Considering separation from Disabled partner

tinkerbelluk

It is very clear from taking a step back and reading the whole thread again that the OP has realised that the original letter wasn't one of his best ideas. However it does give some insight into how he is feeling and his thought process. Could he have said it better? Of course he could have, something he has even acknowledged himself, so there is little benefit of rehashing it constantly.

For the majority of cases a separation will always come as a surprise to one of them and unfortunately there is little to escape this without taking it through and giving the other person some control over the issue and allowing them to get their own thoughts and feelings clear in their mind. The OP has said he will speak to relate however at the moment it feels like he's trying to retain control over a situation he ultimately will have no control over as he doesn't know how his wife / children will react. Surely this should be an option after he has told his wife how he is feeling.

@Westminster you have come across as a logic and organised person, however as much as you want it to, this situation will not fit neatly into a box and in all honesty I can't help but think that no matter what you choose to do, it won't be the right thing. I understand you wanting to think things through fully before you even broach any conversation with your wife and I think you should consider @pearl123 very sensible advice.

pearl123 wrote: »

Perhaps, one of the dedicated carer forums can offer some solutions/feedback. Carers.uk. for example. They'll know more about the help which is available.

You need to be able to open up like you have here and discuss how you are feeling with others that have or are currently in the same situation as you. They will offer more insight than many of us on here can as well as offering practical advice and support as I'm sure you're not the first person who has felt this way.

From my own viewpoint I understand how tough a marriage can become, especially so when young children are involved and you working away. However I don't have the knowledge and understanding of living with your wife and how the MS has affected her. Not just physically but more so emotionally. As another posted pointed out you are both still young and I can't imagine this is how either of you planned your lives together to be and don't forget she may be grieving for the life she believes she may have lost also.

Obviously you need to tell her how you feel and see if there is any possibility of you working through it. I would encourage you not to have a full plan in place now should the worse happen. You can do that when you're sure it will be needed. Doing it now without even speaking to her about how your feeling, trying counselling etc. will only make her feel a complete loss of control and she will believe that she's trapped into the situation she finds herself in.

Staying in a loveless marriage is not fair on either of you, but I implore you to give her back some level of control about her future and don't make the decisions for her just because you think that's what you should be doing.

Plush

annandale wrote: »

The ops wife does not know how he feels. She's not a mind reader. How can she be expected to know and ask him for a separation because she's a burden?

If I were the wife, I wouldn't wait for him to say anything, at some point I would simply offer that. I wouldn't want him to stay with me because of altruistic reasons. Also, I like to think that I would feel that my man doesn't love me anymore.

I might be completely off here, but then we can never know what we would do, unless we find ourselves in that situation.


PS. I have not mentioned the children at all because for them, any separation/divorce is hard. (and so is living with parents who don't love each other, in many ways that can be even more traumatic). And OP doesn't seem to want to shy away from his responsibilities as a father, in fact it's the exact opposite.

Morglin

Westminster wrote: »

Hi all

Forgive me if this reads liked jumbled ramblings but this is my thought process so far.

Background
We have been married for 12 years.
We own a mortgaged property together - it’s in both our names but I don’t recall (without digging out the paperwork) whether it’s joint tenancy or tenants in common.

Draft letter to my wife
I have been drafting some text to put in a letter to my wife as I expect it all to get very emotionally charged very quickly and I want to make sure I get everything across even if it’s much later that she reads it:

Firstly I realise that while it is very difficult for me to say these things, it will likely be very significantly harder for you to hear them and for that I apologise. What follows is a rather rambling selection of my thoughts and decision making process over this difficult situation.

I have been unhappy in our relationship for quite some time although have made several attempts to force myself to change my feelings / views but I have been unable to do so.

I am finding the physical and emotional demands of helping you meet your daily needs too difficult and it is making me very depressed. However I am not ‘blaming’ you for this - I just feel that we have grown apart in the same way many ‘normal’ couples would, we just have an extra dynamic. In all honesty, if it were not for your MS, I would probably have left several years ago so I really have tried hard to make this work.

While I still have affection for you and do care what happens to you moving forward, I have not felt love for a long time and have felt somewhat trapped by our situation and your condition as I would otherwise have probably done something about this a few years ago.

I know you have been sad for some time (possibly also depressed?) but have avoided trying to confront it as I didn’t want all this to come out before I had got your situation as ‘ready’ as possible for my departure. To this end, I have been trying where possible to put on a ‘front’ to keep things together due to the above.

Perhaps you are wondering if there is anyone else in my life - I can 100% percent say that there is nobody else and never has been anyone else. I haven’t as much as held someone else’s hand and I have no interest in finding anyone else at this time.

The boys are the most important thing to me and to help secure their future I intend to do what I can to keep my flying career so that I can continue to provide you all with a secure home. I hope their sunny disposition can help you through this and will always be on hand to help as and when I can.

I want to be very clear that I would love to have the boys living with me but its impractical with my work schedule and very unfair for you.

I hope we can maintain shared custody so that some of the time when I am home (and when convenient to you) the boys could live with me for some of the time.

I hope that we can keep a good relationship / communication going forward and while I fully expect this news to be extremely difficult, I also think you would very much prefer to keep the boys living with you and I am happy for them to do that and hope we can arrange an informal access program to fit in with my work etc. I intend to rent a property nearby so that I can help out with them as much as possible and so that we can share access / custody of the boys - particularly during the school holidays.

I hope that once the initial dust has settled, we will be able to share the parenting decisions as much as is possible.

Obviously the cats were a gift and I am happy for you to keep them. In fact there is very little I would want to take with me apart from those few items I would naturally see as ‘mine’ which would be laptop / server, my car etc. Everything else is up for discussion and I’m happy to leave you with pretty much everything else as you choose. While you may not want me back inside the house, if you do need any help with internet etc them I am happy to offer assistance. I will try to get as much as possible about the household accounts all together so there isn’t much you need to do.

I’m taking my time over this process before I tell you as I want to make sure your situation is as stable as possible before I leave. I am hopeful that after the initial sense of loss from having to start using aids etc, that you ultimately feel better as your agency staff will be here solely for your needs so you won’t ever feel like you are ‘disturbing’ someone else when you need something.

I haven’t yet had any professional advice on how the house / finances should be split but will probably do so before I tell you. My aim is to try to maintain the status-quo as much as possible. We don’t have any debts apart from the mortgage and I realise you won’t be able to buy me out of my part of the house so probably I will see if there is a way for me to keep my name / share in the property while you all continue to live there. I will then seek professional advice on what level of financial provision I will be required - but my intention is to fully meet my commitments.

Disability (mine), similar to MS, spelled the end of my 30 year marriage, although it was me that left. (Now remarried, and it was the best thing I ever did in leaving my ex...:j),

But, our kids were adults, and I wouldn’t have put the burden on being a carer for me into them, at such a young age as yours are, and trust me, with the lack of disability support around, they WILL end up losing their childhood.

I left having got my own care plan in place, and with the knowledge that this was what I wanted. Different to your wife, who, presumably, will be pretty devastated..

I do appreciate that as much as disability changes the life of the disabled person, it also puts a huge burden on the carer - you go from lovers/equals to carer/cared for.

Not good really.

As well as the physical side of caring (not easy, I know) disabled people can be difficult to help (or, I was!J, because disability, if it’s come on in later years, has a huge emotional impact - you feel as though your life has come apart at the seams.

Some marriages survive, even thrive, but many, many don’t.

However, please don’t give her that letter, it sounds very unkind - before you do anything, at least seek some advice/support from the Carers organisations, or the MS society.

They are used to helping worn out and drained Carers.

You really need to also put your kids before anyone else - unless you are fighting and arguing all the time, surely there is some way you can live together, even as loving friends?

This will be just so unfair on them.

You must have loved your wife, at one point, and, at least for the time being, I think you need to put her and your kids above what you want.

Your kids will grow up, and if you still feel the same, you can have a life after that.

I wish you all well.

Lin:)

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally - I'm reading OP as searching for a logical answer to everything here and he still doesnt seem to have received one - more a case of "put up and shut up".

I shall be really interested if anyone can see a way for him to keep his career and make sure the children are okay to have a childhood and ensure the ex is okay. Because I certainly can't see a way - and I think that is what OP is asking for.

I'm picturing the husband of someone I used to know with MS and I've seen him looking normal - but latterly I've seen him barely able to literally walk across the floor/not able to make eye contact with anyone because he was so exhausted and depressed at everything involved with being a carer and that was with no children involved and his career (it was a career - and not a job) didnt involve travelling. Any time I wonder what it could be like to be a carer long-term I remember that mental picture - as the look of him horrified me as he looked so bad that I wondered if he would ever look normal again.

Morglin

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Personally - I'm reading OP as searching for a logical answer to everything here and he still doesnt seem to have received one - more a case of "put up and shut up".

I shall be really interested if anyone can see a way for him to keep his career and make sure the children are okay to have a childhood and ensure the ex is okay. Because I certainly can't see a way - and I think that is what OP is asking for.

I'm picturing the husband of someone I used to know with MS and I've seen him looking normal - but latterly I've seen him barely able to literally walk across the floor/not able to make eye contact with anyone because he was so exhausted and depressed at everything involved with being a carer and that was with no children involved and his career (it was a career - and not a job) didnt involve travelling. Any time I wonder what it could be like to be a carer long-term I remember that mental picture - as the look of him horrified me as he looked so bad that I wondered if he would ever look normal again.

No, I can’t, becoming disabled meant I lost my career (which wasn’t just a job), and becoming a carer for a person with a progressive disease, such as MS, generally, unless you can afford full time professional help, means the end of the partner’s career, if it’s one that involves long hours/travel etc.,

It also, generally, means a large drop in income, especially if both of you had a decent job.

Trying to get benefits and other practical support are a whole new ball game as well..:eek:

There is nothing easy about disability - but, many people find a way to deal with it and enjoy life.

No easy answer here, especially with kids that young.

Lin

System

Personally - I'm reading OP as searching for a logical answer to everything here and he still doesnt seem to have received one - more a case of "put up and shut up"

No not from me but i wouldnt dream of leaving whilst the kids are so young.

Tabbytabitha

Westminster wrote: »

It must be very comforting for so many people to live carefree lives free from all doubt and with fantastic hindsight premonition for what the future holds.

As stated (in my admittedly long and rambling posts) I fully expect (if I do go through with this) to financially support my wife (probably for the rest of her life) and my children. I couldn’t really care less about my share of the house - money is not a problem we have thankfully. Although I would gladly give up the money and return to poverty if it would cure all our problems.

Knowing a few people who have split with children I can only hope to retain an adult line of communication as it is those who have done so that seem to have the best outcome.

Unfortunately for me the love left several years ago although caring is not a job you do for glory or riches and as stated there is still a level of affection here but also great sadness.

Hopefully those that instantly jump to conclusions don’t find themselves in a similarly difficult position as you will find it tests you very greatly.

If the love left several years ago, why did you choose to father two children?

FBaby

maybe because 'several years ago' could still have been after the conception of his 2nd child?

Maybe because sometimes, it's only when you reflect back that you realise that the love wasn't there at a particular time, rather than being fully aware of it at the time?

annandale

Are people really suggesting that he can't separate from his wife and keep his career and know that his wife will be cared for?

Do you think that there are no people without partners who have disabilities?

I never said put up and shut up. I just didn't agree with the suggestion that he should take no responsibility for his kids because a few posters on here had convinced themselves that she had trapped them into having children

Do you seriously think that there are no single people with MS who don't have husbands to help care for them?

annandale

Also what makes people think the husband has been doing the bulk of the caring? They had a live in carer until recently.

You can't see a way if they have live in carers if they separate?

How on earth do you think single people with disabilities cope? Single people with MS?

They do exist you know.