In search of : a 2026 red souvenir soda cup from Six Flags. My husband melted my kid's cup in and it's a catastrophe. Does anybody have one they're not going to use again this year?
My husband (53m) and I (42f) have been together for 20 years. We've been married for 17, and have two children together (16 & 7).
My husband has always been a bit of a project. He is autistic and has ADD, which means he's brilliant and interesting but also has difficulty with emotional/social cues, forgets basic adulting tasks, and can be very difficult to talk to
Eight years ago his multiple concussions & wildfire smoke inhalation caught up with him and he started having serious, debilitating neurological issues: twitching, stuttering, falling over, insomnia, chronic pain. Then he got COVID, and added long COVID to the mix. He has PTSD from BEFORE the brain damage, and even more from these past 8 years. He is a ghost of his former self, and he knows it.
During this time I had our second child, now 7. I moved us across the country. I fought the government for years to get disability benefits for him. I found us a home and managed to buy it even without a job at the time. I answered every doctor message and scheduled every appointment, filed taxes and cooked dinner and cleaned the house and earned the only paycheck for the household. To say I am exhausted doesn't feel adequate.
Every conversation we have leads back to his trauma or his illness, so I just don't try to talk to him anymore. Not beyond the basics and household logistics. We watch tv, we have sex, but our intimacy is gone and it feels so lonely sometimes. I get stoned every night because I don't enjoy his company anymore.
But our teenager, who also has diagnosed chronic illness and constant pain, keeps trying to make him be the father he was before, all he gets is disappointment and sadness. A conversation about current events turns into a monologue about his (my husband's) trauma, his illness, his problems.
He doesn't have the capacity to go to therapy, he literally can't sit through any meeting long enough to have a meaningful discussion, let alone one full of triggering and challenging questions. Maybe someday, but definitely not yet. And watching the anger and frustration my child goes through trying and failing to connect with my husband is heartbreaking.
I KNOW that the kids and I would thrive if I left my husband, but I also KNOW that it would literally kill him to live alone, and he has no one else, and we do still love him. So is this just the rest of my life?
I'm so tired