Prayers to you! I went through something similar almost 3 years ago with my husband. I kept hoping that he would respond to something, to give me hope that he could recover at least some. But he didn't respond to anything. After a week they said they either needed to put in a feeding tube or take him off life support. I got the idea that was about all the time they could manage without doing this.
I knew what his wishes were, we had talked about it though nothing was in writing. But when do you give up the hope that he might look at you one more time? That's something that was hard for me to get my mind around, and it's so incredibly personal, no one else can tell you when or how to do it.
One of the things the hospital gave me was a pamphlet that said the average life expectancy for someone on a feeding tube was 1 year. That didn't sound very promising. And I would have had to take over all of his care, like trimming his toenails (couldn't figure out how to do that when standing behind him, the angle is wrong), dental care when he couldn't swallow, and so on. He would have needed at least 1 and probably 2 other people to change his position often so he wouldn't get bedsores. The more I thought of all that would need to be done, the more I realized how impossible it was for me to try to take care of him for a week, much less a year. I'm not trying to be crass or shock anyone, I'm just trying to express the thoughts I had when faced with this situation. Dan had significant brain damage from a heart attack so there was no hope of him recovering any function at all -from what you posted the 2 situations are somewhat different, though similar.
That was absolutely the worst day and week in my life, and actually saying the words to remove him from life support felt like I was betraying him, though I knew that he wanted me to let him go, that he didn't want to live if he was in that state. It was so hard to do, even though I knew it was the right thing to do and I was honoring his wishes. But I didn't want to say goodbye and lose him.
You have my prayers and I hope that you will eventually find peace and acceptance with whatever decision you make. That is something that can be very hard, too. My choice was obvious, but it took a while before I accepted it, and much longer to find peace with it. Others find that peace right away, there's no "right" answer that fits everyone.
