After five years of bathing him, helping him move, and acting as his round-the-clock caregiver, I accidentally overheard my paralyzed husband laughing with a stranger. He casually called me his “free servant” and bragged that he wouldn’t leave me a cent.

When people hear the phrase five years, it sounds insignificant—like a brief passage, a few pages easily skimmed. But when those years aren’t marked by seasons or holidays, when they’re counted instead in fluorescent…