I don't know how I'm going to get through the xmas holidays. Whilst I'm doing all i can to make it special mark just doesn't care.
I'm going to be honest now because i have literally no one to turn to. And my eldest daughter knows .
Before marks accident on 26th April we were on a Caribbean cruise 2 weeks earlier for his 50th birthday things had not been existent between us for a long while and thought things might change
All he said was thank you for staying with me. ....and nothing changed.
Now. ....it's a million times worse and I'm 'just here ' how long and how much do I give before i finally break?
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debbie36a
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Hi, thinking of you, especially at this time of year. Being an unpaid family Carer is hard, so damn hard sometimes. Have you had any counselling at all? It's not what it sounds like, I thought a counsellor would give me all the answers but what they gave me was a chance to talk. Privately, in total confidence, giving me the chance to ask my own questions, come up with my own answers and then make my own decision. Ask at your local Carers organisation (Google Carers Trust), or Headway, or your GP. You need to talk to someone who will give you the time and space to do it. I have been there, it worked for me and might help you. Best wishes. X
He's lovely to everyone outside these 4 walls but he was like that anyway before April. When i asked why he didn't know.
It's like we've gone through all this trauma for months and nothing changes it's just worse. Believe me a councillor isn't the answer it's mark that's always had the problem
Hi Debs, Xmas is never the best of times for anyone when a marriage is breaking down but can only agree with what pax, Mal, Sem, Tortie, et al have said.
My marriage was like yours, my husband was like yours, we had got well past being able to communicate about it. there was a lot of stress there also on my part and I was the one who had the bi, not long after I left him!
Excuse and forgive me, the guys on here, but Debs most Men don't find it easy to talk about their feelings, not like women do. It's harder for you, because you still love Mark, but he is driving you away, possibly deliberately, for your sake as well as his.
It sounds like he doesn't want to make the effort and as the others have said, it's not necessarily the BI. Mark still has his mind and thoughts. Perhaps there was there something else going on in his life before the cruise, that you didn't know about, had he found someone else but the BI put a stop to it? Had the marriage, for him, just stopped working?
He knows now, himself, that yes he needs help for the effects of the BI! But that help, from you or someone else, won't fix your marriage or personal relationship.
I think that for the immediate future, you, your daughter and Xmas, stop trying to please Mark all the time, you've been there done that and said yourself it doesn't work! Harsh words from me, I know, but said with compassion also because I can relate to a non working, loveless marriage and all the signs and signals!
if you can talk to Mark, ask him outright, was the marriage over for him before the cruise. You might both surprise yourselves if you can be honest with each other. I stayed for 45.5 years, but we are getting on with our own lives separately, I'm happier now, almost 3 years later and I'm looking after myself, with several other health problems which I haven't even told him about and he continues to supplement my state pension! The separation works better than the marriage did!
If he wont talk to a counsellor, it's for a good reason, he might want/need to talk to you, but can't, to get it off his chest and clear the air, so to speak. Then at least you will both have options and choices - whether good or bad ones!
I do wish you well Debs, and hope you find clarity and a resolution.Shirley x x
Sorry to hear you are feeling so down. I cant answer from the carers side much apart from counselling did help my wife a great deal so dont discount it.
As from a bi side well I also questioned why she stayed but was gratefull for her doing so.
I suppose the big differance was I changed from the quiet loving outgoing person to the complete opposite......plus moody and apt to blowing up at a minutes notice.
I still ask why she put up with this but never get a full answer.....I now dont press this issue.
We both went through counselling and specialised marrage guidance mainly because I am sure we felt it was worth trying to save.
I think what I am ( very clumsily) trying ti say is move heaven and hell if its worth it.....if not.....well theres your answer. A little brutal maybe, and I am sorry for that.
I hope you make the right decisions for all of you. Please try counselling if only for your own sanity.
Sorry to hear how bleak things seem. Don't discount counselling or therapy, if only to provide to help you make changes that are best for you. I don't think you have much to lose giving it a go.
Marriages and partnerships are often very different from the inside as to how they look from the outside. You are not unusual in thatat all, although it can feel like it when things are tough. And they are often at a point around this sort of age, where people have children who are now reaching adulthood, and the two of them are left looking at one another and wondering/thinking/saying ' what, this is it? You there....and me here....?' Times like Christmas when everyone is so....happy, allegedly...can really throw this into sharp relief. You have a BI thrown into that mix. It is no wonder these are tough times.
During your time here you have often shared the fact that things were not right between you and Mark pre-BI. You have also said things to suggest that the BI has exacerbated those problems. And you have said that you care about him deeply.
Bearing all that in mind, I think you have to be prepared to make a 'take it or leave it' style proposition to Mark. This situation is not going to resolve itself by the two of you skirting round the issue because you don't know how to fix it. You need help to think through the very real challenges that are there for you as a couple, to see whether, as a couple, you can meet them together, or not. You need to ask him to go with you to relationship counselling.
I know that you have said before that Mark won't entertain such an idea, which is why I said it may be a 'take it or leave it' moment. But from your perspective, you need some help and support to work this through, it is a really big, life changing decision you are facing here and I think you have every right to ask for help in that.
If Mark refuses to entertain the idea, Relate will speak to you on your own. Counselling with only one half of the partnership does have its limitations, but they are still there to help people like you who are faced with someone who is unwilling/too embarrassed/too proud/too scared to co-operate.
Don't try to go it alone through this....give yourself the best chance of the best outcome for the both of you (whatever that may be). Give them a call, or send them an email. You don't even have to go see anyone, they will do it all by email exchange if you like, although you individually Debbie might benefit from having a person to speak to.
I will keep you in my prayers, and I hope you find some support and begin to move through this quagmire towards some sort of emotional peace.
Sometimes you have to take brain injuries out of the equation, you must. Because everyone can fall into the trap of believing everything is brain injury related. The causes for all behaviours must lie withing that spectrum. Sadly, that's nonsense. Although it can act as a catalyst, it is not always the actual cause.
Sorry to be blunt but it sounds to me like the problems were there long before the his accident and it has only exacerbated them. Back in the twelfth century when my brain took it's battering, I had a girlfriend and I'll be staggeringly honest here, it hadn't been 'working' for a very long time. Two months after my discharge from hospital, she walked, with a catalogue of reasons and excuses. They were all crap, we simply didn't belong together and the head injury only multiplied that tenfold.
Don't be afraid, you have to live your own life and be as happy as you can be. Whatever course you have to take in order for that to occur, you must do it. It will all work out for the best in the end, because if you keep on flogging that dead horse, you're just left wondering and wishing and hoping.
I can only agree with other opinions, both TBI sufferers or their partners. A neuropsychologist said to me a while ago, as my partner and I were rock bottom, and I was worried he would leave me. (I have the TBI), and she said in her experience the marriages/relationships, which fail after brain injuries, are couples, which already had crack in their relationship. You say you eldest daughter knows, you have a person who understands how you feel. Like others have said talking to somebody completely independent you can off load, decide what you really want out of life. ?
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University - 2 years from Brain Injury Diagnosis 
I'm off to Headway in a bit.
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