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 :'( :'( After months of fighting both mental illness, my husband is fighting physical illness too. I have a feeling his liver is failing, he started having alcohol related respiratory issues (possibly cancer... .we didn't get the tests results back but all signs are pointing to it). Last night was a very hard night that was looking to be a great evening... .

I came home from work and my dBPDh was waiting for me, happy that I was home. (Great moment and always a blessing to witness), then as he is hugging me he said:

" I'm sorry for having pressed my self-destruct button. You deserve so much better, but life is too painful for me to stay and I somedays I wish you didn't love me and I you... .things would be so much easier.

All I could think of when he said that was the song "Hate me" by Blue October... .my heart sank like a ton of bricks.

I managed not to cry and responded this:

"I wish I was enough to ease your pain, but I'll never be enough, your pain is soul deep. I wish you had the strenght to fight, but I know that you don't have it or even want it anymore. I can't promise that I will never cry seeing you fight with your inner demons, but I promise to fight with you or hold your hand till the end, but I will never give you the permission to take your life earlier than God's plan is for you. I fight with myself everyday not to make you fight for your life, I know that this is what you want and I want to respect your wishes with all my heart, but remember that it goes against everything in my soul, so I might fall from time to time. I'm sorry if I do."

After that , we just hugged and sat in silence for about 30min. Then he talked about travelling to Eastern Canada, a list of restaurants he wants to try out and other things like that... .it was all positive but my mind kept telling me that it was his bucket list... .even when I tried to repress the thought.

I expected this kind of conversation in my late 70s or even my 80s... .not my 30s. :'( :'( :'( :'(

That has to be hard. To hear that he has a potentially fatal liver disease and you are in your thirties. My mother, whom I feel had BPD, died of cirrhosis at 57. In her final stage, she had blood escaping from veins in her esophagus (varices). These veins had been weakened by decades of smoking menthol cigs. I hope that this is not what you mean by alcohol-related respiratory issues.

From what I've read, cirrhosis takes women out more quickly than it does men. Isn't there a life-prolonging treatment, such as a transplant or liver node transplant? The liver does regenerate, and if he has something left and can stop drinking, there can be hope. Have you spoken with his doctor, in case you are not getting the whole story from him?

It takes a whole lot of drinking for a man to get serious cirrhosis in his thirties. My uBPDh of 52 drank heavily for one year (which gave him an abscessed liver apparently) and then switched to binge eating. He is now faced with intestinal and cardio issues that will probably cut his life short, but the end is not on the horizon. He lost weight after an operation, and now his weight is yo-yoing around; he's stuffing himself on impulse again. If I try too hard to redirect him, he stonewalls me. I know it's hard to watch someone self-destruct. Take care of you, as they say.