I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
As bad as the situation is, it's heartening to hear that your relationship is still strong. I don't know if you do this already, but I think that you can endure if you focus your love on him intensively. It's probably hard after so many years of marriage and you fall into a groove but if you're always waiting for him to come home after work, thinking about things he might like, sending him loving text messages and just generally being the light of his life, which is one of the things you can do in spite of your chronic pain, he will never be stuck in a job he hates because he has a source of pure love to come home to.