Emylou, I'm glad to see that you realized you need to take better care of yourself. From the sufferer's standpoint one thing I have decided for myself is that I will NOT let this problem I have become an excuse to make my husband do all the bending. In fact, that is a large part of why I went to my therapist and finally got things going towards making myself better. Like the others have said, don't be so hard on yourself! Its not easy!

When all this started coming to light for me, my husband made a silly promise... a promise that whenever I became scared he would not take it personally and just take care of me. Well, soon I told him to undo that promise because I saw that it was hard for him too and I wanted him to be able to take a time out when he needs it and I would try as hard as I could to respect it. It doesn't always work out the way we plan, but I feel better knowing that we're both putting in effort.

Furthermore, I don't allow myself to think "we've been together X number of years, you should know what to do" anymore. I'm embarrassed to say it but I've used that excuse before but my husband pointed out that my symptoms change a lot and what was right three months ago may not work today. I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but I think your partner needs to let you off the hook on that one...

I think most importantly, your partner needs to make a move to get that counseling. If you are going to put all that effort into helping him, shouldn't he also put in the same effort to help himself and your relationship? Again... I don't mean to sound harsh but I guess part of it is that I've been irritated at myself for seeing the way I have acted towards my husband and others I have lived with.

I think that I have been fortunate because my husband has a real fire to his personality and he won't let me sit in the same spot in life not making myself better. I tell him that he's the fire under my a** and that I'd better not sit too long or else I'll be showing my bare butt to my entire future. :p