One of these weekends, I know I am going to kill Adam. It doesn’t matter how much I love him, but if you heard the noise he makes while he sleeps on the settee, I’m sure that most people would forgive me if I did. Honestly, he has to be right up there, in the top ten of snorers on the planet. I just don’t get it either, as he isn’t wildly overweight or any of the other things that they say is behind it, but the noise is unbelievable. I have to admit that most mornings I just block it out, but there are mornings like last Saturday when every single snore felt as though it was vibrating through me, and that is something you can’t block. I guess it just goes to prove, that it doesn’t matter how much you love someone, sometime’s, they can do the most innocent things, but it pushes you right to the edge.
I know that I have spoken to Adam about it in the past, and he has always said no, but I am sure that there are things about my health that must really get to him, after all, he is human. He would have to be superhuman to not even once, get exasperated by the fact that he has to do so much for me, and our home. There are so many people who can’t even deal with being asked to fetch a coffee, so for him or any partner, to have not once thought “Not again”, would amaze me. If I can get exasperated by his daytime snoring, I can’t accept that not once he hasn’t thought, “Not just now!”. I know without a doubt that some people aren’t as good as Adam is at hiding it, but even he lets out the odd sigh, or noise that tells me, he is not best happy. It is those human factors, the sounds, the body language, and expressions that I believe, is the source of people feeling they are a burden on their family, or are when more extreme are behind so many out there feeling that they are alone, or that their families just don’t understand, or believe, what is happening to them.
I have come across many who have said such things, I even have personal experience of it. Although I wasn’t diagnosed, and at that point the doctors couldn’t find the reason for how I felt, I knew that there was something wrong. I had, of course, spoke to my first husband about how I was feeling. His reaction didn’t really surprise me, as he wasn’t exactly the most caring of people, but he clearly didn’t believe me. I now guess that he was looking at me, couldn’t see anything wrong and therefore didn’t believe I was ill. He was very much that sort of person. If I wasn’t lying on the floor unable to move, well, I was well enough to cook dinner at least. Even my mother’s reaction was suck it up and get on with it. So yes, I really do understand those who are struggling alone, despite being surrounded by people. The fact that the majority of chronic illnesses are invisible makes having one, far harder than it should be. The people we expect understanding from is our families, not getting it, is worse than any doctor saying, they can’t find anything wrong. My health had nothing to do with my ending my first marriage, but there is one thing that I am now sure of, I would rather be alone right now, than live with someone who just doesn’t understand, no matter how hard that would be.
No matter how much you love someone, and no matter how long you have been together, being ill strains every relationship. I know that I am incredibly lucky to have Adam, and no matter what he says, I do worry about the future. Five years ago, all Adam had to do for me was the housework. As every year has passed that has grown into having to do everything in the house, and looking after me more and more as well. In the last year, there has hardly been a month that has passed where something new hasn’t been added to the list of support and help that I need. When he is here at home, there isn’t an hour now passes, that Adam isn’t doing something for me, or doing something that I once did. Right now, he is doing it maybe not always with a smile on his face, as he isn’t like me, someone who smiles with ease, but at least not with a frown. Yet I don’t even need to ask if we could afford to have someone else here doing it all for him, that he wouldn’t jump at the opportunity. It isn’t just that he would like more leisure time, I know that he would just like the chance of having some time off.
For the first time ever, I am beginning to feel like I am, not a burden, that isn’t the right word, but that I am taking up just too much of his time. I know that he is happy to do it all, but I just feel that it is starting to become unreasonable for me to ask him to do anymore, on top. I don’t know what the next thing will be, what part of me will fall apart and need his help, but whatever it is, I honestly think that we are not far off the day when no matter who we each feel about it, we will need help from social services. I know a few months ago I spoke about finding out what they could offer, but everything went on hold, and still is, because I wanted to do everything in a set order I had in my head. I wanted to work backwards, starting with my funeral. As you know, if you’ve been reading for awhile, that all hit a stop when I discovered that my funeral plot, wasn’t in my name. That problem still hasn’t been fixed. My daughter has just started a new job, that means she has a lot of traveling and is in fact, right now she’s just returned from Poland. Finding the time to visit her father on my accord, quite simply hasn’t appeared yet. She will, but waiting for it now seems unreasonable.
Life, though, has done what it often does, it is pushing its way forward and forcing me to change everything. I really think that the time has come, when I have to stop waiting and start on the other things on that list, before whatever that next thing is, arrives. I just don’t feel that it is fair, no matter what Adam might say, to ask any more of him, if there is another answer. Where I start, as always I don’t know, but I have to start and stop just sitting here hoping that my health will remain level, when, it so clearly has no intention to. I think this week, I need to look at that list and see what else I can do now before I’m not able to.
Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 09/05/2014 – Injuring my ego
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 