I just read this article about the statistics regarding divorce after a spouse is diagnosed with cancer. It was not good. The article said that a cancer diagnosis can either bring a couple closer together, or more likely, tear them apart. It's a scary thought.
It said that in many cases when a spouse is diagnosed with stage 3 or 4 cancer, the other spouse tends to start to separate away. They didn't say in emotional preparation for the spouse possibly dying, but that seemed to be the implication. Then if the spouse does survive the cancer, it makes it harder to come back together. There is already a gap that might not have existed before, and it is very difficult to close that gap. I wouldn't say that I am pulling away in preparation for him dying, but I do not always feel like the unit we were before. I find myself doing more things on my own. It's not that he doesn't want to do something necessarily, but he's feeling too exhausted or nauseated from chemo to leave the house. I feel sometimes like I'm abandoning him, but I don't want to spend my entire weekend sitting and watching television, and that's about all he's up to doing. I took my older daughter over to Disney yesterday, and it was nice to get away from the house and do something fun. I wished he could have come with us, but he's just not up to it, and, to be honest, it was nice to get out and not think about everything for a while. I'm not saying this is what is happening to me, but I can definitely see some areas where it's harder to feel like we're a couple, and maybe I just have to try harder to make sure we stay connected.
My husband has been fighting his battle since last August, so for about 7 months, and I feel that he's hanging in there. I wonder if I've been supportive enough, and that was an area that the article talked about. It said the partner who is not sick doesn't understand what the other is going through and is not able to offer the level of support the sick spouse wants or needs. It's hard to know what to do in this situation because it's so new and hard to deal with from both sides. I try to be supportive, but I don't know if I am doing enough. The article said that lack of support was something the sick spouse feels most often. I understand that this might be an issue, but one person interviewed said that she felt like her husband "just kept going on with his life like nothing was happening." I felt so bad for her, but I know that I've had to keep going. I couldn't just stop working while he took four months of sick leave and was going through his first round of treatment. I had to keep taking care of the kid and getting her to her activities, so maybe I empathize more with the husband here because in trying to keep things as normal as possible, he was actually making his wife feel he was not giving enough support. I don't know what to do any more.
I am really feeling more and more like with cancer, there is no way to win.
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