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Cary’s classic column Tuesday, JUL 21, 2003
What do I owe him?
Dear Cary,
Last year I went to visit a divorce lawyer, having finally got up the nerve to end a 29-year marriage (I’m 49) to a physically and emotionally abusive man. I had been seeing a wonderful man for some time, and we wanted to make our relationship public and formalize things. My only child was grown and launched, I have a satisfying job, and I ceased to love my husband many years ago. Just a few days after my initial visit to the lawyer, however, my husband was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer, with brain metastases. The doctors have refused to speculate on his remaining time, but my research says he will likely have anywhere from another six months to five years.
I have continued to see my lover, but he and I are both tired of “sneaking around.” My husband continues to be abusive, though in his weakened state I think I could outrun him. My question is, how long must I stay with him and how saintly must I be? My job is the one that carries the medical insurance, which he would lose. And what would happen to my good name if I abandoned a dying man? Thanks for any advice you can give.
Adulterous, but I Have Several Excellent Excuses
Dear Adulterous,
Painful and ill-timed as your husband’s illness is, it’s also an opportunity to put your life on a new footing. It is no time to give in to vengefulness or impatience. The life of the man you married is nearing its end; your child’s father is dying; the man you once loved and spent a lifetime with is leaving this world. Take the high road.
If there is any time in a person’s life when he ought to know the unvarnished truth about how he has conducted himself, how he has affected the lives of others, now seems to be the time. It’s a chance for you to be frank with him but also to forgive him. Tell your husband the truth, both the good and the bad. Seek some kind of reconciliation with him. If you have a minister, rabbi, priest, therapist, spiritual counselor or trusted confidant, talk this over with him or her. Struggle to understand what his death means. If he has tormented you, be grateful that the torment will soon be over. As he approaches death, he may become reconciled to his wrongs, and he may want to make peace with you. Be ready to make peace with him.
But the peace you make with your husband should be kept private. If you start parading around with your lover while your husband is gasping on morphine, others in your community will be outraged and feel that he’s being tragically mistreated. They will suffer for him by proxy. They will feel the pain and outrage that they imagine he feels or would feel if he knew. Your actions will cause gossip and scorn. People love a drama. It might be none of their business, but they’ll make it their business if you give them the chance. Don’t give it to them. Don’t pretend it’s just about your life. This is about your husband’s life too, and the lives of those who have loved him. Hold your head up and do the right thing.
Why divorce a dying man? For one thing, cutting off his health insurance would cause problems for the doctors and nurses who are trying to care for him. Your child might find it unforgivably heartless. And his uninsured medical costs might eat into his estate, leaving less for you and your son or daughter to inherit. Divorce would also mean possibly acrimonious dealings with him. If he were near death or heavily sedated, questions might arise about his competence. If he wanted to contest the divorce, he might simply wait it out until the end, and then you’d have a complicated situation where you had filed for divorce but it wasn’t finalized, and that might affect aspects of the execution of the will. I don’t know, I’m not giving you a legal opinion; I’m just using common sense to imagine the ways in which trying to divorce a dying man could complicate things. At the very least: Why spend the money? Why not just make sure the will is in order and let nature take its course?
It may seem that your years of suffering are being neglected in this, and that is the privilege of the dying: They do get all the attention. At the same time, I think you deserve some support of your own. It’s not right what happened to you. You deserve some help. Why don’t you seek out a psychotherapist you can unburden yourself to while you go through this? It’s going to be pretty tough on you. You ought to have somebody in your corner while you fight the last rounds.
Start your divorce, while keeping contact with your soon to be ex’ doctors. You can move on without being cruel, but I think you should move on. The scenario of the faithful wife wringing her hands over her dreadful husband who is sick is kind of…19th century. These roles for women are starting to crumble, and I for one am glad. You should be, too.
We none of us know how long we have. What if you are the one who has six months to five years? How do you want to spend it?
I’m sorry Cary, but I have to respectfully disagree with your advice to stay with this man. It is more likely that the abuse and manipulation will continue and may very well get worse because of the pain and anger of this man. I was in a similar situation and dying did nothing to improve their abusive ways. If someone comes up to you on the street and pushes you into a wall, leaves bruises, calls you all sorts of insults, and then reserves the right to come back and do it every day after that, would you excuse their behavior if they happened to have a terminal illness? Of course not. If someone you love was being slammed into walls, given bruises, called a whore, etc. by a partner who happened to have a terminal disease, would you you want them to stay because society would frown on them for leaving? No. The outside appearance of things is not more important than someone’s own physical and mental well-being. There will always be people who don’t understand, who love to judge, who think they know everything – we are under no obligation to please those people.
None of us want to die alone, and its sad that this man may end up doing so, but he has also made his choices. Unless he makes a grand change in a very short amount of time, she is under no moral obligation to stay.
That being said, she should not live with him but she can choose to remain married – allowing him to keep the health insurance. That is a kind gesture on her part that she can do WITHOUT putting her body and mind in harms way any more. If she’s financially well off on her own, after his death she should just seek and take what she would have fairly received had they divorced. The rest should go to the daughter. Or to a domestic abuse charity. She shouldn’t hang in there til the end just get a few extra bucks.
However, as for this other man, I agree with Cary – I understand her need for companionship, but I don’t think she should run into the arms of this other man either. She needs to be on her own for a while, have some intense therapy, and find out who she is as a person before starting a new relationship.
Forget the psychotherapist. See a lawyer. How many more years of abuse do you wish to endure? Why are you more obligated to care for this man than Cary himself is? Anyone who thinks your abuser deserves good loving care in his illness is free to provide it. I would say that since your husband has been kind, decent, or neutral to them, they are more obliged to provide care than is the person whose reasonable self-protection means getting away from him. Abuse wears you down in ways you can’t see until you are free from it.
Find out how to protect yourself legally and financially. My ex-father in-law, when he figured out he didn’t have much time spent all the money. His 60 year old wife who is likely to live until 90 be damned. You can thank the Democrats that The ACA means your husband can get his own insurance affordably even with a serious condition.
Just be bloody sure he is terminal, or else a lot of Cary’s otherwise sound advice gites out the window.
I was coming around to leaving an abusive relationship when my ex had a debilitating injury. It was supposed to take him three to six months to recover. He dragged it out, shammed, and miles it for sympathy for EIGHT YEARS, during which time if I’d left, I would have encountered the blame and censure Cary talks about. In the end I had to wait for him to leave me for someone else before I could leave with dignity.
Make sure you get to talk to the doctors directly. Don’t just take his word as to his true condition.