What are you most worried about for the future?

I have been a worried soul for a very long time. Anxiety has never been a friend but seems very attached to me all the same. Despite worrying continually about whether the household chores will get done, or the bills will get paid, or the shopping list gets ordered, or the cars get serviced, there is one huge thing that I am now worried about. What will the future look like without my husband?

In May 2024, we found out my husband’s cancer had spread and brought him to the “Terminal” classification with 9-12 months of life expectancy. It had already been a rough 16 months with cancer treatment after cancer treatment and I have spent a lot of time nursing him back to health. Where I once had hope for a cure, hearing the “T” word has made me frustrated and upset due to working so hard to keep him well but having seemingly failed at the one thing that was keeping me going. That was to keep him around in my life. Now it seems I’m going to lose him and it’s the most painful realisation I could ever have had.

I have had two husbands prior to this marriage. The first one wanted to control everything I did. The second one added physical violence to the mix. Neither of them stopped the power or control tactics after the marriages ended. There were kids involved and long, drawn out family court matters where emotional abuse becomes a legal right for them to perpetrate in the essence of winning. It was never anything but a game to them, and the kids were the pawns.

I did some dating and had three serious boyfriends in between but they all left when husband number two continued to stalk us, leaving them feeling unsafe or unable to deal with my baggage. This drew me to a space where I was unable to cope with my trauma and ended up being institutionalised. It was not nice at the time but I now see it was necessary to reset and build my self-esteem and confidence up from rock bottom, and rebuild my life.

I was single for 2.5 years after my last boyfriend left. I spent time with perhaps two friends only and did not participate in life a whole lot. My friend Sue actually got me to the stage where I started going to shopping centres again. The dangling carrot was procuring sushi. I realised I could be out in public and I didn’t have to be out for longer than I was comfortable with. Prior to that, I would even avoid driving because I didn’t want to stop to put petrol in my car. The mere thought of actually being outside with people had been that crippling.

During my time of healing and rebuilding, Sue and I had a friend who passed away one day out of the blue. Darryl had been the only other person I put myself around as he also had social anxiety but it seemed easier to be around people who also didn’t want to be around other people. Losing him made me attempt change I didn’t think was possible before then. It was after his death that I attempted to reach out for more social interactions. I even went out on several first dates to practice talking to people. It was hard at first but every interaction made the next easier.

There was a guy I was seeing with a very slow “almost” relationship but that ended up with me being stood up on Valentine’s Day (most likely unintentional but made me realise there was no romance or love to be found there to fulfil me) and my friend decided to introduce me to one of her friends. She had told him about me a while before I was brought into the loop but he had held onto hope and what happened next delighted and thrilled me.

This guy drove through cyclone Marsha in a tiny Honda Jazz to pick me up for our first date at my parents’ house. He had no qualms about meeting my Dad or any of my life’s horror story that I told him in the 3.5 hours we had spent unfolding our backstories onto each other over our first phone call. The only thing that was wrong about the first date was he didn’t get me coffee, but I married him and he’s been making me coffees ever since to make up for it.

The first two marriages had taught me what I absolutely did not want in a relationship and he had been married before and came to ours with a similar attitude. Before long, I realised I had to truly take back my life if I wanted to build anything lasting with the love of my life. I reenrolled back into university and went back to work part time. Steve moved into a bigger house closer to the university so my kids could be there too and proposed after 17 months because I refused to move in without that promise.

In hindsight, I am now so grateful I put that rule on me moving forward. I had told a previous boyfriend that I wanted to date for six months before moving in with him and recently found out that after he left me with zero communication in the middle of the night for another woman, he had been convicted and jailed for 10 years for rape. That information rocked my world just a month ago but what I’ve come to terms with is the boundaries I put in place protected my kids and I and we dodged a bullet. I mitigated an unknown risk by respecting myself and not moving too quickly in a relationship. That man had been known for child abuse and domestic violence as well but we had remained safe, no matter how hurt I was to learn I had been cheated on and dumped via Facebook.

I had another boyfriend after him and that went for 13 months before its demise. During that relationship, I struggled with rejection issues because he didn’t want to move in with me and I went through a life threatening illness that saw me having a life saving hysterectomy and the inability to have anymore biological children. He went on to marry someone else with less baggage and less children, even though he had been firm with never wanting to get married. His wife also stopped us from being friends who hung out after they got together so it stung more that I was never actually good enough for him. His parting words before we broke up was that he couldn’t put his child around my ex husband number two as the stalking was seriously scary and he didn’t want the danger associated with it.

If I could lose so many people with actual stalking, how could it have been called “crazy” in family court afterwards then? Well, I think women are often tarred with a dark brush when we get emotional about being abused and actual narcissists groom their way into being heralded heroes or the responsible ones due to their ability to be cold and calculated and only bare their true colours in private where it is hard to prove in a “he said/she said” world. Then there is the fact that they do isolate you from your support circle and there is no one left for you to turn to for support when you need it.

So enter my husband. Steve worked seven days a week, cooked and cleaned, and supported me to work hard for our mutual goals and dreams. I don’t ever call him my third husband. He is the only relationship where I have been truly loved, cherished, uplifted, and inspired to become who I truly am. Our wedding was my only wedding where I absolutely meant my vows. He’s the only relationship that my second ex husband stopped stalking me in. He even handed me our daughter and left the country for good. It has been the only time in my life since him where I’ve had peace from that chapter.

I graduated from university which was Steve’s only stipulation for setting a wedding date. He unselfishly wanted me to complete something important to me and have less stress during the planning of our big day. Covid hit and we homeschooled our kids. By then, we had three of our six living with us full time and managed to keep afloat after losing our jobs. Our landlord wasn’t so fortunate and ended up having to sell our rental property. We moved into another property in the same suburb but ended up breaking lease shortly after to relocate interstate as I had been through a six month recruitment process for my dream career. We then had an addition to our family with another child moving in with us so the six of us left our home state of many decades to start a fresh life and continue building our dreams.

We spent two years renting in our new territory and made our financial standing stable enough to buy our own home. We moved in and everything started to destroy life as we’d known it. My beautiful Nan passed away just after we bought our home. That was hard but inevitable as she was 98 and had lived a good life. It doesn’t stop grief but that was probably the easier loss of what was to come.

Steve was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive skin cancer on his face. I nursed him through surgery and radiation. My Dad passed away from metastatic brain tumours before Steve finished radiation so I didn’t get to be there when he passed. We had flown to say goodbye before he got sicker and I would make my choice again and again to stay by Steve’s side through his sickness, but it hurt in a way I’ve never known before.

Steve was on the road to recovery when they discovered he had stomach cancer as well. I nursed him through concurrent radiation and chemotherapy leading up to a massive nine-hour surgery to remove half his stomach and a portion of his oesophagus. I cared for him in hospital post surgery too. I showered him. I dressed him. I helped to lift him and transfer him from his bed to his chair and back again over the 10 days post-surgery.

I kept the household running over that time too with the help from the kids who have slowly become adults in their own rights over time. I put in the effort because I had truly meant the vows of my marriage to Steve.

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death shall we part”

This is the truly scary part. Death.

Steve recovered well but was experiencing hip pain for a while. I made osteopath appointments and got him some pain relief but his medical oncologist was a bit worried. Steve was sent for further imaging and it all came back with metastatic cancer from the stomach cancer. The radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery was supposed to be for a cure but it was all too late. It spread and the oncologist gave him a prognosis of 9-12 months left to live.

It is so hard to focus on good things right now. My big bosses at work have been so amazing and supportive. One of them suggested it was time to enact a bucket list. We have had some trips and have been assisted by an amazing couples counsellor to make our relationship the strongest one we could have through this trauma.

Our most recent trip was to Steve’s home town where he was born, and I got to see places that helped shape him into the man he is today. I decided that if this was the last bucket list item we do, I would be happy with no regrets.

Steve felt the same so we have both decided to attempt to live again after the feeling of being hit by a Mack truck by the “T” word news. Whilst this seems easier for Steve because he has found optimism to prove the doctors wrong, I’m the one who’s struggling to find light at the end of the tunnel.

My greatest fear is life after Steve. How can I live without him? Even the kids say I don’t have a great track record with choosing good people to be in our lives. I’m far better at seeing red flags now than I was before the first marriage but Steve has become the person I bounce issues and ideas off. Steve became my ultimate protector. He became the reason I was able to achieve goals and dreams. He facilitated me back to life and became my absolute best friend of all time.

What happens after that? How can I continue alone? I fear going back to rock bottom and not having hope. My hope is shattered and I just can’t seem to figure out how to piece it back together. A lot of people say to take one day at a time but the days seem to have a lot of struggle and heartache attached to them.

My greatest fear for the future is not being side by side with the greatest man that ever lived. Grief starts early. Trauma compounds the impact. Love is the only reason grief exists which is why I fear the greatest loss I will ever sustain.