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I've never been married so I'm asking as an observer.....
Do you think spouses who've been married longer -- owe each other more than spouses who've been married a short time?
Examples:
-- An acquaintance in her mid-sixties married her second husband, whom she'd known only a short time. a year -and-a-half after they married, she fell in her apartment (where they lived) -- and broke her neck and became paralyzed from the neck down. (Supposedly they were in the early process of separating when she fell)
-- A couple married, two years in he gets a brain injury, a few years a later the wife feels she must leave, due to how he's changed emotionally.
-- What about tragedies of newlyweds injured on their honeymoon?
In cases like these, or even others I suppose, do you think if these couples had been married for 20, 30, 40 years -- instead of two or less -- that the uninjured spouse would stay in the marriage, or "owe" the other spouse the commitment of staying and caring for the injured spouse??
Or is feeling the level of commitment separate from how long one has been married??
You completely misunderstand the concept of marriage. The minute one or both partners in a marriage think in a transactional nature, that's when the marriage is doomed.
It's such an individual decision. There's no right or wrong way to look at it.
Some might want to care for and be with a permanently injured spouse, others would sink under the responsibility. Many would feel their life choices should be about them, would choose to divorce and move on...neither is an easy decision.
And no one should find fault with someone's choice. It's a spot none of us would want to find ourselves in....
The husband, of a friend of mine, suffered a traumatic brain injury due to car accident. He ended up with mental capabilities of a eight or nine year old child. At the time, they had two young children about the same age. It was just too difficult for everyone, including the children, to have the father continue living in the same house. He could not really be a "father" to his children, nor a "husband" to his wife. He moved into a group home. Both his children and his now ex-wife occasionally visit him, but he is not the same man as before the accident. This was 25 years ago. His children are now fully functioning adults and he is still an eight or nine year old child.
My friend, was only in her 30s, at the time of the accident, and needed to continue working to support the children, save for her retirement, etc, she could not quit her job and care for her husband full time.
Now, in the case of my husband and his TBI, while in some ways he was functioning like a child, in many ways he was still an adult. He still could read college level books and carry on intelligent, adult conversations and watch the same TV shows and read the newspaper (most of the time). But, he could not handle his own medications, or use the stove or microwave, or be unsupervised, or handle money, so in those ways he was like a child. Maybe if he was completely like a child, in all ways, it would have been more difficult for me to care for him.
I've seen two marriages end from results of injuries...
one guy became a paraplegic, his young wife left....married only briefly. She was just overwhelmed.
The other guy had a head injury with profound personality changes...belligerent, angry, abusive. The wife left of course, even though they had been married quite a while and almost grown kids.
You can't imagine how people can change emotionally unless you've see it...I witnessed his personality changes....and would have left too.
I know someone like that as well. He was a Vietnam vet who subsequently got into a terrible car accident 25 years ago and suffered massive head injuries. When he recovered, he was pretty much back in Saigon. Says killing is the only reality, things like that.
His wife had three kids with him and stayed. During his recovery, she met a man who fell in love with her and asked her to divorce her husband and marry him. She said no, that she couldn't do that, but she remained close friends with this man until his death earlier this year. Whether it went beyond friendship or not, I don't personally know, but she was heartbroken when he died. Her husband is still alive.
Another case I knew were friends of my parents. They got married and three weeks later he went to Korea. Came back paralyzed from the waist down. She stayed with him into old age, but there were always rumors of affairs.
Me personally, to be honest and (hopefully) not surprisingly, I’d probably end the marriage if I were in that situation myself. I’m not up for care taking in any fashion.
Why would you get INto a marriage if you know that about yourself?
I love you. I'm here for you. I'm committed to you...unless of course you should ever really need me to be there for you.
Not judging. Just trying to flesh out your thoughts on the marriage commitment and what it really means.
This was 25 years ago. His children are now fully functioning adults and he is still an eight or nine year old child.
My friend, was only in her 30s, at the time of the accident, and needed to continue working to support the children, save for her retirement, etc, she could not quit her job and care for her husband full time.
Did his family abandon him in the facility...or do they still visit.
Do the children love their father? Do they care about him....or is he just a burden and "guy they really don't know."
Did your friend make sure they knew the kind of man their father was before his accident?
Why would you get INto a marriage if you know that about yourself?
I love you. I'm here for you. I'm committed to you...unless of course you should ever really need me to be there for you.
Not judging. Just trying to flesh out your thoughts on the marriage commitment and what it really means.
No lie, even though I was willing to care for my ex, especially for physical issues, I had reservations about marrying him. I knew I was just accepting my fate, resigned, not very happy being with him pretty early on. I just didn't believe I could do better, was afraid I could do a lot worse, and we had kids together so I was trying to "do the right thing." Also, strangely perhaps, I did not want to disappoint his mother either. I loved her, she is a wonderful woman. And she loved her son the way a mother does, and I just never had it in me to look her in the eye and tell her that he was not someone I could truly give my heart to. So I tried. They say you can fake it 'til you make it, after all.
I had come to believe that marrying for true love, real reciprocal loving feelings, that just wasn't in the cards for me and maybe it was a juvenile fantasy. That being grown up meant making sacrifices and this was one of them. I felt like a fraud, speaking the vows, and knowing he felt things that I did not.
So as far as what a marriage commitment "really means"...you know, we can talk about what it ideally should mean...but I think in the real world, people do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. If everyone who got married had true, deep love on both sides and meant every one of their vows with a whole and honest heart, there might be way fewer divorces. You know?
The husband, of a friend of mine, suffered a traumatic brain injury due to car accident. He ended up with mental capabilities of a eight or nine year old child. At the time, they had two young children about the same age. It was just too difficult for everyone, including the children, to have the father continue living in the same house. He could not really be a "father" to his children, nor a "husband" to his wife. He moved into a group home. Both his children and his now ex-wife occasionally visit him, but he is not the same man as before the accident. This was 25 years ago. His children are now fully functioning adults and he is still an eight or nine year old child.
My friend, was only in her 30s, at the time of the accident, and needed to continue working to support the children, save for her retirement, etc, she could not quit her job and care for her husband full time.
(snip).
Quote:
Originally Posted by selhars
Did his family abandon him in the facility...or do they still visit.
Do the children love their father? Do they care about him....or is he just a burden and "guy they really don't know."
Did your friend make sure they knew the kind of man their father was before his accident?
The family did not abandon him in the group home. In fact, his children regularly visited him, but I was told that it was pretty awkward at times because the man could sort of remember being their father and would sometimes try to give them "fatherly advice" but had the mental level of an eight or nine year old so the advice did not always make sense.
It was actually better when his children were adults and they treated him like you would treat an elderly grandparent with dementia or Alzheimer's. While they "loved" him and cared about him it really was not a father/child relationship and I believe that their contact dwindled over the years.
I'm not exactly sure how old they were at the time of the accident, perhaps 6 and 8 or maybe 7 and 9, so they were old enough to remember some things about him from before the accident, but it wasn't like they were teenagers and they had their whole childhood with him as their father.
His ex-wife visited/visits him occasionally but it was difficult as he "sort of" knew they were married but in many ways it did not make sense to him (as he sort of thought of himself as a child).
I remember reading a true story a few years back. Husband and wife, madly in love, married for a short time when she got into an accident and suffered a head injury.
When she came out of her coma, a nurse told her that her husband had been by her side every day and would be back shortly, and she said, "I'm not married."
It turned out she had no memory from the time just before she had met her husband. She didn't know who he was.
They stuck together, but it was very difficult for him because they had been so in love, and to her, he was a stranger who lived with her.
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