Forced to be the breadwinner?

I feel like I am losing my mind and my whole world is crumbling apart. I know this is probably way above reddit pay grade, but I feel like I am so lost and twisted into mind games that I need some outside perspectives to help me. I am clinging hard to FACTS that I KNOW to be true because this situation with my husband is so full of noise and guilt trip business that I can't trust my own thinking. I feel so manipulated.

My husband has chronic health conditions and chronic pain. He has since before we were married and I married him because I love him obviously and I feel like he is the love of my life and so of course disability doesn't matter. He is autistic, and the neurodivergence in our relationship has created some issues around his ability to regulate/get dysregulated when overstimulated. Crowds, people, basically anything that would make someone nervous are too much for him.

It started with GI stuff. He had a lot of stomach problems leading to our lives being built around his GI issues. He told me it was chrons disease. I took him at 100% face value and then learned later that the chrons diagnosis wasn't official just what he suspected and was sure he had. Over the years it was determined to be IBS related to fibromyalgia. The fibromyalgia pain started as a carpet tunnel type thing, creating arm pain. It escalated to the point that he could not/would not perform his WFH job as a medical coder. He waxes poetic often about hiw his career was taken from him and talks about how he tried to work through the pain until his arms simply failed. He was crying all the time, wouldnt even cut up his own food for pain. He got approved for a disability plan through that employer, because at the time it was believed to be RSI and related to computer use. This was before the fibro diagnosis. He spent almost 2 years unemployed, while collecting a check from that policy. We have 4 kids. At the time, I was teaching preschool, and brought the little kids to work with me. He was a full time dad with full time childcare, seeking medical treatment full time. He did it all- cupping, physical therapy, some kind of electro therapy thing on his arms, medications, you name it. He had doctor appointments like 3x a week. In the meantime, I was pregnant then, and working full time WHILE going to school full time to raise my income. I was brutally exhausted. I fully supported him leaving that job because he was obviously in a ton of pain and I supported his health journey. I had a ton of anxiety and mental health issues related to his intense mood swings related to the pain. He wouldnt drive, coukdnt help around the house, it was ALL on me. The meltdowns. The firehosing of negativity and doom and gloom like I am a dumpster to pour it all in. We set boundaries. He got a therapist. We started couples therapy. I have been practicing how to set boundaries like "I'm not available right now, I dont have the mental or emotional resources to be your sounding board for complaints at the moment."

Let me be clear here- I HAVE been supportive. Probably TOO supportive. But that's skipping ahead. I asked him when he was going back to work. He couldn't decide what he was going to do, wouldn't commit to a school or degree, wouldn't commit to working at all.

Eventually he took a job at the daycare when his disability ran out. We needed one of us to work there to get the tuition discount for full time care while I entered the student teaching portion of my degree program and basically had to teach unpaid for 12 weeks.

It didn't work out. When I got back, there was SO much drama at that workplace, largely related to his inability/refusal to do his job/disability/pain. It was super awkward working at the same place. He was miserable. Eventually it culminated in us both quitting that place at the same time due to absolute drama. I started subbing full time. I hated it, never knowing if/when/where I was going to work when I woke up that morning. I took a job as a sped para for the rest of the school year to get some consistency in my life.

He took a job as a peer counselor. He was supposed to be providing mental health services to peers with similar issues but it kind of wound up being not that. Part of his job was preparing and serving food to clients in the clinic and he was miserable again. He hated the commute. He was in pain all the time. He said everyone there hated him and was bullying him because of his disability, even worse than the last place. It was awful. Everyday he would come home and have this dramatic meltdown. There were days he wouldn't speak or said he couldn't speak, then would get angry and lash out at me for not dropping everything to console him and make him feel better. He will literally sit on the couch and moan and cry while I'm trying to scramble dinner and bath time and outfits and then lash out at me for being "too quiet" and not speaking to him/comforting him/validating him constantly. Our therapist pointed out that he was basically DEMANDING affection while putting me down and saying "no one ever comforts me" and it wasn't really fair and didn't inspire anyone to be comforting. I was constantly exhausted. I mean, I still am. I walk on eggshells. I try and just be neutral, just not engage with the theatrics. He then guilt trips me even harder and accuses me of being unsympathetic or ableist. Dude, it's just a Tuesday, and I'm trying to take care of this house and these kids and my job and do all the things WHILE your having a meltdown and just keep my head down but then he will lash out at me. Create rules for communication- no sarcasm, no cursing, no interrupting, etc. He is VERY intense about his communication rules and I started feeling really manipulated. My last marriage was very abusive. Domestic violence, emotional abuse, controlling financially, SA, it was awful. He was charged with crimes against me and I got a restraining order and moved away. My ex husband now lives in a dilapidated house, not working, while his new wife works full time at a grocery store and they have 7 kids between them. I SWORE I would never be in a relationship like that again. My husband is convinced my trauma is what makes me suspicious. But I have had suspicions for YEARS that he doesn't intend on working. For starters, like I said, this whole time he hasn't tried going back to school Hasn't picked a program, a field, even done his FAFSA. He keeps saying he doesn't want to commit to a feild he won't ultimately be able to physically perform in, and ge says he cant use a computer now without pain so until that obstacle is clear is a no. He is on FMLA right now from his last job that he hated. He worked there exactly one year to the DAY to qualify for it and then left. He took it to try ketamine therapy for treatment resistant pain. He traveled to his parents to be cared for while seeking treatment and I held down the fort at home with all the kids and work and the house. I knew he didn't plan on going back to work THERE, but come to find out this whole time he hasn't actually applied to ANY other job. For years, I have been anxious that he is going to give up on working at all. Everytime I expressed anxiety about this, he convinced me I was being crazy. Thats a COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED fear. Lays into the guilt trip about hiw hard everything is for him but that he is never going to give up. I try and be patient and caring. Every assisting thing we have tried has failed. He says the eye tracking software hurts his neck. He even installed a medical grade monitor arm in our bedroom so he could use the computer while laying down supported by pillows. He says the foot mouse hurts his legs. The voice dictation software HURTS HIS VOICE. like, every strategy is sabotaged.

Friday- he drops the bombshell on me that he is putting all his eggs in the basket of seeking disability status through the private policy he paid for at that last job. He isn't going back to work, at all, anywhere. He just.. TOLD me he is done working. There wasn't a discussion. I was supportive of him trying to get the disability thing because he said he was still seeking work and could work part time while collecting it. But he never tried. I dont think he ever intended too. He has applied for disability through social security and been denied over and over. He got a lawyer. He did appeals. They said no.

Guys.. I dont think he ever planned on going back to work. He didn't apply. Anywhere. At all. When I point this out he starts firehosing me with details about his health and pain levels and therapies and assisting technology. He keeps saying if he goes back to work at ANY job it will inevitably fail. Of that I have no dount- because I feel like he has intentionally sabotaged his jobs. He was never going to be happy anywhere. He says everyone bullies him. I supported him working from home. He has had a home office this whole time for YEARS while we dont even have enough space but he says he needs to save it so he can work from home again someday...but then doesn't try and get work from home jobs.

Guys. My husband just TOLD me that I am going to be the breadwinner. The end. He is done. He backtracked and says of course he INTENDS to return to work...someday. when science has improved. When he is cured. But he won't commit to any timeline because "it is all 100% out of my control." And he is a victim of the "disease process."

I was...floored. I feel like my whole world is crumbling apart. He is guilt tripping me HARD for being upset, saying if he got cancer or a stroke would I be this heartless? He accused me of being ableist. He uses the disability like a hammer to pound me into feeling badly for him and validating his victim status. But LOTS of people have fibro and jobs? We have 4 KIDS TO FEED. But he seems to believe that if he gets approved for this policy, and they are cutting him a check (NOT enough to pay our bills, I need to stress!) Then he is off the hook and "providing an income" and he can thenf focus more on himself and his healing journey to "someday" work again.

I...I feel like I am being held hostage. Support him, or else. Else starve. Else divorce. Else be a single mom again. But it already feels like I am a single mom. I told him he still hadn't even asked me how I felt about this, he just kept talking about himself. He said "fine, how do you feel about this? Not good? Of course, nothing about this is good." Then lays into the guilt trip about how I'm a bad wife and partner for not being more comforting of HIM.

I told him I didn't want to end up like my ex husbands new wife. He said that was irrelevant, because my ex "doesn't have an income." Like....a check is the magical get-out-of-jail free card for me to suck it up and cater to him again first and foremost. He demands more and more resources, more time, more.money, more patience, more support, while providing none of these. Being autistic he frequently struggles because he is like a drowning man trying to meet his own needs pulling everyone else down to try and keep his head above water.

He absolutely WILL NOT commit to any kid of timeline or deadline for seeking work. I have CLAWED my way out of poverty one degree at a time to make more money for us whole holding it all down. Now that I have a salary, he said he would do house husband shit.. IF he gets approved. In the meantime, we all need to step up and do MORE around the house because mess is stressful and we cant expect him to help. Laundry? Hurts. Cleaning? Hurts. We cant expect any help from him depending on his pain levels that day, and then he storms around making everyone miserable with his meltdowns.

Please help me figure this out. I feel so overwhelmed with the guilt trips, of course I want to love him as I would want to be loved. Of course I want him to get better. But it's like a constantly.moving goal post only he can set. If he had cancer, or a stroke, or got hit by a car, of course I would support him. I HAVE been, to the absolute best of my ability and to my own detriment. I feel manipulated. He says that's just my trauma speaking, and not fair to him.

He just TOLD me he isn't going back to work. The end. Take it or leave it. I dont want to get a divorce. I love this man. But I don't know how much I trust him. I dont want another dependent who is angry all the time for the rest of my life. I just want peace. I am trying to be so so careful. We aren't speaking about it again until we are in a therapy session. I dont think a therapy session is going to untangle this ultimatum.

Here is what I KNOW. I KNOW I have suspected for years he has no intention of working full time. I KNOW he has made me feel badly for being suspecting, and reasured me that this is a completely unfounded fear. I KNOW he just confirmed my suspicions. I KNOW he wants me to feel awful about my reaction (shock, upset) and devote myself to his well being. I KNOW I won't serve a man, paying the bills and keeping house so he can be a passenger on our life. What do I even do?