End of my Rope

I'm sorry - sounds like you deserve better.  I can relate.  my significant other of 25+ years has always had a "sharp tongue" which only got worse when he didn't feel well and was frustrated, scared and unhappy with his health situation.  He is now starting second round of chemo after recurrence, and I just dread what is coming.  What really hurts is that he is SO nice to nurses, friends, etc., and reserves his anger for me - so it is NOT that the chemo affects his brain, as he controls what he says to others quite easily.  For ex., when his son comes down he resents the loss of privacy and interruption in his routine, but takes it out on me, not his son. I finally told him I'd just leave for the weekend his son was here if that was how it was going to be, and he was better for a while. I just try to go outside, run an errand, take a drive - anything to leave when he gets like that so it doesn't blow up into a huge fight. He doesn't have the strength for that and I just hate the stress and resulting resentment.  By the time I come back it's usually ok.  He does apologize sometimes, but....does nothing to stop it from happening again, even when I mention he is starting to do it again.  I did spend some time in the past year trying to learn meditation, which I hope will help me keep calmer this time around. One thing I've considered is recording what he says .....I think he might be shocked at how horrible he is during those times..... Anyway, consider your wife is understandably angry at the world in general - what she didn't do that she wishes she would have, the unfairness of the diagnosis, the indignity imposed by treatment, etc., and you are the one she feels safe to vent on.  Remind her you are doing your best.  Good luck.....hang in there.  And of course you have a "right" to post!!  Isn't that what this is for?

Every relationship is different, so what I have to say might not even apply. My husband was diagnosed two years and two months ago. After the shock wore off, we both realized that I was going to be his primary caregiver with no help from anyone. Our kids are either too far away to help or they just don't want to be bothered. We've been married almost 38 years.

I told my husband in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to be treated like a non-entity that existed only to take care of him. I would do everything I could for him, but he had no right to treat me poorly just because he had cancer. Everything went smoothly until this past Sunday when I finally lost it after over two years of caregiving with no respite at all. I told him outright that if he insisted on acting the way he was I would put him in a nursing home. That seemed to get his attention.

Like I said, every relationship is different, but your wife has no right to treat you like she has been. I can understand her being angry for a while, but it sounds like she is just bound and determined to take her fear, grief, anger, and whatever else she's feeling out on you and it doesn't sound like she has any intention of letting up. You might just continue on, doing everything right and being treated miserably in return, or you might try what I did. People who are sick and scared often become so focused on themselves and their disease that they don't see what all is being done for them. They resent the fact that you're not sick, too. Sometimes you have to get their attention to try to get them to realize that you're there for them when everyone else has abandoned you. Try to get her on a good day and explain how you feel. Then tell her that her mistreatment of you is going to stop.