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It's sad, but I volunteer and this old guy came in today and we always ask if anything has changed in the household. He told me he has advanced lung cancer and his GF left him as she just couldn't handle it. She'd seen two other people go through deaths with cancer.
This got me thinking - what kind of person would do this? Would I do this? Would it depend on how attached or unattached I was? If I were attached, how could I just leave the person to die on his or her own? If I were not that attached, why would I abandon someone in their time of need? Now, I've never had to go through this, so maybe I don't know what I am talking about.
I haven't had to deal with that, thankfully, but I'd like to think I would not abandon a person going through something like cancer. I'm simply not that kind of person. Heck, the other day this lady tripped on the escalators at a Metro station and I was one of only two people who went up and made sure she was alright.
I'd feel like crap if I just turned my back on a friend who was dying.
I think this is one of those situations that is hard to say unless you go through in personally. One the one hand, I like to think I am not the sort of person who would turn her back on people in need. but then again, what if I were living with a man who I wanted to marry but he didn't want to marry me? He deliberated decided that the pledge "in sickness and in health" was not important to him. I think in such case I would not be a bad person in folding my hand and moving on. As I type this, it sounds a little cold to me. I'm not saying I would leave, but I sure do understand why a person would in the situation I describe. That said, I am not in the Marriage is Just a Piece of Paper camp, so no wonder I think this way.
It's sad, but I volunteer and this old guy came in today and we always ask if anything has changed in the household. He told me he has advanced lung cancer and his GF left him as she just couldn't handle it. She'd seen two other people go through deaths with cancer.
This got me thinking - what kind of person would do this? Would I do this? Would it depend on how attached or unattached I was? If I were attached, how could I just leave the person to die on his or her own? If I were not that attached, why would I abandon someone in their time of need? Now, I've never had to go through this, so maybe I don't know what I am talking about.
Anyway, what do you think and what would you do?
Shocking as it is, this stuff happens sometimes. Some people just get really freaked out when death may be immenient and don't handle it well - they run away.
While I may WISH I could run away at a time like that, if it were my husband there is no way I would.
Well, this was a BF-GF situation. I guess one never knows until one is faced with it. I'd like to think I'd be strong enough not to run away and leave someone alone. I think it would haunt me the rest of my life, and I do try to think of the long term when I make decisions.
On the surface, yeah, it does sound reprehensible to leave a loved one or even a friend when they need you the most. But the sad fact is that some people simply cannot handle seeing someone they care about in pain; they're just not built for the turmoil, nor do they have the inner strength to tough it out. I think that we should try to refrain from criticising such people too harshly, however, as most of them will probably end-up punishing themselves quite sufficiently through the guilt they will suffer later on.
I don't think I could abandon the person, I think I now myself well enough to say that, because I have a high sense of loyalty. However some things about ourselves we really never know until in actual situation.
But as far as sex, say I was married and my wife was incapacitated and sex wasn't happening, I would need to w*a*n*k* and that means porn. If she thought that was betrayal, well then there would be a issue.
I knew a couple - they were in their 50's but they were really cute together - she had grown children. He was a good looking guy. He developed lung cancer and became reclusive. It broke her heart. She really loved him.
He did pass away but I ran into her about 10 years ago and still she loved him after all that time (20 years had passed).
It can literally be too painful to stand by and watch. When someone you care for starts to wither away, becoming a shell of the person they used to be, their illness can start to take you down as well.
Sometimes, when someone gets sick, their personality can change drastically. They can become violent, cruel, withdrawn, paranoid, whatever. There can be a point you reach where you stop being a couple, and become more like a parent/child. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, when you've lost all contact with family, friends, the outside world, compounded with a horribly sedentary lifestyle, lack of proper nutrition and medical care, frustration, lack of sleep, lack of sex, lack of any physical or emotional contact, can drive a person to insanity, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide.
Ask yourself, if you really love someone, would you want them to have to go through all of that if you became ill? Would you want them to literally kill themself to take care of you? Or, would you mutually agree that there could be a point in your relationship when they could no longer be effective, and you would need the proper type of professional medical care, where they could freely leave, when they felt it was the right time, to move on with their life?
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Years ago....
