You guys -- you lovely people who read my words here -- know this. You know this year has been all kinds of up and down (and upside down)for my family.

At this time, Mark feels like it's all just down.

He is so frustrated. Downright angry sometimes.

I am trying so hard to make things better for him. To try to take good care of him, to show him love, compassion, patience....

But it seems I'm doing it wrong.

He tells me he feels both smothered and not heard. He feels patronized and like an invalid.

I've tried so so hard to not make him feel that way.

I guess I'm doing it wrong.

I know it's not all my fault. I know he loves me, appreciates me and needs me. I know, in my head, that he is struggling with all the crap his illness(es) does to him, and how much it's changed him, and that he's not really mad at me, per se.

He's just mad.

I'm the one who gets to see it. And feel it and be sad about it. I'm the one he bounces it off of. And it's very hard to not let it get to me. It's difficult to separate myself from it.

I tell myself I'm not going through what he's going through. I'm going through stuff too, but it's not what he's going through. I don't have to carry it all....

But I want to carry some. I want to be able to unburden him somehow. I feel like I'm not, though.

He feels broken and like he's less than. It hurts him, both literally and figuratively. Of course I want to take some of that away from him....

Yet he feels smothered. If I ask him how he is too much. If he lies down and I check on him too often. If he wants to go to the store and I insist that someone go with him.

It's too much, he says.

I just love him. I'm just trying to be a caring, concerned wife. I want to help. If I didn't do those things, he'd think I don't care....

I'm frustrated too.

I fear these issues are only going to get worse.

I don't know what to do.

It hurts.

Linked with Pour Your Heart Out.