Cancer has killed our relationship

Oh I’m so sorry.   You’ve been through the wringer and are still being wrung.  I can relate to the “he has no idea he has destroyed me.”  That is how I feel too.  My husband can only see his own needs and his own anger.  It feels terrible but I have realised it can’t be fixed.  So that makes me sad, but at least I’m no longer exhausting myself constantly trying new approaches to resolve his issues.  I hope there is hope for your relationship that others have suggested- healing with time.  That is something to hope and pray for, so I will.  But I also in another post just said sometimes when people are trying to see a hopeful outcome it makes me angry that they are not listening.  So I am listening and sympathising and hoping you find peace.

Hi, Strugglin,

Meet my relative, who was diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer seven years ago.

After hormone treatment, radiotherapy and surgery he was given the best news possible about three and a half years ago. But he is still obsessed with cancer. He weighs himself obsessively; every time he feels under the weather, the cancer has 'come back'; it's not a case of 'if' his annual check-up scan finds metastases but 'when'; if he has a blood test, no other event in the household gets a look-in until the results come back; everything - and I mean everything - is noted down in a diary (which, admittedly, was no bad thing before his surgery as he was sent to a new consultant who saw an entry in the diary and was horrified that the problem had not been spotted earlier).

My relative doesn't rant and rave but his obsession with his cancer, and the insistence that the entire household must revolve around the cancer that was treated several years ago, is absolutely exhausting. I understand why he feels as he does - cancer is (very) scary and his treatment was prolonged and gruelling - but it would be nice if just once he would seem to appreciate just how 'lucky' he is compared to so many other people who receive a cancer diagnosis.

Sorry I can't be more constructive and come up with tips that might change anything for you, but I just hoped that knowing that you're not alone in suffering the side-effects of someone else's cancer diagnosis might help you even just a little bit.