We're all different in how we recover. Three months out I was still in need of prescription pain meds for mouth pain and was physically extremely weak. There's really no way I could have even worked a full day. It's quite possible that after he works a full day, all he has energy for is the couch. You seem sure he has the energy to go take a walk but I wonder how you know that.

Actually when I get home from work lately the couch is all I've had energy for, which turned out to be a symptom of my thyroid having shut down, but I'm sure your husband is being tested for that.

Also, I agree with Minnie that as much as you have been through yourself, there's a level of this that he is going through that are really not the same for you. As far as you know, there's no reason why you won't live into your 80s (the avergae expected life span of Americans today). For those of us who have had this cancer, there's a lot more uncertainty and it really does rock your world. Especially when you are young.

The bottom line is you've both been through a lot. He may be responding with depression. You seem to be responding with a lot of anger which, is perhaps directed at him instead of directed at the disease that he has been fighting so hard. If he is depressed, sensing your anger is likely to make him more depressed and feel like more of a failure because he got this disease, causing a vicious circle where he withdraws more and you get more angry.

My husband and I went through a real marital crisis at the end of my treatment. Some of it was due to us both just being totally rundown from fighting the cancer in our different ways, some was due to unresolved issues from before that came out during that time. We went to a good marriage counselor and it was extremely helpful. I'd encourage you to do the same. The botom line is any tendency we have to respond in self-defeating ways to stress, be it anger and the desire to break and run or depression and the desire to just sleepwalk through life because it has been so hard, is going to come out when two people have to go through the endurance test of oral cancer treatment!

I'm glad you felt you could come here to vent about this and I think time alone will make some of this better but getting counseling for you both and maybe some antidepressants for him could help save your marriage in the meantime.

This disease has taken so much from you both already. Don't let it take your marriage without a fight.

Nelie