On Being The Bad Woman Who Left A Dying Man

I saw this story in New York Post flippantly describing a woman who divorced her husband with cancer. The headline claims she divorced him because he “killed her vibe,” but the reality is probably so much deeper.

I once took care of a sick man who was not my husband. He wanted me to commit to him, and he proposed while he was still sick.

I didn’t know if he was going to live.

Far from being romantic, it felt like entrapment.

Let’s be real: If you’re a woman who doesn’t want to take care of a dying man for years and years, you’re the bad guy.

When considering this marriage, I thought about being a widow before age 30. I thought about how unfair it was for him to ask me something like that — to ask me to focus on death when I should be building my life.

His fear and the societal pressure weighed on me.

I know a couple of other women who refused to marry dying men. We don’t talk about it much. Maybe we should. We probably both endured the same criticism.

Here are 5 reasons I didn’t want to marry a sick man:

1. He often used his sickness to treat me poorly

Years later, when I took care of my aunt who had cancer, I realized that abuse did not have to be a part of caring for someone.

I realized something difficult: You need boundaries even when someone is potentially dying.

I always had to give in because he was sick, and I was always the bad person if I wanted to do something.

2. It felt like he wanted to marry me so I would be his free nurse and maid

It felt like he wanted to marry me out of fear, and because he wanted security.

Of course, marriage vows include sickness and health, and that’s what everyone always points to. But I didn’t want to go into it with sickness at the forefront.

At the time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get married ever…but if I did, I wanted to start with hope and promise.

3. I didn’t really want to get married, and it felt like something I was being pressured to do

How could I be so mean as to deny the wishes of a dying man, over something so silly like … not wanting to get married?

4. I was becoming more and more depressed

I started to feel like the woman in the New York Post article. Like death was the only way out of a situation where I was being steamrolled and my desires and dreams didn’t matter.

For how long? Would I have to do this for years, for the rest of my life? This was love?

5. What if he didn’t die? What if he lived?

Then I would be trapped in an abusive relationship with this man.

I suspected that even if he healed, the manipulative — and eventually outright abusive behaviour — would not stop.

And then what? Til Death Do Us Part. I would die with him.

I wasn’t married, so I didn’t receive the same backlash when I decided I had enough.

Even so, it’s hard to talk about. I know people will see me as a bad partner, a bad woman, and a bad caregiver.

However, I care less about that: I took care of someone with cancer at Johns Hopkins, and we kicked a**, as did that whole medical team.

Wedding vows mention sickness and health, but not enduring lifelong abuse.

And it’s possible to take care of someone without feeling like you yourself are dying, too. Taking care of someone does not mean you sacrifice everything you are, or that you have no boundaries.

It means you’re a team, it means you find support, and it means you keep doing what you love in any way you can.

It’s not entrapment or bullying or using societal expectations to coerce someone into doing something they know is bad for their own health.