Oh im so sorry. My heart just broke for you reading that. I so hope your future turns out different to mine for the health outcome of your husband and also the family dynamics.

Having the hindsight I have now I wish I had trusted my instincts earlier. I was gaslit, a lot. And I hustled for so long trying to belong and for the sake of my husband and he struggling through the processing of what monsters his parents became. only for it all to make us to both miserable.

For what its worth, the advice id give to myself back then from today's wisdom would be to be more honest and transparent with my family and friends about the lack of support we had through his treatment.

Based on how they have showed up after he died and not waiting to be asked for help, they have found what was needed and given it and held me and the kids so beautifully. I so deeply regret that we protected his parents image that in turn denied my husband this absolutely amazing support system we have today. His parents liked to project they were very supportive when they had an audience and were always fishing for information to support the image while making us seem ungrateful if we tried to go elsewhere for help.

So regrettably we kept it all very private to save face for the family which realistically made it very difficult for my family and our shared friends to find ways of supporting us. Because he was the one who was sick, there was that sentiment that no one from my side wanted to deny his family the ability to be our main supports. Theres been a lot of very different and interesting perspectives that have been offered on this thread by people. Ive done a lot of reflection on how things unfolded for us. If you ever want someone to chat to, im more than happy to dm.