Chip Chick
This woman and her husband, both in their mid-30s, have been married for nearly a decade. Her husband isn’t emotionally vulnerable, obsessively watches TV, and doesn’t enjoy conversing with her, which fills her with loneliness. She’s tried to accept all of these aspects about her husband, but she worried that he wouldn’t support her when she needed it most.
A little over a year ago, he fractured his ankle and had to stay home from work while he healed. She cared for him while he rested, and she also had to care for their young child. At the time, she was recovering from Covid and eight months pregnant.
Even though it was stressful, she made it through that time. While she didn’t think he had to care for her with the amount of dedication she cared for him, she hoped she could at least rely on him if something happened to her.
“Six days ago, I woke up and stretched my back and felt a sudden pain. The pain was bad. My lower back was fine, but from the back of my neck and between my shoulder blades, it’s been awful,” she said.
The third day after the pain started, it unfortunately intensified. She was hardly able to move her neck, turn her head, or lie down while sleeping, and she assumed she had pulled a muscle. The pain was horrible even while she was sitting up.
When she cooked dinner a couple of nights ago, that seemed to worsen the pain. Since she cares for their children, she isn’t sure how she can move around throughout the day if the pain doesn’t get better. After her husband arrived home from work a couple of nights ago, she told him about the pain she was in.
“I waited a few hours so he could rest before asking if he could give me a quick massage. His response was that he stood up all day for his job, his feet hurt, and no one massaged him. I told him if he asked me to, I would. He snapped and shouted that I’ve been moaning about my stupid back since he came home, and he didn’t want to hear it,” she explained.
She was silent after her husband yelled at her, devastated that her pain wasn’t important to him. Ever since she became a mother, she’s always had some sort of pain, but it’s never severe enough to bother her to the point where she needs to take medication. Pain this intense isn’t normal for her, and she believes her husband is aware of the fact that she wouldn’t talk about it if it wasn’t serious.
Later, she called her mom about the potential pulled muscle. Her mom suggested she come to her place so that she could give her a massage with some pain relief cream that her mom uses for arthritis.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
