I never thought this would be the result of 10 years of marriage, but I guess it doesn't surprise me. When dh and I were dating, I told him that I didn't think getting married was a good idea, but somehow he convinced me otherwise. I have depression, anxiety, ptsd and a variety of chronic illness, so becoming a sm was something I seriously wanted to avoid. I was a sd growing up, my sf became psychologically abusive to me and my mom, and the s-kids are at the age where it is starting to trigger me, yet dh is telling me that I just don't like kids once they have minds of their own.  Funny, that's what he said about his ex several years ago!  I can tolerate plenty of kids - I just don't do well with kids that have adhd and a parent (dh) who refuses to provide any kind of structure or allow them to do things he KNOWS is triggering for me.

A little background on what led me to being here:

My pcp took a leave of absence and never returned. No one can say why, most likely to keep the practice/hospital from having legal issues later. One of the last things PCP did before he left was change a number of my medications (including my antidepressant, medication for restless legs syndrome and painkillers) really against my wishes, but I humored him. This came about after mentioning that I needed help with restless legs syndrome, but ended up making me wish I'd never opened my mouth. It was a disaster, resulting in even a slight increase in volume being incredibly painful. Showers and loud noises were painful before, but simply existing became a challenge. I am still furious about it.  What's worse, the s-kids have seen me as a villain in all of this, and rather than being patient and understanding with me, I'm seen as having been unreasonable.  Somehow I was expected to just put up with ss16 just blurting out expletives at the top of his voice, but I'm supposed to put up with medication changes, pain, etc. without a bump in the road?

I started with a different doctor at the same location who gave me a referral to a pain clinic here in town following a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically where the discs between vertebrae dry out and wear thin till the vertebrae no longer have any cushion between them. Just another name/reason for the pain I've been in.

I've tried making new friends during the 10 years that dh and I have been married, but it's been tough with chronic illness. I willingly moved from another state to be with him so that he could be with his family, but now I have very little to no support system. It was bad enough losing a job over health issues, but I'm not really reliable enough to hook up with people from out of town. The few people I know in town never seem to be available.

I had tentative plans for a road trip with a friend/bridesmaid I met through DH some years ago. Unfortunately, I don't think that it's going to happen as my SI joint makes it too painful for me to ride in a car or sit in a regular chair. The sacroiliac joint [between the ilium (pelvic bone) and tailbone] has been an issue from time to time since the 1990s when I fell down a flight of stairs, but with age, it's become very inflamed, especially since last Thanksgiving. I have painkillers, but I am doing my darndest not to take them as often as allowed for fear that I would become dependent on them. Even on an antidepressant I don't know that I could handle this situation any better. I just need some time to exist and clear my head from all the stress, and I don't seem to be getting a break of any kind.

The s-kids really don't speak to me, which I can tolerate, but dh keeps pushing for me to see how well-behaved they are (for his kids, I suppose they aren't doing too bad), but right now I'd like to just forget about things and try to put it all behind me. He sees the fact that they aren't doing worse as an improvement? and wants me to see things that way, too. It will be interesting to see how things go when school starts if SS16 goes back to his old behavior of refusing to take the bus or get out of bed and get ready on time to be driven to school, resulting in DH being away from work to get him there at all. 

SS16 went to public school when he first lived here, and DH's solution to keeping SS16 in attendance was home schooling.  That didn't make things better - in fact, it was a race to get SS16 to get passing grades at the end of each semester. Then last year DH let (yes, he let it happen) SS16 stay up overnight using the computer instead of going to bed at a decent hour with few if any consequences if SS16 was late getting to school or missed school. It's as if DH has forgotten all about it - more likely just chooses to ignore it.  I really wish these things had no effect on me.

I'm doing my best to improve my eating habits, ridding my diet of a lot of processed foods, flour and sugar, hoping that it will keep my health from deteriorating any faster. (It's one of the few things I feel like I have some control over in all of this mess.)  In a bout of self-destructive feelings I had some soda today for the first yesterday in about a week, yet I'm trying to cut back on sugars to keep down inflammation. I have a history of being a cutter, so that was really a huge improvement in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. I feel like a huge burden to DH, both in time and money, yet when I suggest ways I could make things easier for him he talks about how I'm being a martyr. I was suicidal last December, prompting me to seek out family counseling for myself and DH, SS16 if he would go. DH agreed to a lot of changes by the end of the school year, saying that if SS16 kept behaving the way he had by refusing to get up on time or go to school he could go back to live with BM, but somehow things changed over the summer. This seems to be a recurring theme year to year.  I just want it all to be over.