"Focus on Here and Now?" How, when my husand's NOT CHANGED!!!

Hi everyone.

I am writing on this board because I'm frustrated, extremely angry and I am at a serious crossroads with my marriage. 

I was diagnosed 1 mo. after my 35th birthday (Jan 2008.) This news came as quite a shock to me. I was still trying to digest the fact that 6 mos before my own dx, my father was dx'd with Lymphoma. Prior to that I had not seen him in 5 years.

FF to my initial dx. When we both found out after a supposed biopsy that would show I had "just a cyst" and it was actually cancer, we were both in shock. I cried. I called my parents and we cried together. However that night,  my husband and I sat in the family room together of our new home-me on the love seat and he on the couch. After about 20 min or so, he got up and went up to the bedroom leaving me alone with our cat. He yelled, " I can't deal with this!", and was he right. So there I sat alone with our cat and I said to her, "Well kitten, I have a feeling this is going to be tough." I could have never imagined just how tough it would be.  Before I got sick, my husband and I had a great marriage or so I thought. I always knew that out of the 2 of us, I was  the stronger emotionally of the two. I am the oldest sibling and have had to deal with ALOT of stuff since childhood. Unfortuntately, its made me way too old for my age, and extremely tough. I guess on the plus side, its helped me survive this hellish disease.

Soon after I had a lumpectomy with a node biopsy. My initial dx was stage 1 breast cancer with a grade 3 tumor aprox 1.7 cm. I had clear nodes and margins; Her2neg; est/progest pos by 70/80%. I then went through with 31 treatments of radiation. My cancer was hormone + by a  large percentage which helped determined I would go on adjuvant hormone therapy-Tamoxifen. I was put on Tamoxifen which I had a horrible reaction to 3 times; each reaction was worse. Why try Tam 3 times? Because at the time, it was the only hormone adjuvant drug available for pre-menopausal women. And at that time, my husband and I still wanted to try and have a family so I DID NOT want to go into menopause.

After determining that Tam was not the drug for me, I went through with the full regimen of chemo. Chemo was not the adjuvant therapy of choice by a long shot. However being allergic to Tam, and with the removal of a grade 3 tumor I knew that something was better than nothing. Hormone treatment could decrease my chances of recurrence by 30% vs chemo which only reduced my possible recur by 10%. 

Finally, it was at this point that my husband started to come around. Chemo was awful. But he sat with me during every treatment. And also he really did a good job with handling the business aspect of my disease: paperwork, billing, dealing with my former employer re: short term disability and fighting with my insurance co ad nauseam. However the one thing I wanted most, was to be close-a hug, a real kiss, a back rub; anything to show I was still desirable. 

After I finished my cycles of chemo the following Feb 2009, I was elated and relieved. "Finally I would get a break from the rigors of the disease!" However, I got my menstrual cycle the week after I finished. No one could believe it  as I was told chemo would put me in a state of temp menopause for a good 6 mos. The mo. after chemo ended I started to get pain in my lower back. I thought it was a recurring disc injury from when I used to dance and do gymnastics. I had a CT scan ASAP and the scan showed a spot in my L5 vertebra that was approx 1 cm. I had a bone core biopsy done immediately. My team was confident that it was "nothing" especially after just finishing chemo. It turned out that the breast cancer metastasized to the bone-my L5 vert. I sobbed like a baby on the floor. Once again I had to turn around and start fighting again. This time dose dense radiation was in order and it was grueling. My body had no break from my 1st dx and treatment to the next dx and treatment.

All the while, my husband and I were growing more distant. He wanted the "old me" back. The wife who doted on him, cooked and cleaned for him, and was always there "for him." I just couldn't be that person anymore. I had to fight for my life. I had a battle on my hands bigger than anything I'd ever dealt with. So, I relied on my old.  survival skills from childhood to keep me going. I put me first-something he wasn't used to. In between the increasing problems between us, a small silver lining appeared in the form of a drug called Aromasin, which had finally been approved for pre-menopausal women. However, my husband stopped coming up to bed at nights. He would take off and leave me at the house for hours alone. He started drinking heavily. In his drunken state he got physical and verbally abusive with me. I'd try to help him up to bed and lie him on his side so he wouldn't choke on his vomit from being drunk. One night, I knew he was going out to to drink or worse, and I just wanted to be with him. I begged him to take me with him, but he wouldn't. I tried to hold onto the car via the side mirror and he left, locking me out in the cold and rain in my underwear. I went next door to our neighbors house. That's when our neighbors learned of the trouble at home. Up until then I was ale to keep things hidden. These are only a few of the incidents that played out. I started to lose my temper with him and his treatment of me. he said that "my temper" pushed him even farther away.

Finally, I gave him an ultimatum. I had turned to help via my social worker at my oncology center. She told me to leave. I gave him 3 more mos to turn it around but no such luck. Things got worse. He had lost 2 good paying jobs. He started to steal from me, my family, his own family. He was unable to function and I knew it. The day finally came Dec 2010, when I left and filed a restraining order against him due to his stealing, total neglect of me, our cat, himself  along with verbal and physical abuse. He was removed from the house. I stayed in the house alone for 6 more mos and then left and got my own apartment. Since that night in Dec 2010, I have been on my own. 

That started a year long complete separation. My husband has stopped drinking and has been supposedly sober since that incident that forced his removal from our house. He has been sober for a few years now. We have tried to reconcile on several occasions. Our counselor has told us to take it slow, communicate and to "focus on the here and now." But how is one to do that when the same behavior keeps happening? He can't keep a job and is currently unemployed-again. He's been promising for years now that  he will make up his "horrible behavior to me" including helping me financially as I am now on SSDI permanently. How can he help me when he can't even help himself? This June will be our 10th wedding anniversary, I am not going to go into this anniversary like this. I love my husband. We've been together for 15 years. However love is no longer enough. I've just been through too  much with him and because of him. I'm not sure I want to try any longer. Am I in the wrong? 

Thanks for listening, Archer72