The Truth About Divorce After Traumatic Brain Injury

I have no hope that he will ever get any better.  I am miserable and suffocating and trapped.  I have continually sacrificed my happiness for his.  I have given up my life and my future happiness to be the companion and caretaker of someone who will continue to drain me until one of us dies.  Don't judge the people that leave. You have no idea what we go through or how desperate we are to just live.

I am in the process of a divorce now. I fear the memory of who my husband once was, is what kept me going. I still am very much in love with my husband, but the man I'm married to is not my husband. This man is hard to love. I don't want our marriage to end, but I can't continue in it this way anymore. We have four great kids 7 down to 7 months! Our children need the attention two parents can give, but our problems consumed our time. Now we are no longer we. It is plaintiff vs defendant instead of husband and wife. Doesn't have the same happy connotation, but it's where we have come to be now. My heart hurts for all of you who are or has known someone who had a TBI or is the caregiver/spouse of a TBI survivor. I have seen changes in my husband that I would have said no, he would never do that. I've eaten my words on that one more than a few times. I'm filing for a legal separation. I'm hoping getting him back into therapy and back on his medication will allow him to see he still has love to give and receive. He's stated he didn't feel like a man anymore since not working and taking care of us, but it wasn't just that, he said. It was knowing you had something to do, somewhere you had to get up and go for, the ability to earn a living. All of that was taken away. I would always remind him of what he had left, but he was missing a piece of himself that I could not replace. There can be no violence and abuse within a healthy relationship. That's why I had to leave the marriage. Maybe now he can work on himself and get some help.

He's post trearment for brain tumors. I find myself having more conversations with myself in my own head because of the anxiety I have around communicating with him. Im stressed out all the time and it's so much work just to live. In my head I catch myself saying "I hate my life" way too many times in any given day. I recognize how unhealthy his condition is making me and my daughter. We're constantly on eggshells and agreeing with nonsense just to avoid explosive outbursts and long lectures. Argumentative, competitive, childish, unreasonable. I don't know how to deal. The resentment grows. I've become his mother and I've never felt more alone in a relationship. I've been fed up for years now since diagnosis. Its not getting better. How do I learn to deal with this? How can I protect my daughter without just up and leaving him? I'm exhausted. I hate this.

My husband had a mild traumatic brain injury in February 2013, it has been pure hell.  He was unable to care for himself for the 1st three months, then his condition improved but he became very depressed and paranoid.  He has locked himself in the room, states he does not trust me, he accuses me of poisoning him.  He is very impulsive, he will spend hundreds of dollars in a day, he is not going to be able to work again and I can't get him to stop spending.  He has no impulse control anymore.  If he feels threatened in the least he will resort to physical means until he feels safe again.  We have been married 13 years but I left this fall, I didn't go far because I still have to be there to help him, but the emotional and verbal abuse was escalating and he had become violent.  I am so sad that this has happened to us.  The wonderful man I married is gone.  Because he looks fine and presents well no one understands what it was like in our home.  Everyone thinks he is fine.  This has been the hardest thing I have ever been through, and there is not much support.  I feel guilty about leaving him, but he is so angry and aggressive and impulsive I didn't know what else to do.  I wish there were help for families.

The world of TBI really is so complex both for sufferer and carer. My husband has been left with severe disabilities after a car accident in 2014. I care 24/7 for him at home after a year long hospital stay and have three young children. I ensure he attends all his rehab sessions and try my hardest to ensure he is happy, well cared for and loved...but he shows me normally at least every other evening, that I disgust him and he hates me, he's physically violent and his words are destroying me. I try to shelter my children and explain its not daddy's choice why he acts like this and it's not ok for them to act that way but I'm scared for their future growing up in this environment. Other times he is quiet and just wants to be alone to watch TV and then sometimes he is so loving and caring, he's my old husband and best friend. I tried to get help and spoke to his family but they turned on me and blamed me for provoking him. They told me it was my fault, and tried to say as he's disabled he couldn't physically hurt me, trust me he can and does. I felt so alone so I don't tell anyone now what's happening and I try so hard to keep smiling and stay positive, whilst hiding the new scratches and bruises. I tried to contact our local support group but couldn't get through and when they called back I was with my husband and couldn't talk and they don't call me back anymore after missing each other so many times. I have no local family and my friends are our friends and I don't want to disrespect the memories they have of how he used to be. But he's gone, he's so uncharacteristically selfish, wants to spend money constantly on himself (we just haven't got spare money now) refuses to accept that it's not me that won't let him drive/work/other activities that unfortunately he can't do at the moment, if I upset him in anyway (ie ive helped my son with his homework when my husband had wanted me, I'd not known this and he'd not said anything and we were in the same room) he flipped on me for around five hours, how do you handle this. I don't want to leave him. We've been together for 20 years and those flashes of affection are so welcome but I'm so tired and I know I'm struggling. I know it should be about him and my struggles are of no relevance to his, but he seems so unaware of what he's doing to us as a family it's heart breaking. I'm scared of him

Its a relief to know there are others who understand what I'm going through. My wife has post concussive syndrome from an injury in early 2015. As she gets better physically, the emotional and mental issues have escalated. She is paranoid but open to keeping her friendships but she doesn't trust me and wants to leave the marriage. After 10 years together, this is quite heartbreaking. Only a miracle will keep us together.

My wife had a TBI 20 months ago. She's been horrible to me and her parents pretty much since she came round from here coma. She's ok with everyone else. It's like she can't stand me, I'm left as a single dad of two young children and this person who looks like my wife but is like a stranger to me. Our children avoid her and don't want to spend any time with her as she is pretty hard on them too. It's not her fault but me and the children are the ones that are suffering. My wife blames me and the children as we are the ones who have changed. I'm trapped in a very unhappy marriage that I cannot see is ever going to get better. She has told me she doesn't want to be with us anymore but she can't live on her own as she needs 24/7 care which we cannot afford and the government will only pay a small amount of money to help with. I don't want to see her put in a care home so I'm completely trapped. I can't move on. 

In 2005 age 53 my husband had a stroke. We had been married 11 years. He fully recovered physically but mentally was never the same. He was and always will be the love of my life. I find myself living with 'a man'  I never married. He suffers from Post Traumatic stress syndrome, Anxiety and depression. I loved and supported him thru all of this ( plus cancer ) for 10 and a half years. I am finally leaving him after being verbal and emotionally abused for over 10 years. I kept telling myself he could not help it?! It is not his fault. No the stroke was not his fault but doing nothing at all about his mental state and bad behaviour  and nothing to help our marriage is his fault! We now find ourselves about to be divorced. He is not prepared to help himself and get mental assistance....why because he thinks there is nothing wrong him?! People will say I am abandoning him but I say no i am not! He abandoned 'us'.He had choices and chose not to get help.now it is my turn to make a choice for me. Being 8 years younger I have a lot more time on this earth to find some peace and quiet in my life and be happy. I know I will always love him but I'm in love with the old husband and he is gone!

We made a marriage vow 51 years ago that still stands.We're in it together.

I must wonder about the study reporting the zero divorce rate after injury after age 60. I am 65 and had serious closed head brain injury from a fall five years ago. That was followed by two hemorrhagic strokes in malformed arteries resulting from the trauma. Together this has produced general and very specific forms of disconnection syndrome that especially affect my left brain control of my right brain emotional responses.

I was very recently examined in a psychiatric hospital unit for several weeks and no psychiatric problems were found. However, while there my wife of 44 years informed me that she would not be at home to greet me when I was discharged. We are now permanently separated as I cannot risk myself again to the extreme level of emotional pain I suffered when she told me she was leaving. There was no physical abuse ever involved and never any form of "wandering" or cheating by either of us. My wife simply has not been able to deal with the severe change of emotional control I have experienced.

The damage to my corpus callosum was extensive so brain hemispheres are partially disconnected and will remain that way. I now live alone in an apartment and the house we did live in is on the market. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me and I have no way out of it and very little left to live for. I will never kill myself but it will be a relief when that time comes.

After my husband's accident he is definitely not the person I married. I will wake up to a different person each day never knowing what mood he will be in or what type of person he will be. Most days he is bearable and others I want to run away. What type of person would I be for leaving him when this wasn't his fault? But do I deserve to be miserable for the rest of my life? I have struggled with this for a long time....

His tbi injury happened 15 years ago and there's almost not a day that goes by that he does something to remind me he is not the person I fell in love with. I'm often like "who is this guy" and "why did this happen to us?" I am so sad because our lives should have been so different. Had I met him and he was like this I never would have been in a relationship with him. I hate my life with this stranger. Why? Just why?

After my injury my wife of 6 yrs , girlfriend of 20 baby mama of 12 left stating I was no longer the guy she married. I have to say I would not have done the same.

How did you correct for your acknowledged statistical bias in your study sample ("only 15% of subjects were separated or divorced"), when the separated/divorce rate in the general population is higher?