My wife has an undiagnosed illness and it's killing our relationship

[u/According_Memory4153]

Hey there, this is my first ever post, so please be patient with me.

My wife(33F) and I(32M) have been together for four years, married for three. Our relationship started out great like most do, minor ups and downs, but nothing crazy. Almost exactly a year ago she became ill and was unable to work due to exhaustion, pain, brain fog, digestive issues and a number of other symptoms. As a good husband I buckled down and picked up the slack, taking care of the kids daily needs, the house work, yard work, and trying my best to cover the bills, which is a big struggle as the way our finances were set up was for my job to give only a small income and provide very good benefits, whereas her job gave no benefits but was very high paying, about a 70/30 split with her being the 70.

Anyway, all of this extra stress has gotten to me over the last 12 months, and I feel like I'm running out of "give" at this point. What complicates this situation is that her condition has not been diagnosed at all still, we've had the entire spectrum of tests run and they all come back indicating that everything is totally fine and she should be a very healthy person by all accounts. Which obviously leaves me questioning if there's something going on mentally that is creating all of this for her. Though I don't believe at all that she's lying about anything, especially not knowingly.

Compound this with the fact that she is;

1. Completely withdrawn emotionally, won't communicate at all, and gets upset to the point of saying she doesn't want to be alive anymore when I try to talk to her about the most basic aspects of our relationship, not even the difficult things.

2. Has taken to sleeping exclusively on the couch for the last 9-10 months and when I try to sleep near her on the couch (it's a sectional) she asks me to go sleep in bed.

3. Won't touch me except to hold my hand, give me a side hug, or when we kiss, which is really just a peck, very occasionally, and even then it really feels like she's not comfortable doing that, and recoils when I touch her aside from her initiating it.

I'm really looking for an outside perspective on my situation as well as just an opportunity to write it all down and get it out of my system, hopefully before I lose my mind.

[u/IchiroTheCat]

My condolences first off.

Keep pushing the doctors. Try an Endocrinologist? A naturopath? Nutritionist?
Allergist? Hope you can find an answer.

I have a chronically ill wife as well, and I will give you one piece of advice I learned from my therapist. You need to make time every week, or more often, to get away from the stress and worry completely. Just by yourself. A walk around the block. Tacos. Anything.

The reason is that you cannot give from an empty "tank". You need to recharge.

At first, I felt incredibly guilty getting away for even a single hour. But as my therapist kept talking with me, I was able to see the benefits.

I hope you get an answer.

[u/beachbum1982]

Has she gained weight at all? I had many of these symptoms minus the digestive issues. I finally tripped over what was going on. I was give steroids because my body ached so badly. That ended up being polymyalgia rheumatica which is an auto immune issue which can be triggered by stress. What also was going on was body aches due to a statin I was on so that just complicated the polymyalgia diiag. Your wife is generally to young for a statin but just added that just in case. So got off of that. That helped a lot w overall body aches leaving the true polymyalgia symptoms. Then I started gaining weight, got what they call a moon face, and all the rest of the symptoms that go w steroid induced Cushing's. But you can get Cushing's w out the steroids due to a pituitary issue. She definitely has some of the symptoms. I finally figured out my own issue through labs even though 99% were normal. I was an analyst for a health insurance company so I just started digging. What sounds even closer to her issues is Addisons disease. That includes the gastrointestinal. This is also a pituitary issue. She needs to see an endocrinologist. Either of these are hard to get someone to listen to because the symptoms relate to so many things. Anyway, read up on these starting w the Addisons. I really had to push and advocate for myself as these can be hard to diagnose. I'm sorry you are both dealing w all of this. Hopefully this has been a little bit helpful.

[u/Leading-Disaster5721]

My wife is going through similar situation. Her advice is:

Find a doctor who deals in functional medicine. Consider Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia.

And look into therapy. Going from a person on the go to stuck in a chair is difficult.

[u/CptChronicillness]

Did she have Covid before this started? I have had many of these symptoms from Long Covid. Her not wanting to touch may be an issue with skin sensitivity from it. I cannot cuddle my husband without pain.