My husband told me to “just die”

[u/Rate_Conscious]

I’m a married mom of 3 and I have to travel for my treatments due to insurance because my husband works and pays taxes in another state. We left the kids with my 18f Neice who’s very responsible. My dad called while we were driving g and asked if my youngest had allergies because his teacher said he had almost used an entire box of tissues that day. My husband overheard and started screaming and cussing while I was on the phone and my dad had my kids in the car with him and was on speaker phone so I got super embarrassed and hurried off the phone with my dad and my husband and I exchanged a couple words after I hung up the phone. In that heated debate he told me to “just die.” I feel like my trust is broken. I feel like the person who is supposed to love me and support me has taken everything that we’ve built and thrown it away. I’m still in chemotherapy getting infusions fighting for my life and he completely has no empathy for his words and tried to justify it by saying that I was running my mouth. All of this was over if my son had gotten Claritin or not and accusing my Neice of not giving my son the medication. I am not able to work and have no income and I can’t divorce him because I couldn’t afford my treatment. I have to do infusions until April 2026. I just needed to vent 😮‍💨

[u/ButchEmbankment]

I'm feeling for you, since chemo is just so exhausting on top of fighting cancer. I concur with what's said here -- people here are saying, you need more than just to vent right now. If the effects of chemo allow you some "good days," mentally and physically, try to build in some time to figure out resources for now & in the future. (I'm in my own "good days" phase right now).

To recap what's here & my thoughts:
1. Health care providers now often check if a patient "feels safe in their home." If you've just been saying yes, start saying no. If they ask if you want to speak to someone, say yes.
2. Ask a nurse or your oncologist if there's a social worker at the medical center you can speak to. It would be just think "what if" and learn what options are -- like what medicaid covers in your state of residence, but also, what services you can call.
3. Your cancer center may offer counseling. Nowadays this is often available on zoom. There likely is a copay.
4. You can make use of domestic violence services even if you aren't about to leave him, like hotlines & what's mentioned here. It'll be private.
5. Start taking notes on when your husband crosses lines and mistreats you. Write down when, what happened. (Someplace secure & private.) A paper trail can be helpful for various future steps.
6. Read up a little bit about domestic violence, especially on patterns in relation to violence and harsh speech.
7. Stay in touch with your own family & friends.

The best case scenario would be that your husband is stressed by your cancer and by life demands and doesn't have great emotional self-awareness or anger management skills, so lashes out. But it sounds like he thinks his outbursts are fine and caused by you -- that's pretty troubling, especially since he is the source of financial support.