Happy TGIF, all! Here is a story to mull and discuss.
The Washington Post Magazine ran a page-turning feature story about a former editor that had a heart attack and was permanently brain-damaged. The story was told in his wife’s perspective who was left caring for her husband, a baby and a toddler. After several years, she realized that his personality had changed, he was not going to get better and had to move to a nursing facility. Then she moved on — with another man.
It’s an arrangement that appears to have worked for all involved, however, she received vicious feedback from readers who felt that she had not honored her wedding vows. In fact, the newspaper followed up with a Q&A that I also read from top to bottom. This is a sample of some of the questions that she received:
THE VOW
I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Page and Susan, for making the public aware of the difficult road which spousal caregivers travel. As the spouse of a quadriplegic, I totally understand how excruciating it can be to balance a sick husband’s needs, your own needs, and your children’s needs. I was chagrined by the judgmental and hostile comments posted by people who truly have no idea what our struggles encompass. As medicine evolves and more and more people survive with severe cognitive and/or physical deficits, we all need to think “outside the box” for compassionate solutions. Thank you for sharing what is working for you. It brings hope to others who are feeling despairing and alone. I’d also like to recommend the Well Spouse Association as a wonderful peer support organization for spousal caregivers. Our motto is “when one is sick, two need help.”PAGE MELTON IVIE:
Thanks for your comment! I have heard of the group and am glad you are calling attention to it. Thank you for sharing your struggles, and I wish you well. Please know that you are not alone. I hope, too, that you ask for help sometimes!WHICH VOW?
I’ve read the article twice. It presents an incredible dilemma and I am so very sympathetic to the circumstances. The gist as I see read it- a happy marriage is dealt a severe blow and, not liking the hand that was dealt, one spouse decides to move on. My question is this: to what vow is it that you are being lauded for holding true?PAGE MELTON IVIE:
I appreciate this question, and I understand this is a sticking point for a lot of folks. I would disagree that we have “moved on.” Robert is central to our lives and now benefits from a stronger support network than he had before. Not a justification for anything – just the fact of our lives how. I will take care of him forever. In the context of my faith, I am standing by him and with him. I am fortunate to have found someone who will share this with meSUSAN BAER:
What was telling to me was that Robert’s family was so supportive of Page’s remarriage, and felt she was in fact still honoring her vow to Robert. Robert’s father said he was confident that, no matter what, Page would always be there for him….YOUR VOW AND YOUR FAITH
When you say you made the decision within your faith, could you explain that some more. Many would argue that breaking your vow by ending your marriage isn’t compatible with any faith. How did you reconcile it with your faith?PAGE MELTON IVIE:
Thanks for the question and I understand that my choices are not for everyone. I had long discussions about the meaning of those vows and I concluded that I am standing by Robert in every sense and at the same time, ensuring our girls are cared for and that Robert will always be cared for. Again, wasn’t what I was looking for, but I have to make peace with the fact that our new life helps everyone.
Everything about this story was intense. And as people live longer, it is likely to become more common. My heart goes out to spouses who find themselves in this impossible situation. Did you read the story? What did you think?
How awful
It’s not necessarily comfortable for me to think about moving on when your living spouse has been disabled, but I can’t judge either. I know a woman who raised her now college-age daughter under similar circumstances. She actually found out when she was in labor that her husband had cancer. He survived, but with severe brain damage. She did the same thing as this woman, and I can’t blame her. Now she’s remarried, and it’s hard for me to imagine anyone having a problem with that. Yes, as far as I know, her first husband is still alive, but it’s been almost 20 years. It’s hard to think of leaving someone because they’ve become disabled, but what might have happened in that amount of time anyway? Is there any guarantee they would still be together if he hadn’t suffered brain damage?
Reminds me of Sandra Day O’Connor
Her husband has Alzheimer’s and is in a facility…where he has a girlfriend. He does not remember that he’s married to SDO. The family, including SDO, has accepted this & is just glad he seems happy. When I saw this story, SDO was still visiting him regularly, & he just saw it as another friend coming by. That has to be hard, but what can you do?
I’ve always been so moved by that.
I truly believe that no one intended for one party in a marriage to shoulder all the burdens of care without the emotional support of the other. If it simply isn’t forthcoming–if it CAN’T be–the caregiver has to be free to seek it somewhere else, for the sake of his/her own sanity and stability. I have no problem with the thought of my husband having a relationship with someone else if I were severely incapacitated, and I think he would feel the same way if it were him.
I’d have far more of a problem, I think, if the “surviving” spouse just left and wasn’t committed to ensuring that the disabled spouse received appropriate care and support, but that’s clearly not the case for SDO or for the woman in the Post story.
Exactly
And since the Post woman has children with her ex, I’m sure she’s interested in having a continuing relationship with him, with the kids, however that might work. I couldn’t see myself ever abandoning DH if he was unable to be with us, but if I had a chance for love, support, & companionship, having that would make keeping my promises to DH about care & support much easier.
I have an older cousin
He’s my dad’s first cousin, and his wife is in a facility and has Alzheimer’s. He visits her every day and she recognizes that he is the nice man who visits her every day, but that is all she knows.
Ya know, here’s the thing
There’s a legal aspect to marriage, and for some of us there are also spiritual/religious vows we make. I believe that she is honoring the religious and spiritual vows she has made to her first husband, even if she is not romantically involved with him any more, or legally married to him. They are still family in the ways that matter the most.
I can’t imagine being in this sort of situation, but I think she received wise counsel from her minister. And I think her new husband is 100% a gem, worthy of this family’s love.
Families are complicated, that’s all there is to it.
ITA
She’s absolutely stuck by her DH1, and it’s wonderful that her DH2 can see that her family includes her previous husband. She is providing a great example to her children about what commitment means.
I guess it would depend on your religious
affiliation, your family background, and believes. I for one if being in this situation, would honor my marriage vows, and stay with my husband, and I know it would be the same for him.
I agree
I agree with taponsito. It would still be breaking vows for me or my husband. In sickness and in health means in sickness and in health to me.
But I don’t judge this family. A divorce is a divorce is a divorce. I don’t think whether someone is sick of not makes it any better or worse, it just is what it is.
I highly admire the wife for still taking care of her ex-husband like this though. And I think the new husband is super awesome too.
I dunno.
I suppose it is breaking the vow, but so is any separation / divorce and I don’t see this situation as less reasonable than many others in terms of the legitimacy of someone’s wanting a different situation for themselves. Is this less justifiable than someone walking out just because they feel like it? I don’t think so. She made sure he is cared for and he continues to be part of their lives.
The context of the vow does come to mind for me. When those vows were written – hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago? – this kind of scenario, the prospect of years on end of caring for someone who cannot care for themselves while simultaneously earning money and caring for one’s family, pretty much didn’t exist. The husband would have died, and in all likelihood – in the Colonial era anyway – the wife would have relatively quickly remarried and wouldn’t have been left to support the children alone. There are a lot of subsequent marriages in the genealogy my mother has done – if spouses die, the partner remarries. Marriages were a lot briefer anyway due to short life spans.
Huh
Very hard situation all around.
DH and I have friends where the guy, very young (25 or so) was diagnosed with some kind of very bad brain tumor. He has been hanging in for years, enduring aggressive surgeries, but it is a matter of time now.
Initially he was in a poly relationship with 2 female friends of ours. And the whole thing was really stressful for everybody, with the added thing where their relationship wasn’t legally recognized.
And eventually he married one of the women and the other one moved out and then later on married another mutual friend, DH’s best friend… there were a lot of reasons for her to leave, I’m sure, but a big part of it was that idea of kind of putting your life on hold for who knows how long, and preparing to lose the person and grieving over, and over, and over.
hard and lovely …
i wept while reading this story. Page, Alan and Robert are an amazing trio. Hope and Nell are being raised with amazing compassion. I think about the children. How is it in any way good for the mother to be stressed, overwhelmed and struggling with how to patch this all together after Robert’s illness? Page is adhering to her vows imo.
the picture gallery was amazing.
Honestly I find it shocking..
..that anyone would think there was something wrong with moving on. The idea that if I suffered a brain injury and my mind was irrevocably changed or even gone, I’d wish that Sister Q didn’t move on with someone else seems tantamount to saying “if my mind dies but my body lives on, I want you to be miserable and unhappy for the rest of your life.” It just feels like the most hateful, evil thing that you could wish upon someone that you supposedly love, an idea that makes me angry enough that I’m shaking just that little bit as I type this. Just the idea, it’s a horrible, horrific thing to wish upon any person. When a catastrophic brain injury afflicts someone, that person dies. We are our minds and our personalities. If that goes, then that person dies, and another takes their place in the shell that is their body. That seems obvious to me. How you could ask someone to live on with that new person just.. kind of defies belief to me, honestly. And is something I would never in a million years wish upon someone I cared for, or even my worst enemy.
i agree
and to make the children have to suffer is the cruelest. how could Page possibly be a good mother and a present mother to her children under those circumstances? i literally wept reading this article mostly at Page’s heart. their story seems to me to be one full of compassionate love.