I cannot explain in words how it all weighs on me emotionally. I am desperate. This makes me feel so helpless. I am destroyed inside, knowing this is even affecting her physical health. As a physician, I am familiar with the symptoms of depression, which I clearly see manifested in myself.

I am so disappointed in life. I wake up to support my wife, but really don’t have any hope to continue my life.

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Arielle Richardson, of Eastport, Maine, met her husband, who is from Iran, while in the Peace Corps in Armenia. Her father is disabled, so her parents can’t travel. They have never met her husband, who now lives in Antalya, Turkey, as he waits for his visa, she said.

This fall I had to come back to the U.S. to deal with serious medical issues stemming from my time abroad. Due to the travel ban, my partner, the person I need by my side more than anyone as I’m coming to terms with my condition, can’t be with me. He is also suffering, feeling paralyzed, helpless and alone.

To quote my husband’s conversation with our cat before I left, “Well, boy, it’s just you and me again.”

While I am grateful to spend the holidays with my parents for the first time in many years, it won’t feel like a true celebration until my husband is by my side.

I keep buying Christmas gifts for him, unable to stop even though I don’t know when he will ever receive them.