Something I've been thinking about

[Guest]

There has been something on my mind. I wish to ask the benefit of your experience here. I was reading another thread and realized that I may just have been completely stupid. I'll just relate the facts and see what you think.

 

Before Aug 2002 -- both of us led busy lives with late nights at work, friends catching up afterwards etc.

 

August 2002 -- diagnosed with a critical illness. Sick for 10 months including treatment. Partner was late to appointment that day - have still never found out why.

 

Sept 2002 -- start treatment and partner comes to first one. Treatment finishes. Partner rushes off to work same day.

 

Mid Sept 2002 -- next treatment. Partner declines to attend treatment with me. I'm left alone and afraid. No talking to me, no touching, no hugs nothing.

 

October 2002 -- continues pretty much like late Sept. I go back to work part-time though. Partner's work takes him overseas for 3 weeks. Still no essential contact. Still late home from work and working on the weekends.

 

November 2002 -- I'm working, going to treatments, lose my hair, weight, sanity etc. Still alone and frightened. Partner's work hours are even later 9pm on some nights. Still not attending treatment. He makes comment of "don't take off your hat, I don't want to remember you being bald". I'm beginning to slow down some with effect of treatment. I'm sleeping alot. My Mom comes to take care of me because HE isn't home enough - despite his company offering him PAID LEAVE in September to take care of me. AND they paid for all my treatment. He still "goes to work".

 

December 2002 -- I leave work on sick leave for 5 months. I start next course of treatment (radiotherapy). End up with skin burns. Very bad, deep skin burns. No talking continues, no hugs, no sex or intimacy. We still share a bed but I can stretch my arm out and still not touch him! I'm so ill I can barely keep awake and talking to him isn't an option.

 

January 2003 -- Radium finishes. Other treatment continues. Burns get worse. I get infection and spend 3 days comatose at home with my Mom refusing to allow the medical team admit to hospital because I get an infection from hospital and I'm history. 3rd day, I pull through with IV antibiotics. All this time, he carries on as normal. He's by now, sleeping downstairs on a futon. Still working during the week and weekends. My Mom is my sole carer, cleaning up my being sick and holding me in pain. My Mom, not my partner.

 

February 2003 -- Burns finally start to heal. I start to pick up. Continue treatments. Still no talking, no hugging, no sex (not that I could even contemplate it anyways but even so the desire from him isn't there). Nothing.

 

March 2003 -- treatment finishes. I'm physically, emotionally and spiritually at the lowest point in my life that I will ever reach. I am also alone and isolated because my partner continues to be absent.

 

April 2003 -- I go to work for assessment to go back! I want back in the real world asap. I convince the Doc I'm good for resuming after a month holiday first.

 

May 2003 -- Go back to work. Partner still absent. It's about this time, I start to notice some things. He has opened a 'secret' hotmail account. I have no idea why seeing as we use each other's work mail for mails. Also, we start to get a couple of 'wrong numbers' to the house. Our number is unlisted but it IS nearly identical to a local business that went bust a few years ago. I ask for it to be changed. He has a FIT..!! Citing that he now has to tell all his family and friends.

 

May thru to November 2003 -- we start arguing. I can't do anything right. He still works long hours and his cell phone is always uncontactable. Then late November it happens. A girl calls the house. "Is Martha there please..?" We have NEVER had a residential wrong number. All of them have been people trying to contact this business. This one 'wrong number' is picked up by me. I say "no, I'm sorry what number were you trying to call..?" and she replied with my number !!!! So I explain that the number is correct but there is no Martha here. She then proceeds to argue and say that I must be mistaken and can I put her on the phone. This at the time feels a little weird. We lived in this house at that point for 6 years. Nothing like this ever happened. I say no, sorry and put down the phone. I tell him about it when he gets home and he suddenly looks very interested. Me..? My radar is up.

 

March 2004 -- finally we split. I ask him to leave after hanging in over Christmas and New Year and feeling completely crappy about the situ. The problem is, I asked him to leave because I believe HE had already abandoned me anyways. I needed to go on with my life.

 

Since then, it's haunted me and I saw a post here tonight where the spouse isn't recognising that her H is having an affair. My problem at the moment is it has been really hard for me to get over him... and I'm still struggling. Even now, he has a 'new girlfriend' and he says he still loves me. But when I ended things, I felt responsible... like I'd bailed out and given up... and that's haunting me. I can't get past this idea of "we split but we never said we didn't love each other" and we didn't and this whole idea that it was my fault it's killing me because I know what happened and how I felt. I felt abandoned when I needed him most.

 

This evening it hit home. It's likely he was cheating when I was sick wasn't he..? I think maybe this may be what I'm looking for - something which has been staring me in the face the last 3 years and I've refused to believe it because of what WE had and what WE meant to each other. Now, I'm questioning everything. I think he cheated.

 

You guys with your experience in this... what do you think..?

[norajane]

I don't know if he was cheating or not, but it sure sounds like you had a lot of really good reasons to ask him to leave even without that. A man who can't give you any support during a long, serious illness and serious treatment isn't the kind of man you want in your life...he's not a partner, in any sense. That he left without discussion when you asked him to is another sign that you didn't belong together.

 

Good luck, sweets. I'm glad to hear you're on the road to recovery. Take care of yourself.

[FredTravels]

Keep in mind that people react to tragedy and adversity in many different ways. I mourned my mom's death in my own way, but there was no way in hell I was going to the funeral home to pick up her ashes.

[Mz. Pixie]

First of all, congratulations to your for surviving your illness- which sounds like cancer or leukemia. You're tough and a survivor and you have lots to be proud of!!!

 

He was an ass to do this to you while you were ill. Often times however people just cannot stand up to the suffering of their partner/wife. Even in storybook relationships.

 

My best friend died from cancer over 10 years ago. She'd been married almost nine years at that time to her childhood sweetheart. He practically worshipped the ground she walked on. He was an awesome husband, father, everything a woman could want. I had never seen a man love a woman like that. Yet her illness and her eventual passing changed him completely. He remarried less than six months after her death.

 

He had to separate from that and find happiness or die I think. He was going out in the middle of the night and laying on top of her grave he was grieving so bad.

 

After thinking about it, I came to the realization that he was probably cheating on her before she died with this woman. Did it make me angry-yeah- at first it did. Very angry. Yet no one knows what he went through but him. I know that he loved her and was good to her up until the end.

 

Is it terrible that he did you this way?? Absolutely. But people process things in different ways. Most likely he was being selfish because you were sick and unable to support him, be with him or whatever like you had before.

 

Often times this happens in relationships when one person is very ill. It's not right no, but it happens.

 

You need to forget about him. You've been given a new chance in life to be happy. Take that chance and do not let anyone give you less than you deserve. I wish you good health going forward.

[Chinook]

Hi Guys, it was me who posted. I hadn't realised it had logged me out! (wondered why they wanted the image things entering). Anyways...

 

Mz Pix: Thanks. Yes, it was an aggressive breast cancer which had already spread when treated. We don't know if it will come back or not. Your friend's relationship sounds very much like my own was. I think this is why it has been so difficult for me. I was the one who on the surface walked away. But, it was a case of jumping before getting pushed you know. Also, a piece of information I think might have been crucial which only occurred to me after posting this is that the 'new' girlfriend is someone who my ex-partner works with day-to-day. Just all the late times from work and the issues with telephone calls and not being able to contact him and working weekends, it kinda sits crooked with me. You're right though, I'll never really know. Just reading about Milf the other night made me wonder had I been in denial all along.

 

FredTravels: Yes, I know. I don't think that's an excuse for being absent though. I'm sorry. I know it upset him. But, the cruel fact is the cancer happened to me, not him. As Norajane said, when it came down to it he plainly just didn't step up to the plate, no matter how he felt. He didn't fall apart. He didn't once cry or weep with anguish... essentially he plain carried on like I wasn't there..!!

 

Norajane: Thanks lady. Yes, you're right and when I'm looking at the issue of 'responsibility' and why it ended, I try to remind myself of this fact. I once told someone that just because you love someone does not mean that you want them to ruin the rest of your life and I felt that having let me down at a most critical time in my life, I couldn't possibly rely upon him or trust him again... especially not with the spectre of the cancer possibly reoccurring looming in my future. In essence, he failed and I didn't stop it - but to be fair, I was in no condition to do so and so he should have known better. I just wonder whether he failed because he simply didn't want to succeed.

 

It's been two years now since we split. My Macmillan nurse who counselled me after I was diagnosed once told me that it can take up to 2-3 years minimum to grieve for a significant loss like this so I guess some of it is that I'm just trying to still make sense of not just his actions but my own too.... afterall, it doesn't really make sense that if you really love someone to let them go. (sigh) But... that said, today is a good day and I feel like talking these things through is helping. I've talked them through before but never really made any headway. Re-visiting and different perspectives seem to help alot.