I'm married 36 years. My husband has frontal lobe encephalmalacia. Softening. caused by surgery trauma.

He has always been overbearing but now he is impossible. I have given up on a normal life with him.
I guess this is the new normal?

I can't bring up anything that is conflicting with what he wants. I cannot debate anything or he will yell over me, hang up if we are on the phone, or stomp out of the room.

Luckily he is still able to work, but on his off days, he does nothing but tv.
Flipping channels, tv blasting.
I have to go to another room or leave because it is so stressful to hear the loud tv with channels flipping.

He is flat. No empathy, no caring, no love. I do everything in the house.
Womans work as well as the man's.

He could care less about any of it.
He just won't do it. There are so many things that need a man, and I either do it myself or have to hire someone.
Which can get expensive.

The worst though, it is ruining our marriage and relationship. I cannot stand to be around him. I get conflicting feelings of hatred toward him, and then guilt.

Our marriage was not perfect before this. There were many times I wanted to leave because we are not compatible but kept putting it off.
Divorce was brought up many times, but we always worked through it because there was no "real reason" to end it. We just bicker a lot. We don't like the same things anymore. We went in different directions.
We married young, I grew up and there you have it!
We have nothing in common. We used to have travel in common, but not any more. Last vacation he sat in front of the tv while I rode a bike, walked, and went to the beach myself. He only got up to eat.

When we are in a car and he gets mad, he will drive erratically to scare me and to show me how mad he is.
SO I do not want to do any driving vacations with him.
The last few vacations before the brain injury were just as horrible, so this is nothing new. Just worse after the brain injury.

The brain injury has made all of the "bad" worse.
He is always blaming me for everything.
Even his lack of happiness.

I try to find my own joy. I feel happiest when I am away from him.
We work opposite hours so it is perfect. I exercise, eat right and try to keep myself healthy.
I do have the blues. Don't want to call it depression and do not believe in medicating for the blues.
I will wake up sad sometimes. Then shake it off before I walk in the door at work.

I miss the old husband that I could sit down with and debate an issue out.
Now, if I try that, he blows up.
I have just stopped doing that and avoid him.
So there is no communication. As far as I am concerned if there is no communication, there is no relationship.

So every time we disagree on something...there is no bartering, debating, and going back and forth with our reasons and points. He cannot do that.

He does not care if I don't feel well. If I am crying. If I am stressed or if I am having things to deal with at work.
I have no partner. I take care of myself.
He has never been nurturing or caring. Even when I had an operation, but he was not as bad as he is now.

We recently built a house and had to live in a hotel for 2 months while it was being finished. This all coincided with his surgery and brain injury. He was basically a mean zombie at the hotel.
I had to put two dogs to sleep in the process of moving. Both were very old. THe second one lived with us in the hotel and was my rock and the love in my life.
Putting him to sleep before we moved in the new house was devastating and broke my heart like no other dog did. I did the entire move myself. The packing, contractors, builders, unpacking, moving company, organizing for help, dealing with his work leave, his doctors, appts, medications and ER visits.

We took a vacation for three weeks after that, and it was horrible.
I was basically alone while he watched tv.

Now living in our new "dream house" for our close to retirement years and we are not enjoying it together.
I cannot even imagine him at retirement in two years. He wants to retire early.

As of today, he is shunning me with a silent treatment five days and counting.
will not talk to me because I did not agree with him on an issue.
Silent treatments are nothing new though. He has done that since we were engaged. Usually before the brain injury, he would end up being so miserable shunning me. I would just get on with my life and ignore it.

It does hurt though and when I am not busy, it does mess with your head. The silent treatment.
It's stressful to be in a house with someone that will not answer you. and just stare ahead.

He is not as bad with his friends or coworkers but they all notice a change. SOme do not really talk to him as much. They don't have to, they are not married to him!
He is worse to me.

I never shared our arguments in the past with people. Our marriage was between us. I cannot believe that I am opening up and telling people that things are bad. I almost feel like I am not being loyal to him or our marriage when I do this. But before his injury, when we had arguments, I had someone to talk to about it. HIM. Not any more.

We had a party several weeks ago. A BBQ. Mostly my family and my elderly aunt and uncle, some of my cousins, kids, etc.
I was walking a cousin through the house to show her around. She asked me "now that you are in the house and settled, is there anything you would have done different? tile, floor plans etc?"
I could not come up with anything and said to my husband "DH, is there anything you would have done different, Jill wants to know" and he said very loudly and very nasty "YEAH, I WOULD HAVE A DIFFERENT WIFE!!"
Everyone's mouth dropped. Some people tried to lighten it up by making it a joke.
My stomach fell to the floor. I felt sick. I laughed it off and said something glib and light, but my sad and shocked face betrayed me.

This is my life now.

Not sure what I am going to do or how to handle it. Need to consider my age 56. and what I really want in my life now. How much more change can I take?
I have a new house, new dog and now a new husband. He acts like he hates me. He hates all women it seems and will criticize every woman announcer on tv. Saying she is fat, stupid or ugly!
He is a stranger.

Hi falldc,

Welcome to NeuroTalk.

I can feel your sadness, grief, shock, disappointment, sense of betrayal, anger, frustration, discontentment and more. Lots of painful emotions.

I am sorry you are in the midst of what seems like an endless storm.

I think you have posted in a forum. I will look you up there.

I am glad you are reaching out, expressing your feelings, thinking about your future.

Please keep taking excellent care of you!

DejaVu

Hello and welcome to the NeuroTalk Support groups.

We have had posts from members and their partners who have had an acquired brain injury from surgery on our forums in the past. I know some who have already posted in the Caregiver's Forum, but some have also posted in the
Traumatic Brain Injury & Post Concussion Syndrome Forum

Hi falldc,

I found you at the Caregivers forum and wrote to you there.

Lara has mentioned the Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Concussion Forum, too. Great people participating there. Maybe see you there?

Warmly,
DejaVu

You are far from being disloyal having a need to open up is understandable. There is nothing worse than the "silent treatment". It is cruel. I had experienced this as a child and as an adult with my mother. I think that was called "conditional love'.

Also was married to a man for several years that would give the silent treatment if I did or didn't do whatever it was. Often I would try to guess what it was I did because I did not really know. If I asked if something was wrong; the answer was usually "nothing is wrong". But still the silence remained... So I completely understand what that is like.

But you have so much going on; can't imagine how you were able to have a house built or even going on a vacation under these circumstances.

Please take care of yourself. Hopefully you can find a hobby to help keep your mind off of this abuse as much as is possible. You may have to try going to a movie or out with a friend to get away for even a short time. Do something you might enjoy. It's okay to be selfish......you need to do whatever it takes to survive.


Gerry

Hi Falldc

Im so sorry to hear what you are going through. I am going through the same thing with my husband. He also has frontal lobe damage. We have been together for 15years and have a 6year old son. My husband has become very much like yours except he is starting to become physically violent. he also shows no empathy or love. I can only wish my husband would give me the silent treatment but he does not let me rest. he follows me around the house and makes rude coments. He does not let me sleep and if I don't listen to him talk till the early hours of the morning he will make nasty comments into my ear. I am a stay at home mum raising our son. he will tell me he pays the rent its his house I don't work don't do anything I should sleep during the day so he can talk to me at night etc.. basically everything I pride myself on he takes from me. and when I ask him to stop he will look for new ways to hurt me even as far as pointing out shows on tv as a way for ( "that's where you get it from") problem is it makes no sence. If im watching the news he will still do it and when I react he says im yelling and spreading all our personal information to the neighbours.. he has been becoming increasingly paranoid as well, opening and closing the front door thinking neighbours are outside listening. I use to keep all our business quiet but I have had to tell friends and family what is going on as I am barely coping. I cannot get a job as I don't have anyone to help me with my son and even if I did get a job I would not be able to keep due to him keeping me awake at night. I am running on empty.

It is very hard to deal with I know. Im sorry I cant help you but I do know what you are going through and how horrible it feels. I just wanted to tell you you are not alone in what you are going through and I also struggle with betraying my husband for telling people whats going on but you have been put in an impossible situation to deal with on your own. If there is a way you can get him to get an assessment do it. I am still trying this myself but keep coming to dead ends and if it wasn't for my son I would've left by now. I wish you all the best and hope you find a solution. You deserve to be happy and live a life without this much stress. All the best to you.

Hi Jana,
Sorry I did not see the responses to this post I started. I had another post that I was following.

So sorry to hear about your issues with your husband. Sounds like you have a lot of similar issues as me. But with a young child at home, much worse and harder to deal with.

I hope things are going somewhat better for you since your last post.
I've been trudging along and dealing as best I could right now. New issues have arisen lately. It's always something lately

Thank you Gerry,
I know that I need to get out more and do more things for "me" for my own mental and emotional health.
Right now we are going through another health crisis with him and he may be out of work permanently.
I feel a lot of guilt because I was thinking of how much I wanted to leave our marriage just days before he had the health issues.