Dear Sophie, shut up.

Why would you ignore the cries of someone you love?

I read a post on the Huffington Post this morning that grabbed me so hard I just had to post it.

Sophie: My husband left me alone crying until I threw up

I’m too scared to make a noise next time

He made me sit on the stairs for ages earlier too, because I was joking around.

He just shouted at me to shut up

I’ve tried to open the door. He’s holding it shut.

He came in. Didn’t look at me I tried to hug him he pushed me away and put me in bed.

He must hate me.

I’m scared.

I’m hungry.

I keep waking and calling for him. He must have left.

He left me in my own sick didn’t clean me up. He didn’t hear me be sick so didn’t help me.

I tried to tell him I needed him. I just wanted a cuddle.

Apparently I have sleep issues. That’s what they told my husband. And I need to learn.

I don’t understand why the person I love the most doesn’t want to touch or look at me…

Sophie’s Husband: My heart aches for you when I hear your cries. I don’t hate you but you can’t understand that.

I don’t want to scare you or hurt you.

Sometimes, you’re just too much for one person to take.

For months now, all day and all night, all you have done is cry and you won’t ever tell me why you’re crying. I haven’t sat down and eaten a meal, seen my friends or even managed to drink a hot cup of tea in 6 months now because I leap to attention every moment you seem like you need me. You have spent months biting me until I bleed and yet I continue to let you because people make me feel too ashamed to stop.

You can’t clean up your own vomit, you can’t wipe up your own faeces or urine. You have defecated on me more than once, you have vomited into my mouth. And I have only continued to love you.

I am only one human being. We all need to be shown love, but my relationship with you is all one-way. You take everything I have, emotionally, physically and financially and you offer nothing in return and I do not ask for it.

The only thing I ever really yearn for from the immense list of things I am denied in caring for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is a night of sleep so that I can at least function normally in the daytime.

People come and help me for the odd hour here and there, but as soon as your care is difficult or disgusting, as it so often is, you are handed back to me. I love you and am duty bound to care for you and whatever you do to me I can never stop loving you, but why am I not allowed a limit?

Whenever I complain I am told I am lucky to have a wife at all, so many people don’t have one.

I am told I am selfish for wanting 5 minutes of peace from your constant draining demands on me.

I am told I am a terrible person for reaching the end of my tether with you when I try so hard to make you happy and you, sometimes literally, throw that in my face.

When you cannot communicate to me what you want and I am always left guessing, all day and all night, is it not normal for me to reach a point where I will try anything? 

When you do try to tell me what is wrong, sometimes you don’t know yourself and whatever I try only makes you worse. More often than not I can’t even understand what you’re trying to say at all.

I cry myself to sleep too, I get sick too, no one helps me either.

I read a book, and heard from other carers that maybe I can help you learn in a way that might seem cruel to you.

Yes, perhaps to begin with I was able to be your nurse, your comfort, your chef and provider all hours of the day and night. But after months and months of relentless demands I am desperate.

I wish the world would offer me help and support.

I wish someone would give me a weekend off where I could just have some time to remember who I am.

I wish looking after you hadn’t meant that I had to give up my friends, my job, my clothes, my self-worth, my self-esteem, my self. But it did.

When I hear you cry, every fibre of my being yearns to hold you, to love you, to understand what you want and give it to you. But I can’t do it anymore.

Why do people call me evil, selfish, shameful for being a human?

Why am I judged for every decision I make about your care?

Why is this judgement always so public when I am so vulnerable?

Why does the world believe that the way that I try to cope with this life of constant guessing and giving and thankless generosity is anything to do with them?

Why is there always someone ready to pounce and tell me what I’m doing isn’t good enough?

Sophie, I mean you no harm and I love you immeasurably. I will never divorce you or ask you for anything for the rest of our lives…but please why won’t you just let me sleep?

Why do I even bother to ask, you can’t tell me.

So while I try my best, can everyone else just please f**k off?

I'll leave you with your thoughts.