New member wanting to say hi 
I’ve wavered whether to call myself a carer… I (30F) live with my wife. She has long term mental health conditions. She was open with me about her mental health from the very beginning (10 years ago) and is very insightful; she engages fully with any treatment & will say when things feel like they’re getting worse. She had one informal (voluntary) admission several years ago, but for a long time now she has been ‘stable’. We have a wonderful loving relationship and I am inclined to say better communication with each other than most couples! But even so I am gradually realising that the day to day reality of living with & caring for someone with severe mental illness, has been taking its toll.
I work in the medical profession, and tend to do the majority of household chores, life admin etc while my wife is unable to work. Over a year ago my own mental health plummeted, I had to take a few months off work myself, and returned part-time a year ago - I was full-time before and wanted to get back to that, but I tried a phased return and couldn’t manage. I am very much still in the process of healing/rebuilding. My wife has actually been amazing, she is so supportive and has made it clear that I shouldn’t minimise my own difficulties or try to compare them to hers. She really stepped up when I was more unwell and did do more of the household chores.
I am in therapy and trying to acknowledge that my role in our relationship is a significant factor in my mental health. I am so grateful to be so lucky in life - a loving relationship, great friends & family, a supportive workplace, relative financial stability - and yet I think the little everyday things have been building up. Just things like needing to prompt if I want a chore to be done, readying myself for a last-minute change of plan if we’re going out, worrying about how she might be feeling in a social situation, there always being something causing anxiety etc. Like, most days are mostly fine, but it’s hard to think of 2 days in a row that have been completely fine?
I have talked to people I’m close with, including my wife, about the fact that it can be hard - but I always hold back a bit, and have tended to talk more about particularly difficult patches, rather than necessarily the everyday. My therapist has helped me realise that I’m terrified of inadvertently causing more hurt - I don’t want my wife to feel she is a burden (already a huge fear of hers!), or friends/family to think that I (& their other friends/family/partners) can’t handle their problems.
Sorry for the essay… I would love to know if any of that resonated with anyone else…
Much love & respect to all the carers out there quietly shouldering the weights of the world
Hi @k6079 and welcome to the Forum. You’ll find we’re a pretty friendly bunch and have oodles of experiences and information which can be shared. Well done for posting and for giving so much insight into your situation.
Just so you know who I am - I’m a 63 (very nearly 64) year old caring for my husband who is 69 and suffered a stroke 3 years ago. It meant we had to close our business very suddenly so I could be full-time carer and he has been through a catalogue of medical issues since then - prostate cancer, cardiac and respiratory issues, continence problems and optical problems to name a few! We’ve been together for over 27 years and had a Civil Partnership way back in 2009, when he made an ‘honest man’ of me! (or so he likes to think).
It’s ***king hard being a carer and having to think three or four steps ahead throughout every day and be “on call” 24/7 and I often wonder about my own Mental Health.
Graham’s had a lot of issues in the past and a couple of years ago was referred for some therapy. This is only recently starting to materialise and I am hoping he can get ‘closure’ on a lot of things and find a way of accepting “what he can change and what he cannot change” and thus come to terms with it all.
He’s gone through various standard assessments and each one shows him at high risk of self-harm because of the way the questions are structured. For instance ‘do you feel things would be better if you were not around’… His honest answer is YES - BUT… That’s because he feels a burden on me and doesn’t want to be - so if he wasn’t there to be the burden HE think so my life would be easier and better. It may be easier in some ways but not necessarily better!
Due to his continence issues, we often have disturbed nights - despite precautions, things go wrong - and although I try not to get upset or cross, exhaustion means I do, because I am human (well super-human really!). I then regret it and feel like a miserable bugger for accidently saying the wrong thing or just sighing at the wrong time. Neither of us is to blame but he gets upset and keeps apologising. My answer is usually ‘if you did it deliberately you would need to apologise - this wasn’t deliberate!’ I just remind him that I took vows 16 years ago and meant them at the time and still do now.
All my local family has turned away from us and Graham’s sister is in Australia and has terminal cancer - his other relatives are very caring but on the other side of the country - so it’s just the two of us most of the time (with a FEW amazingly supportive neighbours and friends)
So - yes - your comments do resonate with me and I am sure with nearly everyone else on here. What I would say is this Community is wonderfully supportive because we all KNOW what it’s like and can share each others highs and lows.
Hope you don’t mind an essay by return! We all know what it’s like to need to vent and get something off your chest and no-one judges on here. b 
Hi @k6079
Welcome to the forum.
A summary of my caring situation is on my profile.
Caring is certainly tough and like living on a roller coaster.
I juggle work and caring too and it is exhausting always being the one taking responsibility for everything and having to prompt for help to happen.
Now that your partner is in a better place and has proved she can step up when you were burnt out, perhaps it’s time to encourage that this level of support needs to continue. Unless of course she is going through a rough patch of course.