Am I helping or hurting?

[Guest guest]

I have two very different questions as a spouse of a person with chronic pain,

so am going to post them separately. However, they are somewhat cross-related

so am mentioning it here.

My husband has DDD with chronic pain 24/7. He has a spinal cord stimulator,

which helps but he doesn't like the feeling of it so uses it sparingly. The

only other way he manages the pain is with morphine. Neither takes away the

pain completely, they just make it manageable.

Since his pain started 3 years ago and he had to stop working and limit his

activities around the house, I've taken up all the slack. I'm sure you can

imagine what a load that is! However, whenever I think about pressing him to

take responsibility for things that he CAN do, like paying the bills or dusting,

I just think of how petty those things are compared to the pain he has to live

with, and I don't ask.

But I have to wonder if I'm just enabling him to lie around every day feeling

sorry for himself. I've asked him to voluntarily take on more, and he says he

will, but for each individual task either there's a reason why " not that one " or

he says he will, but doesn't. He's significantly depressed but refuses to take

antidepressants, see a psychiatrist, see a psychologist or join a support group.

For these and other reasons I'm just about ready to call the marriage quits.

But I can't do that until I'm sure I've tried everything to make it work.

So my question to you is, am I helping or hurting by allowing him to refuse all

household responsibilities? Should I be making a bigger issue of it or just let

it be?

TIA