Hello,

Me and my husband have been together for 14 years. We were childhood sweethearts, together since Middle school. I always thought we had the perfect relationships – he was my best friend, lover, everything. We moved in together after graduating from college, both worked full time and spent our evenings/weekends chilling together. We’re both very simple people and took pleasure in being leisurely. The little things were what defined our relationship…he would massage me daily, fall asleep in his arms each night and I would take care of all the cooking/cleaning. We both had a good network of friends and I’d go off on holiday with my girls, he’d go with his boys. We had balance and were happy.

A few years later and I gave birth to our daughter, Laila. She was extremely ill from birth and spent the first two years of her life in hospital undergoing various operations. Fast forward to today…Laila is our world, she’s a beautiful little girl who brings so much joy, she’s taught me so much and I couldn’t imagine life without her. She was born with cardiac problems and has a condition which means she can stop breathing at any time. Because of her medical needs, she requires round the clock care. After numerous run ins with home health care providers, we decided the safest (for Laila’s sake..as we needed night care and found lots of incidents of nurses neglecting their duties, falling asleep etc) would be for us to take sole responsibility for her care.

It’s been just over a year of me being her sole carer during the day time and my husband doing the night care. It’s been a huge struggle. Often we are passing ships – he has to sleep during the day and I sleep at night. I try and give our daughter as much of a ‘normal’ life as possible and so we are out most days at playgroups or meeting with friends. All of this without my husband.

I admit that whenever things get hard for me, I take my frustration out at him. Our relationship has become functional, we are almost like colleagues not lovers. The little things he does or doesn’t do can infuriate me. I nag at him to help with housework or accuse him of being neglectful towards me, even though I know fully well any alone time is extremely limited. He, however, has no qualms about being the sole night carer. He knows it is for the best and says he could do this for as long as needed, he just can’t deal with the stress I provide.

Things have got so bad over the last few months I now feel totally detached from him. I love him but don’t feel that passion I did before. When I take time to think about it, I feel terrible as he is the one making the biggest sacrifice. He has no social life, hasn’t see his friends in a year, even to spend half a day awake and out of the house is a rarity. Yet it’s me who complains. It’s me who is questioning our future. I feel so distant that I am now, for the first time in our relationship, thinking of other men. I’ve started to wonder what it would be like with someone else.

After an argument yesterday, I told him I was emotionally detached from him. He broke down, said he knew it anyway but to hear it, crushed him. I don’t know how we move forward, I feel like we need time to remember how it is to be just us, but this isn’t possible due to our circumstances.

I suppose I need help in overcoming my expectations, so as not to get to the point where I’m furious with him. I have been practising yoga for the last 6 months and trying to be mindful but often find this difficult to continue for any extended period of time.

Any advice is appreciated…