After a car accident left me in a wheelchair for months, I thought the hardest part would be learning how to walk again. I was wrong — the real test was finding out what my husband thought my care was worth.
I’m a 35-year-old woman, and before my accident, I was the one holding our marriage together.
I paid most of the bills.
I cooked.
I cleaned.
I handled every appointment, every call, every “Can you just handle this, babe? I’m bad with paperwork.”
When my husband wanted to switch jobs or “take a break and figure things out,” I sat down with spreadsheets and made it work.
I picked up extra hours. I cheered him on.
I never kept score.
I believed marriage was teamwork, and it would all even out eventually.
We’d been together for 10 years. I honestly thought we were solid.
Then I got into a serious car accident.
I don’t remember the impact.
Just green light, then hospital ceiling.
I survived, but my legs didn’t come out great. Not permanently damaged, but weakened enough that I ended up in a wheelchair.
The doctors told me I’d probably walk again.
“Six to nine months of physical therapy,” they said. “You’ll need a lot of help at first.
Transfers. Bathing. Getting around.
No weight-bearing on your own for a while.”
I hated hearing that.
I’ve always been independent. I was the helper, not the one being helped.
But a part of me thought… maybe this will bring us closer. When my dad was injured when I was a kid, my mom took care of him for months.
She never made it seem like a burden. They joked. They were tender.
That’s what love looked like to me.
So when I was discharged and rolled into our house for the first time, I told myself, “This is our hard chapter. We’ll get through it together.”
That first week at home, my husband was… distant.
Quiet. Irritable.
I chalked it up to stress.
He’d make me food, help me shower, and then disappear into his office or out of the house.
About a week in, he came into the bedroom and sat at the edge of the bed.
His face was all “serious talk time.”
“Listen,” he said. “We need to be realistic about this.”
My stomach dropped. “Okay… realistic how?”
He rubbed his face.
“You’re going to need a lot of help. Like… a lot. All day.
Every day. And I didn’t sign up to be a nurse.”
“You signed up to be my husband,” I said.
“Yeah, but this is different,” he said. “This is like a full-time job.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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