When I was released from the hospital after the accident, I believed the hardest part of recovery would be learning how to use my body again.
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I was wrong.
The real challenge was discovering how my husband measured love when it stopped being convenient.
I am thirty-five years old. Before the crash, I was the steady one in my marriage. The organizer. The problem-solver. The person who made sure life ran smoothly even when plans fell apart.
I paid most of our bills.
I handled appointments, paperwork, and long-term planning.
When my husband wanted to change jobs or “take time to figure things out,” I adjusted budgets and picked up extra hours. I never kept score. I believed marriage was a partnership, and that things would balance out over time.
We had been together for ten years.
I truly believed we were solid.
The Accident That Changed Everything
I do not remember the crash itself.
I remember a green traffic light.
Then a hospital ceiling.
I survived, but my legs were weak and unresponsive for a long time. The doctors were hopeful, but clear.
Several months of physical therapy.
Limited movement.
A wheelchair.
A great deal of help.
Hearing that was devastating. I had always been independent. I was used to helping others, not asking for help myself. Still, part of me believed this experience might bring my husband and me closer.
When I was young, my mother cared for my father after an injury with patience and humor. That was the model of love I grew up with.
So when I came home for the first time in a wheelchair, I told myself this was simply a hard chapter.
We would face it together.
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