Off The Record
I Devoted 8 Years To Caring For My Paralyzed Husband—The Day He Walked Again, He Asked For A Divorce
I watched with tears of happiness as my paralyzed husband took his first steps after eight years of giving up everything to care for him. A week later, when I held divorce papers and discovered the heartbreaking truth, those same hands that had fed him, cleaned him, and supported him during his darkest hours were shaking.
I’m Emily, and I’m forty-four years old. I have two amazing children who have supported me during the most trying time in my life.
I married David when I was twenty-eight, young, and utterly enamored. At the time, he was everything I believed I wanted in a companion.
David was affable and ambitious, and his self-assured smile could brighten any space he walked into.
He appeared to have his entire life planned out in detail as a prosperous lawyer with his own modest but successful practice.
It seemed like a fairy tale during those first few years of marriage.
David put forth a lot of effort to establish his practice, and I was happy with my job. We discussed our goals, made plans for the future we would create together, and purchased a lovely home in a peaceful area.
We were tremendously happy when our first child was born.
I was 34 years old and prepared to make a significant decision by the time our second child was born. I was able to stay at home full-time because David’s practice was doing so well.
I wanted my kids to grow up in a world where their mother was there for them no matter what.
“Are you sure you want to give up your career?” We were having dinner one evening when David asked.
“It’s not giving it up,” I assured him while holding our sweet baby girl. “It’s deciding what is most important at the moment. I want to be there for them, and we can afford it.”
David grinned and squeezed my hand across the table. “You’ll be a fantastic stay-at-home mother. You are such a blessing to our children.”
That is exactly what I was for three happy years. I pushed myself into being the greatest mother I could be, setting up playdates, volunteering at school functions, and providing a cozy, caring home for my family.
David kept up his good job, and his business continued to expand. We felt fortunate, content, and safe.
Then, one evening, everything abruptly changed.
David claimed to be on his way home from a late meeting with a customer. When the phone rang at 11:30 p.m., I was already asleep.
The tone that instantly chills you was calm but serious, like the voice on the other end.
“Is Emily here? At City General Hospital, my name is Dr. Martinez. Your spouse was involved in a severe vehicle accident. You must come immediately.”
I recall that I could hardly put on my clothes because my hands were shaking so much. While I hurried to the hospital, my neighbor rushed over to watch the sleeping children.
When I got there, the doctor told me something I could never have imagined.
Gentlely, “I’m very sorry,” Dr. Martinez remarked. “Your spouse has experienced severe spinal cord injuries. There is a lot of destruction. Since he is paralyzed from the waist down, it is quite unlikely that he will ever be able to walk again.”
The floor seemed to have fallen out from beneath me at that moment. Would my strong, driven husband, David, never be able to walk again? It didn’t seem conceivable.
I held David’s hand as he slept that first night in the hospital room, whispering promises through my tears. “I won’t be leaving, my love. Together, we will overcome this obstacle. We’ll work things out, I assure you.”
Our kids were only five and eight years old at the time. More than ever, they needed love and stability.
It never even occurred to me to consider leaving David. He was my spouse and the father of my children, and I genuinely thought that our love would endure no matter what life threw at us.
However, David’s body wasn’t the only thing destroyed in the tragedy. It also devastated our whole financial base. David’s legal practice swiftly failed since he was unable to continue working. Our consistent revenue vanished virtually immediately as clients departed and cases were passed to other lawyers.
Right away, the medical bills began to mount, and I saw our savings account deplete more quickly than I ever imagined.
I recognized then that I needed to step up in ways I never thought possible.
I couldn’t afford to be selective about jobs, even though I hadn’t worked for three years. I accepted the first job at a nearby insurance company that I could find. Although the income was insufficient to cover our basic needs and the labor was not glamorous, it was enough to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.
My new world turned into a never-ending cycle that began each day before sunrise. At four in the morning, my alarm would go off, and while the home was still silent and dark, I would discreetly get ready for work.
After waking the children, I would assist them in getting dressed, preparing breakfast, packing lunches, and getting ready for school. I would then hasten to work, where I would answer phones and process insurance claims for eight hours.
But every evening when I got home, the real work started. To everyone, I became everything. Mother, father, maid, nurse, and only provider all combined into one weary individual.
I would wash David, dress him, feed him dinner, and assist him in getting out of bed and into his wheelchair. I oversaw all of his prescriptions, pushed his wheelchair to doctor’s visits, and dealt with the never-ending paperwork associated with disability claims.
I had to be a mother to my kids in addition to taking care of David. I attempted to keep their lives somewhat normal, helped with homework, and went to school functions when I could.
In addition, I handled additional chores including grocery shopping, bill payment, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even lawn mowing.
It was my life for eight long years.
I was frequently told by friends, “Emily, you’re amazing.” The majority of women would leave. By now, the majority of people would have left.
In actuality, though, I loved David very much and never considered leaving him. I was dedicated to our family, to our marriage vows, and to the belief that things would improve in the future.
Something extraordinary began to occur after seven exhausting years of this regimen. Dr. Martinez leaned forward in interest when he observed something during a routine examination.
“David, can you try to move your toes for me?” asked he.
David’s face was twisted in effort as he focused, and I held my breath. Then I caught the smallest twitch in his big toe, barely perceptible but unmistakable.
“Did you see that?” With tears welling up in my eyes, I muttered.
Slowly, Dr. Martinez nodded. It’s clear that some nerve regeneration is taking on here. This is really heartening.
The year that followed was the most optimistic we’d experienced since the accident.
Three times a week, David began rigorous physical therapy sessions. Observing from the sidelines as he worked with therapists to strengthen muscles that had lain dormant for years, I would drive him to each appointment.
At first, progress was sluggish. David would try to flex his feet or slightly bend his knees for hours on end. However, throughout time, the movements grew more powerful and regulated.
David’s therapist finally delivered the words I had been hoping to hear after months of arduous work: “I think you’re ready to try standing.”
That afternoon, as I stood there with my palms against the therapy room’s glass window, David grasped the parallel bars and painfully, slowly, dragged himself to his feet. Watching my husband stand on his own two feet for the first time in nearly eight years brought tears to my eyes.
“You did it!” I rushed into the room to give him a hug while crying. “You’re standing, David! In fact, you’re standing!”
David moved from standing to taking his first hesitant steps between the parallel bars over the course of the following few months.
Then came the day he crossed the treatment room by himself, completely unassisted. I genuinely thought it was a miracle, as the doctors described it.
I believed that this marked the start of a new chapter in our relationship.
We had finally arrived at the end of the tunnel after years of sacrifice, sleepless nights, and times when I questioned whether I had the strength to continue. I pictured David beginning a new job, our family eventually returning to some semblance of normalcy, and us reconstructing our lives.
I was very innocent.
I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when David entered the room a week after he took his first steps on his own.
In his hands was a manila envelope.
Coldly, “Emily, we need to talk,” he stated.
I opened the envelope he held out with shaking hands. There were divorce papers inside, already completed and signed by him at the bottom.
Unable to comprehend what I was seeing, I kept reading the same sentences while staring at the documents. Was this how it was going to end, after all we had endured together, after I had given up everything for our family for eight years?
Silently, “I don’t understand,” I said. “What is this, David? What’s going on?”
He gave me a look that I had never seen him have before, as if he was relishing the occasion. “Now, Emily, I have to live for me. I want my freedom back now that I can walk again after being reliant on you for eight years.”
I thought I was going to drown. “Freedom? I’ve been your companion through it all, David. To care for you and our family, I sacrificed my entire life, my job, and my funds. How can you claim to be free while I’ve been keeping you captive?”
He yelled, “I didn’t ask you to do any of that,” “You decided to remain. Playing the martyr was your choice. You made that choice, not me.”
My husband’s cruelty was unthinkable to me. I had fed him, bathed him, and taken care of him during his darkest moments. For fifteen years, I had loved this person without conditions, and he was the father of my children.
He wasn’t done destroying me, though.
“The fact is that you’ve allowed yourself to slip over the years, Emily. I no longer married a woman like you. I don’t find you appealing. You’ve gotten older, and to be honest, you always look worn out. She doesn’t.”
“She?” I said it again.
“Yes, she does. I feel alive again because of the person I’ve been seeing. Instead of viewing me as a helpless individual who requires attention, she views me as a guy.”
“David, how long? What is the duration of your affair?”
What remained of my universe was devastated by his response. “Emily, since before the accident. When I crashed that night, I was headed to see her.”
Everything I knew about my life fell apart at that moment. During all the late nights when I believed he was working hard for us, he was with her.
He was rushing to meet his mistress when the accident occurred, which I believed to be a tragic turn of events. And he had been plotting his departure for eight years while I gave up everything to start again and rebuild our lives.
“How?” Through my emotions, I was able to ask. “How did she wait eight years for you?”
David grinned triumphantly and cruelly. “Because I made her feel at ease. You believe that the sole expenses from your wage were for the children’s fees and medical bills? For years, I have been withdrawing funds from our account. A little bit here and there on great dinners, jewels, fragrances, and gift cards. You were too preoccupied in playing nurse to notice.”
The treachery was total.
My earnings from years of arduous labor had been used to finance his affair. She was getting presents that I had worked so hard to get while I was cooking, cleaning, and paying the bills.
David went on to say, “She didn’t stay out of love for me,” She stayed because she believed her patience would be rewarded and because she knew that one day I might be able to walk again. Yes, it has.
However, as they say, karma always finds a way.
Everything, including the affair and the stolen money, came to light during our divorce processes. David’s actions appeared to disgust even the judge.
I thus received full custody of our children and a sizable amount of spousal support.
And the beloved mistress of David? In the form of a walking, self-sufficient man, she believed she was finally receiving her reward. She was unaware, however, that David’s recuperation wasn’t flawless.
He was still not the easygoing man she had envisioned, he still had bad days, and he still required therapy.
She left him six months after our divorce was finalized.
David is bitter and broke today, living alone in a little apartment. His mistress is gone, his children hardly talk to him, and his law career is over.
In the meantime, knowing that I passed the ultimate test of character, I’m reconstructing my life with more strength and wisdom than ever before.
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