Since her diagnosis in November last year I have had constant verbal horrible abuse from my wife which overflows into violence and verbal abuse at the same time. She is trashing our whole life together and says she hates me. The pattern is usually 3-days of abuse followed by 1 day of angry silence then normality for a while with spatterings of abuse thrown in.
I feel I am betraying her even writing this.
I have emailed the team at MacMillan who are very kind and supportive. They have told me to contact her care team but I haven't because:
That feeling of betrayal.
Who do I contact, she has an oncologist who has given no details at all on how to contact him, he calls my wife and has occasional face to face meetings.
The fact if I do contact them she will know it was me and escalate the violence to stabbing me or killing herself in front of me as she has threatened.
I spoke to a GP who said I death is some people's greatest fear and a miserable death is even worse. He explained that living as she does is like having one hand constantly in the fire while going about her life, so she cannot be a reasonable person and behave rationally.
This actually helped me as when she started I no longer tried to verbally defend myself but just left the room and went to another room so she could not continue.
She is now on a break from chemo and her worse spells are becoming more intense.
I don't know what to do, I worry that she may one day kill herself and I am in some way responsible for not treating the weekly threats as serious. I also feel there is an outside chance she may attack me with a knife as her rages are worse
Sorry to go on but I am struggling, but the hand in the fire metaphor does help.
Hi Ed710
I am so sorry you are going through this. I think Matthew (Moderator - Macmillan Community ) has provided an excellent response. It’s really important that you put your own safety first. It really isn’t a betrayal.
Metastatic cancer can do horrible things to you. The GP’s comment is spot on. I wonder if your wife’s pain is being adequately controlled - I know from my own experience of a close relative who had late stage metastatic pancreatic cancer that the pain can be excruciating. He never became physically violent but he said a lot of upsetting things to his wife. After he died, she had to work hard to remember the person before cancer, rather than how he was in those last weeks and months. It’s almost as if the cancer was doing the talking.
I don’t know whether you have any times when things settle down so that you can have a more rational conversation with your wife. That might be the time to be clear with her that you will just disengage each time it starts up - assuming you can have that conversation safely. I had a lengthy period when I needed to be treated with high dose steroids and each stage of weaning down dosage brought a few days when I found it difficult to control my emotions. I agreed a code word to use with my husband if either I felt I was becoming on edge, or he saw me doing it. It was a great way to diffuse things.
Through all of this, you must be grieving what you have lost. Do you have family members or friends who can help support you? Please don’t struggle alone. This community is here for you.
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I have metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer, in remission
