How Much Misery Can We Stand?

When a partner is suffering, we suffer too.

I’d love to pen something funny right now. Something that would make you laugh and forget your own trials and tribulations. After all, I’m a top writer in Humor and Satire — or at least I was, I haven’t checked recently — but I’m just not in the mood.

I feel like getting down and dirty. “In the weeds” down and dirty.

I’ve written about my husband’s chronic insomnia and sleep apnea before, but I haven’t really done a deeper dive into how it’s impacted our relationship.

It’s fucked it up, big time.

Maybe I’m writing this in the hope that someone can help me deal a bit better. Because I need help. I need help so that I can help my husband because I’m floundering.

This waking nightmare feels as if it’s been going on forever. I can’t pinpoint the exact date or time when my husband stopped sleeping completely. Now, if he’s able to sleep two hours, that’s a “good” night.

Chronic insomnia is a horrible condition. Vicious in its unrelenting power to chip away at an individual’s physical and mental capacity to the point where a person might feel that he or she is going crazy.

We’ve seen the doctors, explored all the meds, read the articles, etcetera, ad nauseam. In fact, just last night my husband went to yet another sleep clinic, ordered by a pulmonary/sleep apnea physician, where they hooked him up to electrodes and monitored his breathing. Of course, he wasn’t able to sleep, so I can’t imagine what the takeaway will be.

As I said, he’s been through this before.

What we haven’t yet done is hook him up with a first-rate psychologist. They’re hard to find as is any stellar healthcare professional. But we’re searching. Or, I am.

My husband seems to have given up. In my heart, I know he’s stronger than that, but I’m not sure he knows.

“Good nights.” They’re few and far between here. As are “good days.” They’re dark, dreary, gray and miserable. To me, this is one of the most dismal winters of recent memory.

Please don’t misunderstand. I love my husband dearly. But I feel us pulling apart. Our “fabric” is wearing thin and I don’t know how to shore it up.

We can no longer do much, together. A simple shopping trip wears my husband out to the point where he waits in the car for me, rather than go into the store.

Vacations are out of the question and we rarely have a night out. How does one fix this?

When I feel helpless, like I do now, I start feeling resentful. That’s my coping mechanism and it sucks, I know. I’m like the protagonist in one of my screenplays who “gets mean when she gets scared.”

Fear doesn’t look good on me. I have way too much bravado for that. I am, and will forever be, a badass. Yet I am afraid.

I probably ask my husband how he “feels,” at least twenty times a day. Our conversations have gotten that rote.

“How do you feel? Did you get any sleep last night? What do you want for dinner?”

Writing that makes me want to cry. Because it’s not fucking fair and he shouldn’t have to suffer like this!

Oh, I’ve said my “prayers,” to the “invisible man living in the sky,” as the brilliant George Carlin said.

No one is listening. I’ve tried praying to our cats who are gone, my parents, also gone, the man in the moon — you name it.

NO ONE IS LISTENING.

It doesn’t help that I don’t have a belief system in place. No religion to speak of, other than my own. Something cobbled together from bits and pieces of what I’ve learned from this life, thus far. A tapestry of bullshit hopes and dreams.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

My husband probably wouldn’t be happy that I’m writing this. Thankfully, he rarely reads my stories unless I bring one to his attention, so I think I’m good.

So yeah, we’re miserable. I put a good face on it. I write my stories. I do what. needs to be done around here. I try to take care of myself, eat right, work out, be mindful of my booze intake. Stuff like that.

Frequently, I fail.

I do damn near everything except work at an actual job. So I can’t complain too much. Although, as my friends Kristi Keller and P.G. Barnett know, Medium might as well be a job, considering the time we spend toiling here.

TIME FOR A RAISE, BOSS.

But, I digress. You might wonder how I sleep. Not as well as I should. Not these days. I take meds to help and they used to do the trick, but now, with my awareness of my husband’s nightly nocturnal ramblings from one room to another, I’m wakeful a good part of the night. I sleep in fits and starts, with dreams that disturb me. Sometime early this morning, I woke up with tears running down my face.

When I actually do get a decent night’s rest, I feel guilty about it.

Why should I be able to sleep when he can’t? But someone has to be present around here. Do the things that need doing. Cleaning. Shopping. Taking care of our cats. Paying the bills. I do all that. But he has a job, so I shouldn’t bitch. Thankfully, he works at home four days a week. I could not stand the thought of him driving to work on little to no sleep. That’s one less stressor, anyway.

What is there to do but keep looking for that magic bullet. Poor choice of words perhaps. I’m not that low. Never that low.

In fact, you know me. Some of you do, anyway. I’ll bounce back. I always do. As Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day.”

Meanwhile, I just want my husband I to get beyond this. I want to wake up one morning, ask him how he feels and hear, “Great babe. Just great.”

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

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