allimsaying, Thank you for your thoughtful post. I'm thinking about the points you made. First of all . . . about not carrying all the load. I always swore to myself that I would never let him end up in a nursing home. I worked from the age of 17 up until about age 45 in nursing homes. They tend to be sad places. I felt so sorry for the people I took care of there. I may have to let go of that "plan" to "make sure" he never ended up in a long term care facility.

He's not real sensitive to my feelings. When we lived together, he dished out a lot of verbal abuse. I always thought it was just "the beer talking," as he would say. He drank heavily for years.

On the other hand, he is struggling with an awful lot of debility and mobility impairment. He struggles heroically to do what he can and not depend on me. I have always been able to see so much good in him . . . maybe with blinders on to the bad.

Yeah, his kids are busy with their own very successful lives. They pretty much think I'm a dope for carrying the weight I carry. They're not worried about who will take care of "Dad." They made up their minds a long time ago that it would never be them. They've always made good on that. When he drank and was homeless, they never lost 2 minutes of sleep worrying about it. I guess that's part of the mindset that goes into making life successful - Don't get bogged down by other people's problems. No chance of that happening to any of them.

I appreciate what you say. I probably have to let go of what feels like too much for me. He's almost 20 years older than me . . . and I'm not young anymore, either. I revolved the last 30 years of my life around loving him. I'm left with nothing much but heartache to show for it. It feels so unfair. I keep telling myself that nobody ever held a gun to my head. I always did what I wanted.