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Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage
A turbulent romance meets harrowing medical mystery: the true story of the author's twenty-year marriage defined by her husband's chronic illness--and a testament to the endurance of love
Eleanor met Aaron when she was just a teenager and he was working at a local record store--older, cool, experienced, and with an electric personality. Escaping the clich�s of fleeting young love, their summer romance bloomed into a relationship that survived college and culminated in a marriage and two children. From the outside looking in, their life had all the trappings of what most would consider a success story.
But, as in any marriage, things weren't always as they seemed. On top of the typical stresses of parenting, money, and work, there were Aaron's untended wounds of depression, addiction, and family trauma. Then, when burning lesions appeared on his body overnight, Eleanor was as baffled as his doctors. There seemed to be no obvious diagnosis, let alone a cure. And when the lesions gave way to Aaron's increasingly disturbed concerns about parasites living inside him, the husband she loved began to unravel before her eyes. A new fissure ruptured in their marriage, and new questions piled onto old ones: Where does physical illness end and mental illness begin? Where does one person end and another begin? And how do we exist alongside someone else's suffering?
Emotional, propulsive, and at times heartbreaking, EVERYTHING I HAVE IS YOURS tells the story of a marriage tested by powerful forces out of both partners' control. It's not only a memoir of a wife's tireless quest to heal her husband, but one that asks just what it means to accept someone as they are.
Eleanor met Aaron when she was just a teenager and he was working at a local record store--older, cool, experienced, and with an electric personality. Escaping the clich�s of fleeting young love, their summer romance bloomed into a relationship that survived college and culminated in a marriage and two children. From the outside looking in, their life had all the trappings of what most would consider a success story.
But, as in any marriage, things weren't always as they seemed. On top of the typical stresses of parenting, money, and work, there were Aaron's untended wounds of depression, addiction, and family trauma. Then, when burning lesions appeared on his body overnight, Eleanor was as baffled as his doctors. There seemed to be no obvious diagnosis, let alone a cure. And when the lesions gave way to Aaron's increasingly disturbed concerns about parasites living inside him, the husband she loved began to unravel before her eyes. A new fissure ruptured in their marriage, and new questions piled onto old ones: Where does physical illness end and mental illness begin? Where does one person end and another begin? And how do we exist alongside someone else's suffering?
Emotional, propulsive, and at times heartbreaking, EVERYTHING I HAVE IS YOURS tells the story of a marriage tested by powerful forces out of both partners' control. It's not only a memoir of a wife's tireless quest to heal her husband, but one that asks just what it means to accept someone as they are.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published August 10, 2021
173 people are currently reading
4141 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 220 reviews
July 10, 2021
I found this book difficult and disturbing to read. The author tells her story of her relationship to her husband Aaron, but I could not find anything redeeming or heartening in the story. While the author celebrates her ability to maintain this damaged relationship, I found it difficult to understand.
Since much of the story was based on Aaron’s illnesses, I spent time trying to understand those as well. So, this is the opposite of an inspirational story, just a depressing montage of scenes from a very bizarre relationship.
Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.
Since much of the story was based on Aaron’s illnesses, I spent time trying to understand those as well. So, this is the opposite of an inspirational story, just a depressing montage of scenes from a very bizarre relationship.
Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.
March 1, 2022
"That $750 rent was beginning to weigh on us. I was managing a lot. I was working almost as much as Aaron, and I was in school full-time. Finally I worked up the nerve to say something about it. One winter night, we sat in the dark living room, Aaron playing with a flashlight against the wall. We watched our shadows. Maybe it was the safety of the darkness. I said, "I see you working twenty hours a week, and I wonder why it's not more. It's not enough.
Here was his disbelief, his anger. Who was I to question his work? His integrity? Who was I to say what was enough for him? It was the same as the fight about finding his pot. It wasn't his fault; he was depressed." (PG.91)
This quote is basically the start and endings of the couple's fighting. Eleanor babies Aaron, tries to figure out his illness or his demons, justifies him, and he just lays around all day complaining about being sick. I don't know who is needier: the kids or her husband but it is obvious she does everything for the family. He barely steps up to help with the kids. It always ends up that the kids call and text Eleanor saying daddy is having an episode and needs to be taken to the Emergency room. No doctor has figured out what is wrong with Aaron and Eleanor has gone to many of them. I'd be afraid to see her bills yet they can still afford house after house.
The author admits it herself that they formed a co-dependent relationship right off the bat. My husband and I met when I was 18 and he was 24. We married when I was 19. While I don't have a problem with age gaps (my parents are 9 yrs apart) I do have problems with red flags, like having your only social circle be you and your boyfriend. Also, the author reminisces this fondly so maybe I am being too judgmental. So Eleanor is 18 and Aaron is 27 and she is enamored with the older boy idea. He plays games with her and hides secrets (like ex-girlfriends and he did bad drugs but never smoked heroin) so the whole beginning of her telling this is giving me bad vibes. I want to yell at her to run! He's almost 30 and works at a record store for a couple of hours a day. But they obviously make it work because Eleanor is loyal to a fault and Aaron seems to know this.
Eleanor's storytelling is actually pretty good where I wanted to keep reading but then it just got repetitive. She does everything. He has a freak out moment. She takes him to a doctor. He is discharged. She tells him to order his meds. He yells at her. She cries. She begs him to get a job to help out with the bills. He yells that there is no way he can do that. She doesn't understand him. She reads everything she can get her hands on. She threatens to leave him. He threatens to kill himself.... the same, the same... They have 2 small children, by the way.
I'm all about being faithful and always trying to save a marriage but this was a hard read. I can't stand lazy people and their excuses for why the world owes them. I mean he was even getting a $500 allowance from his father, that he hated so much, so he wouldn't work. It was too much medical also.
Good luck to them though. There is a person out there for everyone.
Here was his disbelief, his anger. Who was I to question his work? His integrity? Who was I to say what was enough for him? It was the same as the fight about finding his pot. It wasn't his fault; he was depressed." (PG.91)
This quote is basically the start and endings of the couple's fighting. Eleanor babies Aaron, tries to figure out his illness or his demons, justifies him, and he just lays around all day complaining about being sick. I don't know who is needier: the kids or her husband but it is obvious she does everything for the family. He barely steps up to help with the kids. It always ends up that the kids call and text Eleanor saying daddy is having an episode and needs to be taken to the Emergency room. No doctor has figured out what is wrong with Aaron and Eleanor has gone to many of them. I'd be afraid to see her bills yet they can still afford house after house.
The author admits it herself that they formed a co-dependent relationship right off the bat. My husband and I met when I was 18 and he was 24. We married when I was 19. While I don't have a problem with age gaps (my parents are 9 yrs apart) I do have problems with red flags, like having your only social circle be you and your boyfriend. Also, the author reminisces this fondly so maybe I am being too judgmental. So Eleanor is 18 and Aaron is 27 and she is enamored with the older boy idea. He plays games with her and hides secrets (like ex-girlfriends and he did bad drugs but never smoked heroin) so the whole beginning of her telling this is giving me bad vibes. I want to yell at her to run! He's almost 30 and works at a record store for a couple of hours a day. But they obviously make it work because Eleanor is loyal to a fault and Aaron seems to know this.
Eleanor's storytelling is actually pretty good where I wanted to keep reading but then it just got repetitive. She does everything. He has a freak out moment. She takes him to a doctor. He is discharged. She tells him to order his meds. He yells at her. She cries. She begs him to get a job to help out with the bills. He yells that there is no way he can do that. She doesn't understand him. She reads everything she can get her hands on. She threatens to leave him. He threatens to kill himself.... the same, the same... They have 2 small children, by the way.
I'm all about being faithful and always trying to save a marriage but this was a hard read. I can't stand lazy people and their excuses for why the world owes them. I mean he was even getting a $500 allowance from his father, that he hated so much, so he wouldn't work. It was too much medical also.
Good luck to them though. There is a person out there for everyone.
August 17, 2021
I couldn’t put this down, but wish I had. It was raw, visceral, vivid. Jumping around in time added to the sense of instability. This book also left me with so many questions - is she noble? Or is she perpetuating the woman/wife as martyr? Was she empathetic or not empathetic enough? Was her role as a mother less important? What impact did all of this have on her children? I feel like I need to start another book immediately to quiet my brain after this.
October 14, 2020
As a book cover designer, I am able to read manuscripts before the book is published (a necessity for my job!) In lieu of my deadline, I typically skim those manuscripts - rather quickly - gleaning for pieces of inspiration to use on the cover. With 'Everything...' I simply could not skim! I was enraptured with Eleanor's story. It was addicting. I finally forced myself to put the manuscript down and begin working on her cover.
I'm really looking forward to this book's pub date so I can start over from the beginning and finish this amazing memoir. I also can't wait to hold the actual book and flip its pages. Thank you, Eleanor! It was a pleasure...
I'm really looking forward to this book's pub date so I can start over from the beginning and finish this amazing memoir. I also can't wait to hold the actual book and flip its pages. Thank you, Eleanor! It was a pleasure...
August 18, 2021
Very well-written, but also highly unsatisfying. The main take-away I got from it is how sad it was that they are still together. They are so obviously terrible for each other, and I just could see how she could have had a much better life without him. Like having a very damaged child, and having your whole life upended by it, but CHOOSING that life. Spending your life (by choice) in hospitals, trying to keep your kids away from the worst of it, calling 911, living with drug and alcohol abuse, very rarely having any monetary help. I wouldn't wish that life on my worst enemy, much less imagine choosing it day after day after day. I had a boyfriend like that in my youth, and although I loved him, it was a choice I had - a good life or a life with him. I chose to have a good life.
The overall medical story isn't particularly interesting or inspiring. It's a mediocre medical story written by an excellent author. I just pity her. Would not read again.
The overall medical story isn't particularly interesting or inspiring. It's a mediocre medical story written by an excellent author. I just pity her. Would not read again.
September 4, 2021
TOO MANY WORDS, WORDS, WORDS about every grueling, frantic detail in this couple's life. The details of his disease and Aaron's every action and terrible decision. Their very peculiar and messed up families, and the author's insanely busy life were enough to make me feel sick myself.
I can't recommend this book because I found it very boring and repetitious. After the first third I began to skip 20 pages at a time and still never lost the jist of the story as there WAS no story, just a repeating rewind of her husband's never ending ailments that no one could ever diagnose, and his many addictions to apparently anything he ever put in his mouth. Why she never had any container available for her husband's vomit that kept spraying the walls, floors and steps and getting on the carpet, astounds me.
She mentions them being strict vegetarians, but I think in her husband's case a big steak might have done him a world of good, once in a while. I suspected he may have picked up mysterious parasites or worms from all the organic plants they kept ingesting.
One thing that I would have been more interested in was the house they built on her salary. I would like to have known more about it and their lives in the neighborhood. How they afforded a place like this was never explained as they were always strapped for cash and he never seemed to work, being too busy counting the colored threads that came out of his repulsive endless red sores.
This book reminds me of a nightmare where you see awful things that endlessly repeat and no matter how fast you run, you never seem to get anywhere.
I can't recommend this book because I found it very boring and repetitious. After the first third I began to skip 20 pages at a time and still never lost the jist of the story as there WAS no story, just a repeating rewind of her husband's never ending ailments that no one could ever diagnose, and his many addictions to apparently anything he ever put in his mouth. Why she never had any container available for her husband's vomit that kept spraying the walls, floors and steps and getting on the carpet, astounds me.
She mentions them being strict vegetarians, but I think in her husband's case a big steak might have done him a world of good, once in a while. I suspected he may have picked up mysterious parasites or worms from all the organic plants they kept ingesting.
One thing that I would have been more interested in was the house they built on her salary. I would like to have known more about it and their lives in the neighborhood. How they afforded a place like this was never explained as they were always strapped for cash and he never seemed to work, being too busy counting the colored threads that came out of his repulsive endless red sores.
This book reminds me of a nightmare where you see awful things that endlessly repeat and no matter how fast you run, you never seem to get anywhere.
August 27, 2021
What tiresome people. I pity their children, and I certainly don't admire the author. Her husband's "illness" bestows a certain superiority that it seems she enjoys. I will not seek out anything else written by Henderson.
August 24, 2021
Yes, the book is beautifully written, but it gave me an extremely uncomfortable feeling to read. I could not respect the decision to stay with this man once children were involved. Mental illness is debilitating and deserving of compassion and treatment. This felt more like enablement and codependency.
September 8, 2021
1 star - A truly awful book that went on and on, but never resolved anything. Two co-dependent people, she a caretaker, he a suicidal alcoholic with a chronic disease that could be this, or maybe that, but most likely is Morgellons. Why these two people chose to bring children into this world, especially with mental illness on both sides, and then why she continued to stay with him, baffles me. They both came from dysfunctional families, and are perpetuating it for another generation.
September 19, 2021
This memoir is a tedious train wreck. I’m not sure who’s more disturbed, the author”s husband or the author. Most disturbing is the apparent lack of concern for the welfare of their two young children who seem to be continually exposed to the never ending shit show.
August 13, 2021
This woman is going to “love” her husband to death. For anyone interested in a REAL love story between a suicidal man and his able-normative wife, wait for “One Friday In April” by Donald Antrim. It comes out in October.
April 20, 2022
This memoir will not appeal to most readers. It’s brutally honest, graphically descriptive, and heart breakingly sad. It’s the story of marriage, the story of illness - mental and physical. It’s a hard look at the fallibility of medicine and the mystery of our bodies. It follows no set chronology or perspective or even logical topic.
So why 5 stars?
Because Henderson’s writing grabs me mind and soul and never releases it’s grasp. Because while my life is nothing like hers, I recognize our shared humanity on every page. Because I learned so much.
I could not put it down and never wanted it to end.
So why 5 stars?
Because Henderson’s writing grabs me mind and soul and never releases it’s grasp. Because while my life is nothing like hers, I recognize our shared humanity on every page. Because I learned so much.
I could not put it down and never wanted it to end.
September 28, 2021
While the prose is beautiful, the narrative celebrates a deeply toxic relationship that ultimately draws 2 children into its poisonous orbit. I have such conflicting feelings about Eleanor: is she a woman with inexhaustible patience and empathy? Or is she simply playing into the trope of the wife/mother who must sacrifice everything for her family? I sympathize with their search for a diagnosis, for I understand the desire to put a name to symptoms, but it seems like they had a lackadaisical approach to therapy—when mental health is clearly what most needed to be prioritized—and relied more on medical doctors for answers. I will be thinking about this one for a while.
September 2, 2021
This is .... quite something to review.
I'll start with it as a book. It is interesting, it is absorbing, there's a lot of material, and she's (mostly) brutally honest. The writing is excellent, and the descriptions are vivid (which, since part of this is a medical memoir, may not be to everyone's taste). My rating reflects this; the quality of a book isn't dependent on whether you find its author likable or not.
The story itself is another matter. A few reviewers read this as a story of marital dedication and devotion, and to some extent it is, but it more generally is the story of an extremely dysfunctional, codependent relationship that was built on shaky ground. When Eleanor met Aaron, she was a high school senior. He was 25 and working at CD Warehouse. He follows her to college at Middlebury, where he doesn't do much of anything, and she spends her time living with him. At one point she asks him to work more to pay rent and ... he doesn't. Her parents don't see this as an issue. (I have a teenager. I was screaming.) There are a lot of red flags in the early days of their relationship.
Aaron has a lot of very real problems: substance abuse, childhood trauma, neglectful parents, mental illness. They get into recovery. Eleanor admits her codependency in Al-Anon. Closely tied in to both his mental illness and his substance abuse is a mysterious chronic illness that causes him to erupt in horrible, painful sores. This sets them down the path of Morgellon's.
I'm familiar with Morgellons (and chronic Lyme, which comes up later) via the scientific skeptic community. The ongoing question is whether Morgellon's is "real." I think that's the wrong question to ask. Clearly, these patients are suffering. Their symptoms are real. Whether or not Morgellon's is a legitimate clinical diagnosis is a real question (there's no evidence that it is) but using the word "real" sidesteps important issues and reflects several false beliefs:
1) That somatic symptom disorders are the same as factitious disorder i.e. making it up, and that if a patient's issues are mental in origin, that they can turn them off;
2) That if a condition is psychiatric, it is not real; only conditions with an observable physical process are real. This is why people resist the idea that their condition delusional parasitosis—because that means "it's all in their heads". Physical symptoms must have a physical explanation.
3) From the patient point of view, they have seen clinicians who dismiss physical symptoms without sufficient investigation and blame them on mental disorders, with the clear implication that they are less serious. (I have a friend whose first rheumatologist diagnosed her with "fibromyalgia caused by her Type-A personality"; clearly he was also of the type who used the fibromyalgia diagnosis to dismiss female pain. The actual answer was lupus.)
I would suggest a new way of thinking about this: that if Morgellon's is, in fact, psychiatric in origin, this is actually a testament to the power of the brain. Clinicians should never dismiss symptoms, but we should all have a deep respect for how we can physically respond to stressors. Once, while having dental work done, I had a panic attack. One of its effects was that it made anesthetic stop working.
Henderson dances around this, but does not say it explicitly. The narrative veers from her skepticism to her commitment to alternative medicine (this was a horror show complete with Herxing). Her observations surrounding his drinking relapses and medication indicate she is, at least now, unconvinced by Morgellon's... but she also seems to say that she supports Aaron's belief because he believes it.
While pregnant with their first child, Eleanor says to her mother, "It's not my job to look after his mental health." Her mother replies, "Honey, that's what marriage is." In some ways this sums up many of the problems with Eleanor and Aaron's marriage: she's locked herself into a caretaker role, unable to set boundaries between his mental and physical health and her own.
I'll start with it as a book. It is interesting, it is absorbing, there's a lot of material, and she's (mostly) brutally honest. The writing is excellent, and the descriptions are vivid (which, since part of this is a medical memoir, may not be to everyone's taste). My rating reflects this; the quality of a book isn't dependent on whether you find its author likable or not.
The story itself is another matter. A few reviewers read this as a story of marital dedication and devotion, and to some extent it is, but it more generally is the story of an extremely dysfunctional, codependent relationship that was built on shaky ground. When Eleanor met Aaron, she was a high school senior. He was 25 and working at CD Warehouse. He follows her to college at Middlebury, where he doesn't do much of anything, and she spends her time living with him. At one point she asks him to work more to pay rent and ... he doesn't. Her parents don't see this as an issue. (I have a teenager. I was screaming.) There are a lot of red flags in the early days of their relationship.
Aaron has a lot of very real problems: substance abuse, childhood trauma, neglectful parents, mental illness. They get into recovery. Eleanor admits her codependency in Al-Anon. Closely tied in to both his mental illness and his substance abuse is a mysterious chronic illness that causes him to erupt in horrible, painful sores. This sets them down the path of Morgellon's.
I'm familiar with Morgellons (and chronic Lyme, which comes up later) via the scientific skeptic community. The ongoing question is whether Morgellon's is "real." I think that's the wrong question to ask. Clearly, these patients are suffering. Their symptoms are real. Whether or not Morgellon's is a legitimate clinical diagnosis is a real question (there's no evidence that it is) but using the word "real" sidesteps important issues and reflects several false beliefs:
1) That somatic symptom disorders are the same as factitious disorder i.e. making it up, and that if a patient's issues are mental in origin, that they can turn them off;
2) That if a condition is psychiatric, it is not real; only conditions with an observable physical process are real. This is why people resist the idea that their condition delusional parasitosis—because that means "it's all in their heads". Physical symptoms must have a physical explanation.
3) From the patient point of view, they have seen clinicians who dismiss physical symptoms without sufficient investigation and blame them on mental disorders, with the clear implication that they are less serious. (I have a friend whose first rheumatologist diagnosed her with "fibromyalgia caused by her Type-A personality"; clearly he was also of the type who used the fibromyalgia diagnosis to dismiss female pain. The actual answer was lupus.)
I would suggest a new way of thinking about this: that if Morgellon's is, in fact, psychiatric in origin, this is actually a testament to the power of the brain. Clinicians should never dismiss symptoms, but we should all have a deep respect for how we can physically respond to stressors. Once, while having dental work done, I had a panic attack. One of its effects was that it made anesthetic stop working.
Henderson dances around this, but does not say it explicitly. The narrative veers from her skepticism to her commitment to alternative medicine (this was a horror show complete with Herxing). Her observations surrounding his drinking relapses and medication indicate she is, at least now, unconvinced by Morgellon's... but she also seems to say that she supports Aaron's belief because he believes it.
While pregnant with their first child, Eleanor says to her mother, "It's not my job to look after his mental health." Her mother replies, "Honey, that's what marriage is." In some ways this sums up many of the problems with Eleanor and Aaron's marriage: she's locked herself into a caretaker role, unable to set boundaries between his mental and physical health and her own.
Read
August 18, 2021Have a lot of complicated feelings.
August 23, 2021
I must have suggested this book to my library because it came right in for me. I wasn't sure what it was about but I love memoirs and relationship stories so I got right into it. The book starts off with the author as a high school student meeting her now-husband at a record store. She was pretty straight-laced with little dating experience and the man she met was almost 25, a high school dropout and working part-time in the record store. She talks his drinking and drug use. He doesn't seem to work full time or much at all and he follows her to college. She basically lives with him from her freshman year on. He tells her of a troubled childhood with divorced parents, big moves, and a childhood friend dying.
The book goes back and forth between their early years together in the early 2000s and a more current timeline where he is very mysteriously ill. They go to doctor after doctor and no one knows what's wrong with him. One doctor suggests possible schizophrenia or some schizoid variant but as we all know from this book, psychology is not a hard science and it's mainly self-reported. Another doctor thinks he simply has ADHD. Most of his issues seem to be mysterious rashes
To me, it is very clear from the beginning she is making some excuses (either unconsciously, trying to head off criticism or at her editor's suggestion, I don't know) about things in their life that are a little off--he didn't know she was a child in high school when they started dating but she didn't know his last name for a few days! He doesn't work but he doesn't feel well! Men can stay home with kids even if it means she works three jobs to pay the bills.
It is also pretty clear to me that there is a pattern of his illness. For example: she leaves the house for an hour for a meeting and turns off her phone, he throws up "blood" and she has to rush home to find "bloody" vomit and "undigested" ramen all over the house. Her son sends her panicked texts and she rushes home. They rush to the hospital and it's agreed that the "blood" is really a large amount of red juice he drank that day. This happens a lot. He gets sick when she is trying to set up hospice care for her dying father. He gets sick when she is at work, with the kids, on her birthday. When she is away on business.
Somewhere around this point, I thought the book was going to shift and it was going to become about living with a man who is a con artist or who has chronic factitious illness disorder (what we used to call Munchausen's syndrome) but I keep reading and it's just more of the same. I finally read the blurb of the book and find out it was billed as "A turbulent romance meets harrowing medical mystery: the true story of the author’s twenty-year marriage defined by her husband’s chronic illness—and a testament to the endurance of love." Oh no, oh no no no.
This is a hard book to talk about because if the major red flags and issues are based in reality, that means this man really has been suffering for no reason for years and that's awful. If he is the manipulative predator I feel much of the book describes, then he has been abusing his wife and their whole family for years and the author is seemingly unaware and often blames herself for their problems. Which is it? What other options are there?
I outlined some of the many red flags in my review on my blog. It was a very uncomfortable book to read if well written.
The book goes back and forth between their early years together in the early 2000s and a more current timeline where he is very mysteriously ill. They go to doctor after doctor and no one knows what's wrong with him. One doctor suggests possible schizophrenia or some schizoid variant but as we all know from this book, psychology is not a hard science and it's mainly self-reported. Another doctor thinks he simply has ADHD. Most of his issues seem to be mysterious rashes
To me, it is very clear from the beginning she is making some excuses (either unconsciously, trying to head off criticism or at her editor's suggestion, I don't know) about things in their life that are a little off--he didn't know she was a child in high school when they started dating but she didn't know his last name for a few days! He doesn't work but he doesn't feel well! Men can stay home with kids even if it means she works three jobs to pay the bills.
It is also pretty clear to me that there is a pattern of his illness. For example: she leaves the house for an hour for a meeting and turns off her phone, he throws up "blood" and she has to rush home to find "bloody" vomit and "undigested" ramen all over the house. Her son sends her panicked texts and she rushes home. They rush to the hospital and it's agreed that the "blood" is really a large amount of red juice he drank that day. This happens a lot. He gets sick when she is trying to set up hospice care for her dying father. He gets sick when she is at work, with the kids, on her birthday. When she is away on business.
Somewhere around this point, I thought the book was going to shift and it was going to become about living with a man who is a con artist or who has chronic factitious illness disorder (what we used to call Munchausen's syndrome) but I keep reading and it's just more of the same. I finally read the blurb of the book and find out it was billed as "A turbulent romance meets harrowing medical mystery: the true story of the author’s twenty-year marriage defined by her husband’s chronic illness—and a testament to the endurance of love." Oh no, oh no no no.
This is a hard book to talk about because if the major red flags and issues are based in reality, that means this man really has been suffering for no reason for years and that's awful. If he is the manipulative predator I feel much of the book describes, then he has been abusing his wife and their whole family for years and the author is seemingly unaware and often blames herself for their problems. Which is it? What other options are there?
I outlined some of the many red flags in my review on my blog. It was a very uncomfortable book to read if well written.
August 25, 2021
I actually found this book, while well written, very disturbing and frustrating. I had to give up a third of the way through as the events with Aaron and Eleanor just kept repeating. I almost wanted to flip to the end to see exactly what was the actual cause of his skin disease, and whether they ever found success, but just gave up.
October 13, 2021
I've tried two times to read this book and I just...cannot. I gave up 35% of the way in this time. Aaron is the worst and Eleanor enables him. Enough said.
December 4, 2021
This is a memoir about marriage far from a Lifetime depiction. Aaron and Eleanor fall for each other fast and are so young and in love. Then Aaron starts to get sick, and it isn’t the flu or anything doctors can accurately diagnose. Aaron experiences an assortment of mental and physical ailments that cause an enormous strain on their marriage. Eleanor and Aaron attend a host of medical conferences, therapy sessions and endless amounts of Emergency Room visits. Some doctors diagnose Aaron and others simply have no answers for him.
This was a difficult read and hard to rate. I did enjoy parts and really felt for Eleanor and Aaron, however there were parts I just wanted to close the book because it felt so repetitive. The events in the book are not in chronological order and it seemed a bit odd to have the timeline skip around as much as it did. It felt like you’re reading a diary from a wife desperate to “fix” her husband. I completely understand Eleanor wanting Aaron to be well, but it seemed as if she was the only one that wanted it. Aaron seemed to check out and not as invested in a cure as it seemed he should have been.
Eleanor’s patience and love for Aaron is truly unmatched.
This was a difficult read and hard to rate. I did enjoy parts and really felt for Eleanor and Aaron, however there were parts I just wanted to close the book because it felt so repetitive. The events in the book are not in chronological order and it seemed a bit odd to have the timeline skip around as much as it did. It felt like you’re reading a diary from a wife desperate to “fix” her husband. I completely understand Eleanor wanting Aaron to be well, but it seemed as if she was the only one that wanted it. Aaron seemed to check out and not as invested in a cure as it seemed he should have been.
Eleanor’s patience and love for Aaron is truly unmatched.
May 6, 2022
Rough life, rough marriage. Author gets a searing memoir out of it—and two great kids—but I keep thinking she could have written ten books in the time she spent caring for her loving yet troubled husband. Anyway I hope this book sells well and wins all the awards so she will have some money to throw at the problems.
September 1, 2021
This is a memoir about marriage and illness. It's about a 10-year journey the author took that started with her husband's acute illness. This is about the search for a cure and for some understanding of what was happening to him. The larger story is about the core of their relationship, looking back at the early years and what helped them stay the course for twenty-four years. Even though there were some acute symptoms in her husband's skin illness, there was a deeper story around what was happening to him and his body and what it means to witness a loved one go through that kind of horror while maintaining a send of sanity, love, and understanding.
First of all, the author seemed to remember all the details and was a fountain of knowledge about medical information. Her compassion, patience, and support for her husband seemed boundless. I loved it when she wrote, "When the person you love tries and fails to end his life, you are glad that he is still living, that he failed. There is a kind of embarrassment in that failure, though, an embarrassment in the company of others who love people who successfully ended their lives, embarrassment that the person you love is still living, embarrassment that he did not succeed. He did not go about suicide seriously. His anguish was not deep enough. You don't have much time for embarrassment, though, because another thing that happens when someone you love tries and fails to end his life is that you spend the rest of your life trying to keep him from trying again, trying to create a world in which he will not want to try again. When someone you love tries to end his life because you took your love away from him, you will spend the rest of your life trying to keep him alive with your love."
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/ele...
First of all, the author seemed to remember all the details and was a fountain of knowledge about medical information. Her compassion, patience, and support for her husband seemed boundless. I loved it when she wrote, "When the person you love tries and fails to end his life, you are glad that he is still living, that he failed. There is a kind of embarrassment in that failure, though, an embarrassment in the company of others who love people who successfully ended their lives, embarrassment that the person you love is still living, embarrassment that he did not succeed. He did not go about suicide seriously. His anguish was not deep enough. You don't have much time for embarrassment, though, because another thing that happens when someone you love tries and fails to end his life is that you spend the rest of your life trying to keep him from trying again, trying to create a world in which he will not want to try again. When someone you love tries to end his life because you took your love away from him, you will spend the rest of your life trying to keep him alive with your love."
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/ele...
April 12, 2022
Man, I don’t know. On a craft level, I think it does everything memoir is supposed to do — it’s gorgeously written, brutally honest, makes narrative sense of life — but I can’t formulate my thoughts on the actual book.
The story is never justified to the reader — there’s so much space given to your reaction to Aaron/Eleanor, which I think is why a lot of readers dislike them. But I just kept thinking that the point of memoir isn’t to agree with someone else’s choices…… idk. There are a lot of underlying structural assumptions about love that I feel like I could talk about for like 6 hours. (Is there a point where unconditional love is toxic / what does it mean to love an addict / what does it mean to love someone who isn’t the person you love a lot of the time)
I feel like people’s reactions to the book come down to the point, again, of not really understanding mental illness as a society (or chronic illness as well). We think we’re open about it, but that openness is built on a societally acceptable presentation of illness (where you’re depressed/anxious, but not so far that you can’t joke about it, not so far that you can’t perform under capitalism). As soon as a mentally ill person can’t mask, they’re condemned as toxic.
__________
“When you learn something about someone you love, something terrible, you find a room in yourself you didn’t know you had, a new organ of understanding.”
(Have so many thoughts about how writing about Aaron feels like an act of agency / art as a radically feminist act that lets Eleanor reclaim some kind of power)
The story is never justified to the reader — there’s so much space given to your reaction to Aaron/Eleanor, which I think is why a lot of readers dislike them. But I just kept thinking that the point of memoir isn’t to agree with someone else’s choices…… idk. There are a lot of underlying structural assumptions about love that I feel like I could talk about for like 6 hours. (Is there a point where unconditional love is toxic / what does it mean to love an addict / what does it mean to love someone who isn’t the person you love a lot of the time)
I feel like people’s reactions to the book come down to the point, again, of not really understanding mental illness as a society (or chronic illness as well). We think we’re open about it, but that openness is built on a societally acceptable presentation of illness (where you’re depressed/anxious, but not so far that you can’t joke about it, not so far that you can’t perform under capitalism). As soon as a mentally ill person can’t mask, they’re condemned as toxic.
__________
“When you learn something about someone you love, something terrible, you find a room in yourself you didn’t know you had, a new organ of understanding.”
(Have so many thoughts about how writing about Aaron feels like an act of agency / art as a radically feminist act that lets Eleanor reclaim some kind of power)
December 9, 2021
I wanted to like this book but I truly detested it. If I hadn’t used an Audible credit I would not have finished it.
I wanted to feel sympathy for a devoted wife caring for a chronically ill husband but it felt like the author debased herself and the husband took advantage of her. Even when he wasn’t ill he didn’t work. He barely helped with the children. She talks at length about cleaning up his vomit, blood and sweat. She keeps track of all his medical needs while he argues with her. He is conveniently sick or makes another suicide attempt at what feels like every big event in their lives, leaving her to pick up the pieces on her own. It just looks ugly.
The author shifts back and forth in time and at least in the audiobook I just couldn’t keep track and couldn’t keep up. I tried to listen for whether she had two kids, one kid or no kids to try and orient myself. It was frustrating.
She also shifted from first person to third person as some of weird literary technique. I found it irritating.
And of course the Audible narrator has to do the husband’s voice in some sort of cartoon joke masculine voice. Why, Audible, why? Please just stop with the voice impersonations.
I hope the ebook/real book is better and easier to read. I do not recommend the audiobook.
I wanted to feel sympathy for a devoted wife caring for a chronically ill husband but it felt like the author debased herself and the husband took advantage of her. Even when he wasn’t ill he didn’t work. He barely helped with the children. She talks at length about cleaning up his vomit, blood and sweat. She keeps track of all his medical needs while he argues with her. He is conveniently sick or makes another suicide attempt at what feels like every big event in their lives, leaving her to pick up the pieces on her own. It just looks ugly.
The author shifts back and forth in time and at least in the audiobook I just couldn’t keep track and couldn’t keep up. I tried to listen for whether she had two kids, one kid or no kids to try and orient myself. It was frustrating.
She also shifted from first person to third person as some of weird literary technique. I found it irritating.
And of course the Audible narrator has to do the husband’s voice in some sort of cartoon joke masculine voice. Why, Audible, why? Please just stop with the voice impersonations.
I hope the ebook/real book is better and easier to read. I do not recommend the audiobook.
December 8, 2021
This is a book that, after reading, I don't know how to feel. It moved me, but left me unsatisfied. The writing was beautiful, and interesting, but perhap a little too long.
I read through many of the reviews on goodreads, and there was a lot of sympathy (well earned), for the author.
However, I didn't see much sympathy for her husband in these reviews.
Even if what he's going through is psychiatric in nature, why can't they find any relief for him? From sexual abuse to abandonment, failure at school, and failure to to find a way to support his family, did he ever stand a chance at a normal life? It sounds like he was a good stay-at-home Dad, when he was well. It also sounds like he was a good husband, when he was well. Unfortunately, the times that he was well seem to be sprinkled throughout his life of unbearable pain. When a family member feels pain that severe, it's impossible for everyone who loves him not to feel that pain as well.
I hope that in time, their family is able to find some relief from the roller coaster they are on. I"d love to hear what other people thought about her husband.
I read through many of the reviews on goodreads, and there was a lot of sympathy (well earned), for the author.
However, I didn't see much sympathy for her husband in these reviews.
Even if what he's going through is psychiatric in nature, why can't they find any relief for him? From sexual abuse to abandonment, failure at school, and failure to to find a way to support his family, did he ever stand a chance at a normal life? It sounds like he was a good stay-at-home Dad, when he was well. It also sounds like he was a good husband, when he was well. Unfortunately, the times that he was well seem to be sprinkled throughout his life of unbearable pain. When a family member feels pain that severe, it's impossible for everyone who loves him not to feel that pain as well.
I hope that in time, their family is able to find some relief from the roller coaster they are on. I"d love to hear what other people thought about her husband.
August 4, 2021
Marriage isn’t always easy. Which I feel like is something ignored for the most part in pop culture (aside from that brilliant story arc on Blackish a couple of years ago.) Fights are portrayed as something humorous and minor if not outright funny. But that’s not the truth. So when I saw this memoir about a passionate, loving, tricky, complicated, and difficult marriage, I dove right in.
Eleanor and Aaron meet young (well, Eleanor is in high school but Aaron is older.) And their rollercoaster relationship lasts through a lot of twists and turns that would have taken out other couples. And finally, when they are adults and married and have careers and things seem to be smoothing out–that’s when it gets much, much harder. Aaron has medical issues that can’t be diagnosed properly. Does he have A or B or C? Or A and B and C? No one quite knows. It could be D or E? Or Z. And there are countless doctor’s appointments and excruciating pain. To deal with it, he drinks heavily. Occasionally uses drugs. The entire burden of supporting the family, dealing with the kids and the household, as well as with Aaron who often seems like a very large third child, falls completely on her. Which would be more than enough to crush a person, and then add the health problems on top.
I find Eleanor’s resilience inspiring, amazing, and downright unbelievable. She is truly impressive. I’d guess 99% of people I know wouldn’t have her fortitude. She perseveres.
Eleanor and Aaron meet young (well, Eleanor is in high school but Aaron is older.) And their rollercoaster relationship lasts through a lot of twists and turns that would have taken out other couples. And finally, when they are adults and married and have careers and things seem to be smoothing out–that’s when it gets much, much harder. Aaron has medical issues that can’t be diagnosed properly. Does he have A or B or C? Or A and B and C? No one quite knows. It could be D or E? Or Z. And there are countless doctor’s appointments and excruciating pain. To deal with it, he drinks heavily. Occasionally uses drugs. The entire burden of supporting the family, dealing with the kids and the household, as well as with Aaron who often seems like a very large third child, falls completely on her. Which would be more than enough to crush a person, and then add the health problems on top.
I find Eleanor’s resilience inspiring, amazing, and downright unbelievable. She is truly impressive. I’d guess 99% of people I know wouldn’t have her fortitude. She perseveres.
August 28, 2021
Interesting, well written, depressing. I did not finish it. I didn’t want to wallow in sickness
September 1, 2021
Beautifully written, but relentlessly sad. We all make choices in this life and I don't presume to question Henderson's, but there were a lot of WTF moments for me.
December 16, 2021
A painful but beautiful tale of a marriage. The honesty and pace does not let up in this memoir, and at times I felt myself stealing away a few minutes during the work day to read this as if it were a thriller. The author does an incredibly beautiful job detailing the marriage, her husbands illness, the attempts at the medical system. However, as a scientist studying chronic illness and my husband as a doctor, we were both more compelled about the medical mystery aspect, of which does not reach a satisfying conclusion. This of course is the way that chronic illnesses and pain often go, but I think marketing this as a medical mystery story will leave some disappointed. That said, as a memoir of a difficult marriage, it excels.
November 10, 2021
WOW! What an intense book/memoir. You're both astounded and slightly angered by the author's ability to stay with her husband despite all the travails he puts her and the children through. You realize that there's such intimacy and love between the two partners who never give up on each other. With the exception of perhaps Joan Didion's marriage stories, I don't recall ever getting this close to the characters; to their deepest pain, emotions and ability to overcome. With every new doctor/clinic visit you hold your breath and hope that THIS time there will be an accurate analysis and cure for what is ailing the husband. The tempo of the book is riveting and captivating. And you truly appreciate the author's ability to infuse humor into the darkness that life presents to her and her family. And finally...if you think you have health issues?! Reading this book will put those in a new perspective for you.
June 1, 2022
The premise of this book makes it sound like Aaron just woke up one day with a weird rash that wouldn't go away and wasn't ever diagnosed and how his wife helped him through this time. But, the reality is they were an unbelievably dysfunctional couple LONG before this mystery ailment. I'm surprised she wanted to have children with him because there was a LOT of drama from the very beginning of their relationship. If you want to read about the absolute definition of enabling and codependency, this is it. I got 84 pages in and just couldn't keep going. Reading some other reviews it sounds like it didn't get any better either. There are MUCH better marriage memoirs out there - don't waste your time on this one.
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