The news of Elizabeth Edwards' death on Tuesday saddened me on many levels, not only the way in which her 32-year marriage to John came to an end, but also that two of her children are still so young.
People talk about good divorces and bad divorces, but what most of us consider a bad divorce typically has to do with money or nastiness and manipulations. I'll agree that those can be pretty ugly, but there are some divorces that are beyond bad divorces, the "who would do that?" divorces, the Mother of All Divorces divorces. Those would be when splitting causes an additional incomprehensible pain to a spouse and the children.
For instance, the Edwards'. They separated and Elizabeth filed for divorce within days after John admitted, yeah, I did father a baby with Rielle Hunter -- at the same time that Elizabeth was battling the incurable cancer that ultimately killed her. How painful is that?
John McCain's divorce was no better. His was schtupping a younger babe while wife No. 1, Carol, was barely recuperated from a devastating and disfiguring car accident. Then he dumped her to marry his mistress, now Mrs. Cindy McCain. Nice.
It seems especially callous to cheat on and divorce a partner who's sick or suffering. And yet, it isn't all that unusual. Not too long ago some doctors noticed an odd pattern in their oncology practices -- too many of their patients, female patients that is, were suddenly getting divorced. A study last year, "Gender Disparity in the Rate of Partner Abandonment in Patients with Serious Medical Illness," backed their observations.
The odd thing about the aptly named "partner abandonment" is how big a role gender plays in it. Women who are diagnosed with cancer or multiple sclerosis are six times more likely to find themselves separated or divorced shortly after their diagnosis than if they were a man, according to the study.
As if that wasn't enough, the older the woman, the more likely she was headed for splitsville, resulting, not surprisingly, in some serious impacts on her health and quality of life.
What would drive a man to abandon his wife at the time she needed him most? The study's authors don't quite answer that -- who can really know? -- but they cite other studies that indicate men are "less able to undertake a caregiving role and assume the burdens of home and family maintenance compared with women. Thus a woman becomes willing sooner in the marriage to commit to the burdens of having a sick spouse."
As a twice-married and twice-divorced woman, I know what the researchers are talking about. One of my fantasies is that my partner wouldn't mind -- dare I say enjoy -- pampering me just a little when I'm sick as I so willingly do when he's feeling crappy.
What gives, guys?
Another beyond-bad divorce scenario is when a cheating spouse ends up shacking up with or marrying his or her lover and there are kids involved, as in McCain's case. I can't even imagine how to begin that conversation with your kids let alone spin it to be a good thing, especially if they now have to live with the woman or man who helped destroy their family. A few of my friends have been those kids, and the anger and resentment even decades later haven't totally gone away.
Not that I think explaining why you dumped Mom when she was sick would be any easier.
Then there are the double betrayals -- think Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Soon-Yi Previn. Losing your spouse to a good friend -- or your own child -- would pretty much suck.
All of which makes me so thankful that my divorce falls into the "good" category. Sure, there are many times that we're frustrated and disappointed with each other; if we weren't, I'm guessing we'd still be married.
But in some weird stroke of luck, I ended up following Nora Ephron's sage advice: Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from.
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I think how a child is raised has a lot to do with how they act and react to things when they are adults.
I have been very fortunate to have a husband who has stuck by me through the years with all my physical troubles. There have been times when I have begged him to divorce me because he really does deserve someone healthy and active and I feel I am a dead weight around his neck. But he won't go. He says he loves me "whether I am heavy or thin, hairy or bald, short or tall, walking or not, scarred or blemish free." He says he loves "me", not what's on the outside but what's on the inside, for what I am, not what you or anyone else can 'see'. When I'm having a really rough day and think my life sucks and my luck is rotten, I remember how lucky I am to have such a wonderful guy in my life. He definitely has earned his 'wings'.
I think that's one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me. Thank you.
I am your number one fan!
May you have a fabulous weekend!
Imagine finding out you have a serious health issue, and your partner through gritted teeth announces they will "stick with you". No love. No warmth. Just a grim statement of fact. So if you're not terminal, you have the joy of knowing that the only thing they feel is resigned.
How do you live with someone, knowing that is ALL they feel?
The hallmark specials make all the spouses look like saints, but in real life, resentment builds in both directions. When one partner is limited, they not only must accept their illness, or injury AND what it does to them...but how their partner feels about it as well.
I'm not surprised that their is divorce after Cancer...I just wonder if its all "one sided'. I think you'll find that after a life altering illness, many people look at life...and their partners in a different light.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/eddie-montgomery-divorce-_n_791142.html
Now, to your point, Elizabeth (RIP) decided to leave John, John didn't abandon her, in fact John and Elizabeth never actually filed divorce papers,where Eddies so-called "wife" decided to leave him for no apparent reason other than his having prostrate cancer. Out of all the comments on that story, a majority were from men. Few if any comments mind you, were from any of the great numbers opinionated divorce bloggers that I see expressing here regularly.
My real problem is that In one breath you mention so-called statistics stating men are more often the guilty party in the abandonment, and then you ask shouldn't it be genderless? I am sorry I just can't understand the duplicity.
I don't agree with you. I've heard women use that excuse to sleep with someone's husband but its just wrong. As for the husbands coping with illness. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2010 and when I came from my first drs. visit with my husband of 17 yrs, the look in his face said it all.....in fact, he acted like he was very angry with me. I started screaming, in the car..saying, oh my God, "whose going to take care of me".....turns out I went through chemo, he didn't lift a hand to do anything for me. and if I asked it would end in a big fight. I drove myself to the appts and treatment and pick up fast foods on the way back, or cook enough food on my good days that would carry me over on the bad days, for 6 mos. I can't leave because my health insurance it through his retirement and I'm unable to work So as long as he pays the mortgage and not put his freakin hands on me, I'm fine. Right now, I'm having radiation, which seem to have less an effect and has moved out of our bedroom, and am doing fine. I just act like he doesn't exist. He seems to be trying to make amends. but I don't think I will ever feel the same about him. He denies it happened.
I thought "through sickness and through health" pretty much took care of that.
Perhaps my main point is precisely that rather than tacitly trusting glib adages such as "through sickness and through health", it bodes well for couples to have realistic expectations and conversations before entering into long term relationships. Unfortunately, the ambient culture and consumerism prefer to aggressively push for fluffy romances and impulse decisions.
Temptations of all sorts are out there every day; you're either the kind of person who says yes to them or you're not.
I've never personnaly witnessed divorces when one partner was sick, but it must be the most awful situation ever :(
"Another beyond-bad divorce scenario is when a cheating spouse ends up shacking up with or marrying his or her lover and there are kids involved. I can't even imagine how to begin that conversation with your kids let alone spin it to be a good thing, especially if they now have to live with the woman or man who helped destroy their family."
That, I've woefully witnessed. And yes, even decades after the divorce and second wedding, it's still ugly. The worse is that some ex-cheaters, now happily re-married, have the nerve to ask aloud WHY their kids don't seem to appreciate their new spouse!
(personal testimony :
"They are grown-up now, don't they see how he/she and my new family (sic) make me happy?!"
"Erm, I'm sorry to tell you that, but I think they didn't care before, they don't now, and they probably never will.")
Husbands used to being the extra-child become burdensome when a woman realizes she actually wants a partner when faced with her own mortality. Many things come into focus during crisis and it is not always about the guys that can't deal.
As a woman who's been married a couple of decades myself now, I also think we all need to get over the romanticizing of "in sickness and health". My husband and I have discussed that he may not persevere if I became critically ill. This is a man who I depend upon completely and who has never let me down our entire marriage. But I don't view the reality of his perhaps needing to distance himself if I become severely ill as his failure.
If you have never been seriously ill, or have never seen someone seriously ill it may be hard to accept that the circumstances can be so extreme that the usual delusional and comfy rules don't apply.
It's complicated and should not necessarily be presumed to be a tragedy. Certainly my friends who left their marriages in between chemo sessions don't view the experience as an automatic badge of victimhood, but rather an defiant expression of survival and selfhood.
For the spouse left behind, it is the ultimate form of betrayal. For me, I lost the love of my life and who I thought I knew for almost 30 years.
If you are married with children and have a lover, think with your brain instead of your genitals.
Since being separated, I've stopped counting how many married men have come on to me and even asked if I wanted to go out for a drink. Here's my standard line now, "Shame on you. I would NEVER to do another woman and family what has been done to me." Stops them in their tracks every time.