I feel like I need to get some things off my chest but I barely know where to start. I have a number of relatively minor medical problems and may well be an adult autistic - indeed, it's hard for me to understand how the world works or what makes people tick a lot of the time.

Two weeks ago my wife of 5 years served me with divorce papers. She'd been talking about divorce since late February. She brought home a "flu" from work that sent me to the hospital twice for breathing treatments but the first sign I saw that she was actually serious about divorce was being served papers. We've been living on separate floors of her house since the "flu" started, trying not to keep passing it back and forth and it wasn't a week before this quarantine somehow turned into divorce.

I wasn't home from the hospital a whole hour the first time and was desperately trying to avoid stress because I was having so much trouble breathing, when she informed me that she didn't love me, hadn't loved me in a long time, and didn't love me when we were married 5 years ago. Recently she's admitted to loving me when we were married, but she's also admitted that she wants out because of my medical expenses, most of which are still imaginary. The bills I actually ran up were $1100 for the two visits and not only could I pay that myself, I'm having to.

There's some agreement among some of us who care about her that she's grieving over her parents, five years ago her father and mother were diagnosed with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and just before and after Christmas respectively. She was so obviously affected by the diagnoses and started becoming more cold and distant that I actually started studying these diseases, trying to find some hope for them. 

I'd just spent a year studying my own problems so I could even try to tell which specialist to go see, and was amazed to find out my skin condition involves "Alzheimer's Genes", so by the time I understood more about that, I actually has something of a head start or I'd never have dreamed I was up to the task of trying to understand neurodegenerative diseases.

I studied medicine and biology on my wedding day, hoping to be able to give my wife the gift of a healthy husband, but there is so much bad information still out there about some of my problems that it's been pretty much impossible to find a doctor who isn't misled by it, and my attempts to share information with doctors have not gone well.

This December we lost her dad to a fall that he never recovered from, and she came home from seeing him the last time with some kind of realization that life is short (we already knew that) and I'm somehow in the way of the life she thinks she wants. The trip she made to see him before that, she came home with the realization that she could treat me better after watching her step-mother try to manipulate her dad into doing what's supposed to be healthy for him, she threatened him with divorce and I felt so sorry for the poor man to be in such poor shape and so dependent and have someone threaten him with that, and I don't think my wife felt much differently about it, but now she is doing the very same thing, except they aren't hollow threats when I've been served papers.

She's convinced herself that she only has 10 years before she ends up like her mother. I don't think she's tried to get testing to see if she's really inherited the risk genes or not, and I try to share research with her that I think gives us honest reason to think there is hope, and she about spits it in my face - "The difference between you and me is that I don't give a **** the lastest research" is what she said when I tried to offer her some hope and reassurance about her future.

I'm still in pretty rough shape, my lungs troubles are almost as bad as they've ever been after the bouts with the "flu" (I asked at the hospital what was going around and they said flu, but they didn't even do a flu swab because neither I or my wife had a fever from it), none of my health problems are under adequate management, my inhalers don't help half the time and sometimes they even make things worse, especially the disc which now has a long history of making things worse. I don't think my wife has done anything but catastrophize about my health issues, has convinced herself I have heart trouble when we don't even have the test results yet that the doctor wanted, tests I passed the last time.

I've been accused of bring my health problems on myself even when it hasn't been sorted out what some of them really are, and accused of not doing what I should about them, as if taking walks and eating vegetables were really going to fix any of it. Five years ago I went out and walked off 50 pounds after the false alarms about cardiovascular diseases but I generally ended up in poorer health because of it, I was literally in tears: "I don't understand, I'm doing everything "right" that I possibly can, why do I feel so much worse?" I was spending half my time bedridden for trying to be healthier until I just stopped trying.

Virtually everyone I've talked to including the psychiatrist I'm seeing for anxiety medication has urged me to get an attorney and see what I might be entitled to because I may need it, but my wife doesn't seem to think I'm entitled to anything. We have a verbal agreement that she is supposed to provide me room, board, an "allowance" (less than I was getting while on SSI before we were married) and personal support, but every time I try to work out a settlement out of court, when she hears something she doesn't like, she threatens me with immediate eviction. She refuses to put anything in writing, and refuses to produce the paperwork showing what her and our assets were. She keeps demanding to know how much I'm asking for and I've literally told her over 100 times that the courts or an attorney or I probably can't divide up assets that aren't accounted for.

Last night she threatened me with immediate eviction again because she didn't like what she was hearing, and during our discussion it became clear that she hasn't done her homework on divorce, didn't consult an attorney, and didn't even understand some of the most basic things to understand about divorce in her state. Neither one of us really knows what we're doing, and neither one of is likely prepared for what the divorce is going to demand of us - there is a lot to be done untangling our lives and sorting out our belongings and paperwork that she still shows no sign of being willing to do if it infringes on her overbooked social calendar.

I don't know why I feel like I'm having such a hard time adjusting, life alone won't be that much different than it's been the last five years. She's complained that I don't go anywhere or do anything, but she's never bothered to reach out and try to make me more a part of her life or tried to be more a part of mine. She has never in all these years pulled up a chair next to mine and said "Alright, what is so interesting on the Internet? I bet you'd love to tell me all about it?" - she does whatever she pleases and goes all kind of places while I sit here by myself holding down the fort and feeding the animals.

We talk to each at bedtime and sleep next to each other if my sleep disorder allows and I've tried to content myself that that's enough of a relationship (and a social life) for me, and tried to look on the bright side that if I'm not sleeping next to her, at least someone is watching over her - nobody's breaking into the house unnoticed when I'm up at 3 AM.

I'm astonished at how horribly, unspeakably lonely I've started to feel all of the sudden now that I don't even have that.

I still don't think she's ready for what she's gotten herself into, and we're already neck deep in the fallout from her negligence. Aside from the new dog she bought (she announced he would be keeping her company in two years when I'm dead), none of the animals are being cared for properly. She complains that the last dog she bought is putting on weight but she never takes him out for a walk even when she walks the new dog twice a week. Our living space is so full of dust I may end up in the hospital for having to breathe it to sort out and pack my belongings.

We have a sliding glass door that I've been trying to get her to fix for years now, it's so busted up that it's dangerous, it falls out of its track and its fallen on me twice and a wonder it didn't crush one of the cats. I have heard every flimsy excuse imaginable why it hasn't been tended to. It is her house and her responsibility, especially if I'm not going to be here anymore, but in the meantime I constantly have pulled muscles in my chest and my back from having to pick it up and move it to open it to get some fresh air in, and I'm very worried if anyone could get out if there were a fire.

It's the same with the telephone, it's so old it doesn't ring half the time someone calls and won't hold a charge for a half hour anymore. By the time I make a couple of business calls, it's so dead I don't have a working phone if there is an emergency even after two trips to the hospital this year, and even after convincing herself I'm due for a heart attack. Same thing, I have been after her about that for several years now but it's just excuses, excuses.

This new attitude of hers that life is short so she that should neglect everything possible so she can cram her social calendar too full really isn't all that new when I think about it. So far I've always overlooked all this as long as we can be together and get along, and tried not to blame her that things have gotten like this if she doesn't blame me for it, but now that we're not together it all hits me like a ton of bricks.

I've suggested every sort of counselling to my wife from therapy to marriage counselling, and mediation services to help us reach an agreement out of court, and so far she is having none of it, even after telling me that last July she was so stressed that she almost got conselling - almost. She's admitted to grieving - "I have a right to be shattered" she said, and I said "Of course you do, but grieving doesn't give the right to do x, y, or z". It very much seems like she's just bottled up the grief instead of dealing with it, ignores it and forges ahead, and then lashes out at me every chance she gets. I can only guess that she might be in some trouble if she treated her disabled clients at work the way she is treating me.

After all the grief I've been given about how I raise my voice in arguments, who's the one raising their voice lately? I almost had to raise my voice to even be heard over her raising hers at me last night, and instead I just gave up and went back to my cell in the dungeon. The last thing I ever wanted was a fight.

We seem to get along almost as well as ever as long as we haven't talked about money, marriage or health recently, I think there might even be hope for marriage conselling but I can't make her go and I don't think we live in a state where the courts can require that of us.

I am not entirely sure I even want to be in this anymore, at least not like things are now, and I am amazed by that - I love her so much and I was sure I would forgive her absolutely anything, but all this is so painful and so needless, and so humiliating - she keeps rubbing it in how I've never contributed anything around here after all the work I did when I was able and after having over enough to her to have this three story house half paid for. 

It's bad enough I barely know how to take care of any business after 20 years together, 20 years of complaining about having to do these things herself, but if I ever tried to help or offered to learn how to help, it's always "Oh, never mind, it's easier just to do everything myself than teach you anything" and she's even gotten angry when I do try to do things. As a result, I don't know how much we own, I don't know how much she earns or how much is in the bank, I don't know where any of the paperwork is, nothing.

She alledgedly has some plan for me, which I know very little about - apparently she plans to give me nothing and put me back on SSI, but I don't even know if I'm still qualified. My psychiatrist recently overturned the mental health diagnosis that got me an SSI check for all these years before I was married. She's supposed to bring me papers to get on waiting lists for low income housing, but it's just one more responsibility that she's assumed that she's not living up to.

I have 30 days to respond to the divorce petition, and half of it is already gone because of my health and hoping to avoid going to court, and complications with everything - I cannot get the legal aid office on the telephone even if I call every 3 minutes and I couldn't get there in person on their last walk-in day because the taxis were so backed up that I couldn't even reserve one in advance.

I tried to talk to her last night about putting a temporary hold on the divorce proceedings so that we both have more time to learn exactly what our right and responsibilities really are - so far it seems like she's trying to wish her way through the divorce process - and I explained it would probably delay things less than contesting the divorce would. She thought it over for a couple of minutes before becoming irrational and daring me to do my worst, even after she'd demonstrated that she doesn't know what she's doing and doesn't know what she might have gotten herself into.

I feel guilty for saying anything to anyone about all this, and even though the medication is helping I still have so much anxiety that I can barely deal with any of this half the time. Just when I should be focussing on my health and getting better prepared to work with my doctors, I'm having to drop everything and try to find out what my rights are, I obviously cannot trust her to explain them to me. I so wish we didn't have to go through this, at least not right now, and I don't even know what the hurry is, I could be stuck here for months anyway whether I like it or not.

I don't know, in the beginning she understood my difficulties and gave me the respect as a human being that she would give any of her disabled clients at work, and I thought I was so lucky to meet someone like that, but that understanding seems to have slowly given way to resentment over all the responsibilities she takes upon herself vs the responsibilities I'm not able to accept. I've been accused of sitting on my lazy *** all day doing whatever I please (I wasn't, I was researching the problems that run in her family), when she should know the shape I'm in better than anyone because she's the one who's diagnosed half of my illnesses, and the doctors have usually been only too glad to agree. I don't know who's going to understand me now.

I'm not expecting anyone to know what to do or say, I'm just venting and still trying to figure out how we ever got where we are now.