I can not speak for someone on your side of a stroke since I did not experience that, but I can try and help you maybe understand where your husband is coming from since I had a stroke last year. My stroke was in the right cerebellum and it effected my personality and my cognitive function as well, so it's not just limited to the frontal lobe like someone else said. I was told by the doctors that the type of stroke and where I had it was the rarest, but the one with the highest death rate and that I should feel extremely lucky that I was alive. For the most part, I now feel like that but I still have lasting effects from it that make me feel like I should have/wanted to die from it. I had to do 8 mths of intense PT & OT for my right arm and leg that I could not feel or use properly. Since I was only 35 when I had my stroke, and am extremely overweight, I felt that those disabilities were what people were going to notice and concentrated all of my efforts on fixing. Now that I can use and feel my right arm and leg, I have been forced to look at the cognitive damage the stroke has caused and left behind.

I can't hold a conversation like I used to and I have trouble retrieve words and putting sentences together and because of this I retreat from social situations when before the stroke I was the center of attention. When I fight with my wife I can't keep up with her train of thought or I get lost following her and I feel soooo stupid having to ask her to repeat it because I didn't understand something a 5 year old would understand. I know what I want to say and I know what point I'm trying to get across but I just can't get it out coherently enough for her to understand and when she asks for clarification I get mad and angry at her. Not because she doesn't understand it or that she didn't get it, but because I feel stupid that I can't get her to understand me when we used to understand each other so well. I'm not defending his actions, because his or mine at the time/currently are and never are acceptable, but I'm trying to tell you what I told my wife. We may seem fine on the outside, but in the inside we're a total mess. Just like you said, you feel like you have to mourn him, he has to mourn himself as well. I had to do that. I had to stop holding onto the woman I was before the stroke and work on the woman I am now. It's so hard and scary and frustrating to have spent your whole life being you to just have one event take that away from you. I was left with anger, and hatred, and fear, and in a body that didn't work and a mind that couldn't. This fear and uncertainty was what drove my anger because anger is easy and a feeling I could remember.

I dunno if that helped any, but here's what I had to do/learn. Specialist and doctors are your friend. Admitting a deficit or a weakness is not a sign of failure or being less of a human being, it's the first step in getting better, of wanting to get stronger. I had trouble with sentences, words, and communications... so I went to a speech therapist. I have trouble with reading a person's face and tell how they feel or what they are thinking... so my ST referred me to a therapists who is going to help me with the anger and the social cues that I am missing. It's scary and frustrating and lonely (even if there is someone there to help you 24/7) but it doesn't give him or me any right to take that out on someone else. It's like that old saying, we hurt the ones we love because they are the ones closest to us. I was never angry at my wife. I was never frustrated with my wife. I never wanted to hurt it in ways that I did hurt her. I was mad at the situation and I took it out on her because there was no more of me to take it out on, I have already torn myself up and down as far as I could go. Again, it is not right and it is not fair, but that is what happened with me and what I've read and hear from other caregivers and stroke victims.

That being said, you need to take care of yourself as well. There are groups locally, online, and on facebook for caregivers where you could talk to others, getting advice and venting to someone who understands. Go see a therapist yourself because I do think you have to mourn your husband and your marriage and figure out if you want to fight to build a new life and marriage. You need to make sure you are taken care of and healthy before you can continue to worry about him. Caregivers too often get sucked into caring for their loved ones that they forget to take care of themselves before it is too late. I'm a big supporter of fighting and doing everything to save your marriage, but there does come a time where you need to step away and maybe that will be the time your husband sees that you are serious and that he needs to do something to fix it. I know before I was diagnosed with bipolar the only reason I sought help was because my wife gave me the whole "go see a doctor or I'm leaving" thing. I'll be honest, I hated her for it. I hated her for trying to change me. I hated her for not letting me have my fun. But the chance of losing her was worse. In the end, it got me to a doctor and it got me the help I needed. Sometimes people just need that fear and threat to change.

So... I think I've rambled enough and I dunno if it even helps or makes sense. But I do hope you take care of yourself and you can work something out.