Chronic diseases and effects on marriage

R

Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
When one of you becomes in constant pain, unable and unwilling to walk hardly anywhere and with reduced capacity even to do daily tasks, it's a huge pressure on the relationship.
I read that 75% of marriages end in divorce when chronic illness hits. I can believe it. It is just another fear to add to the rest of the pain.

Do people stick together and rise to the challenge or quit?
 

Rose65 said:
I read that 75% of marriages end in divorce when chronic illness hits. I can believe it. It is just another fear to add to the rest of the pain.
Do people stick together and rise to the challenge or quit?
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The stats you posted surprise me greatly, Rose! I'm thinking there may be a big difference when considering age, though. You'd think chronic illness hitting a couple in their 70s may be dealt with very differently than hitting a couple in their 30s?
 

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I shouldn't post here since I'm not in or likely to be in such a situation.

I believe that without adequate support being a caregiver can take quite a toll, more so at an advanced age yourself. Add your own health issues and it must add up to an awful lot to deal with. The whole thing has to be mentally and physically debilitating. Resentment could be difficult to resist and suppress.

If divorce is any kind of "answer" I'm not sure how. Does it even legally absolve one of responsibility? Would one even be granted for such a reason? I'm not sure courts look (or should look) favorably upon medical abandonment. As already pointed out above, this is part of the marriage contract.

Even under good circumstances shouldn't it lead to a great deal of guilt?

Say a healthy guy with a sick wife obtained a divorce with settlement terms that fund shelving her in a home until she dies. Then he goes on his way: eating, drinking, and being merry. Maybe picking up a new younger healthier wife along the way.

Wouldn't he be shunned by society as a monster? Shouldn't this eat away at his soul?
 
Yikes.

Pepper said:
In my experience, a single man is almost Never Shunned.
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Oh, I don't know. :D

Okay - so to tackle the topic..... no easy answers. A lot depends on the illness, and the overall impact it has. We should also account for what it's possible for us to do. For example, if your partner needs turning every two hours, and you are yourself ill - say with arthritis - then it may simply be a case that you're not able to help. It's beyond your capabilities.

While it is within your capabilities, then I'd suggest us old fashioned folk feel a responsibility to do the caring.

Divorce? Over an illness? The only time this would be okay, for me, is if it's needed legally. So for example, if getting divorced means local state services step in to help care, then I can see it. But as a matter of convenience? That comes across as being a little cold.

We all age, we all get decrepit. We know this when we're young but don't pay it a mind. But the day inevitably comes. The worst my family has experienced was fairly recently, when an aunt suffered from dementia. You can care for the person for a time, but there comes a time when you just can't (just me experience).

There's probably no definitive answer to such a question.

I have commented only from a practical standpoint. While there may be pressures in the relationship beyond practical, I do think that's what we sign up for. But then, I believe in marriage and what it means and stands for.
 
I also know several of such relationships.

A colleague of my mother was in her early 20s, when she became a quadriplegic from a car accident. Her fiancé quit with her.

On the other hand, my German aunt, who married a former French war prisoner soon after she went with him to France after WW2, had there many problems as a German, but was warmly welcomed by his family nevertheless.

But she couldn't endure the situation as a 'Boche' and became psychotic. They had a son, but as he was six years old, she came to a mental hospital and stayed there for the rest of her life. Husband and son visited her at first often, in later years only rarely. But the husband never got a divorce, although he had a female friend later. Really nobody did shun him. On the contrary. I often asked myself why he never got a divorce, since he had only a wife in the legal but not in the real sense.

There are even marriages although one partner is already disabled at the first date. If this wouldn't happen I wouldn't exist.

Edit: Changed "on the first date" to "at the first date". Don't know if the second version is right. English is easy, but only without the prepositions:ROFLMAO:.
 
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I was very surprised at these statistics too and found it very sad. To abandon the one you professed to love for a lifetime when real illness sets in is appalling. That is the time to be strong, get help of course but never turn your back on duty. Because duty it is, in my opinion.
 
My religious mother who was a WAV nurse during WWII, cared many years for my father, her husband, after he developed a list of medical problems in early middle age with the most prominent Parkinson's and coronary heart disease. Probably a result of dangerous radiations on metal testing equipment before they adequately understood effects. Since he later in his career worked for U of Chicago and NASA, he received top medical treatment the rest of his life till passing at age 75. Caring for Dad was a significant burden on her life.
 
My dad left my mum in the end, went off with his pilot's wife from the war years. The pilot died and on the yearly RAF meetings, the Aussie widow of the pilot attended instead.
He left with her to live in Aussie. 6mths of the year lived out there then back in the UK for a few months at the family home. Then back to Aussie for 6mths etc etc
Plenty more to tell, but I'll leave it there. Too complicated to explain and I've shortformed it all.

I understand why he did it. They got married in 1948 and Mum started with her mental illness a couple of years into the marriage when I was 2 and sister 4. His life revolved bringing up 2 kids up and working, he didn't really have a life. He was of those who always 'did the right thing', duty and all that.

I s'pose by the time he got to his 60s he thought it was 'me' time. Kids grown up, got their own lives, wife still ill... bugger it.
 
My father cared for my mother for 24 years after she became disabled from Cushing's Syndrome. In the beginning she could walk using a walker and crutches and could even drive the car. Toward the end she was pretty much bedridden or in a wheelchair. My father did all the housework, cooking, had a garden and all the shopping. My brother's 2 children came there every week-end from the time they were small and he took care of them too.

They were married for 60 years and he died 10 years after her. I think the key was that they loved each very much. He never complained about caring for her. My mother never complained to him about anything. She would mention things to me but not complaints about my father, mostly how much pain she was in and sometimes she wanted to die.
 
Splitting up financially aka divorce is required if the chronic illness would eventually bankrupt both. Divorce does not necessarily mean abandoning your partner, or morally relieve one from the the duty of taking care of a chronically ill spouse, imo. There are of course exceptions and if mental illness is a chronic condition that would be one major exception.
 
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