You'll Leave Me In Five Years

My marriage wasn't supposed to last.

"You'll leave me in five years," I told my husband when we first got together, and that was before he had even asked me to marry him!

That was 1998, and we married in 1999.

Yet, here we are, still married and waiting for June 25th 2026, which is the date of our anniversary.

Here is a fact.

During those horrible, long years before I met my husband, I had developed the perception that I was unlovable. I had seen my mum go through a heartbreaking divorce in my younger years, and though she had married again, I could not see myself as being worthy enough for someone to marry me and stay.

When I left home, every relationship I had been in up to meeting my husband either turned abusive or ended in some form of heartbreak.

It got to the point where I had given up on myself, and relationships, even friendship, became something that I detested.

I walked a very lonely path.

It was better to be lonely than risk yet another abusive relationship.

After all, if friends were going to continue hurting me while I was single, then, in my opinion, all of my relationships were going to go in the same direction.

I had thought this for many years.

I plodded on tirelessly, trying to please everybody, and trying desperately to fit in just so I wouldn't keep getting hurt.

I changed my behaviour, my looks, my hobbies, and everything about me just so I would fit in with friends, boy-friends, and girl-friends perceptions and standards expected of me.

It was better than getting punched, kicked, and badly beaten both physically and emotionally just for being the sensitive me I had always known.

That was until I was admitted to a hospital where I met my husband.

I won't bore you with the details of that admission; I have written about it enough.

I will say that I never knew real love until I met my husband, and that I never knew love could break my heart even when it was true.

I remember those years when my husband would pick me up when I was down and challenge the false beliefs I held about myself.

We have had a roller-coaster marriage of love, sadness, heartbreak and pain, but nothing has been harder than having to make the balance as I am today,

Carer and Wife to the very person who used to be my carer as well as my husband.

Many people said that our marriage wouldn't last because of the things we had been through, and because of the disabilities my husband now endures daily due to cancer treatment as a child in the 1970s.

We just found out that the majority of these disabilities have been caused by radiation toxicity.

This has been caused by the amount of radiation administered to him during treatment for cancer as a child.

The amounts of radiotherapy given during the 1970s were not thought about properly, as not a lot of information about the effects of radiotherapy was available at that time.

Since I uttered those words, we have battled a lot, and we have forgiven a lot, too.

There was so much I had to learn about my husband, but even if I knew then what I know now, I would have still chosen to spend the rest of my life with him.

Girlfriends have walked away from my husband in the past due to the erratic behaviour which comes from his disabilities, and sometimes I can empathise with them for it.

It has taken many years from the moment we met to now, just to find out the extent of these disabilities and the cause.

The sad thing is, there is no cure.

However, there is also a good side.

The disabilities have strengthened our bond, and they have certainly strengthened my understanding of him.

I was out with him just the other day, and instead of trying to work through the excruciating pain that he was in, he let me push him around the shops in his wheelchair.

Many people stared at us in disgust, while others were kind.

My husband was a nurse for over 31 years.

He is one of those nurses who looked after my favourite star, Robbie Williams, amongst many others.

I wouldn't have been lucky enough to have known Rob if it weren't for my husband.

We haven't heard from him for quite some time, though my husband is trying to get back in touch with him.

When I told my husband, "You'll leave me in five years," I honestly thought that he would, but even through these very difficult years, I still see myself in shock at the depth of our love, which never ends.

I am proud to be the wife of my wonderful husband, and I have no shame at all when it comes to loving him or being seen with him in public.

If everyone else wants to be embarrassed by him, then who really owns the problem?

I will just sit here laughing as I say, once more:

"You'll leave me in five years," because I know that we will still be together, even if my fuzzy brain won't let me believe it.