Dear Prudence: Infidelity & Cancer discovered simultaneously

[minoanmiss]

Trapped: I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me the same week his test results came back confirming he has cancer, a highly aggressive kind. I went from bawling my eyes out and planning on deleting his number to holding him on the couch as he fell apart weeping. He begged me to stay and forgive him. I didn’t know what to do. I told him I forgave him and that I still loved him. I don’t. The truth festers in the back of my mind every time I get stressed or have to come over to care for him or talk to his family. All of them knew he was cheating on me—his brothers would cover for him when he was out with this girl when I called up. His mother even told me to my face how thankful she is that we “patched things up” since the other girl wouldn’t be here like I have been.

My boyfriend is facing brutal sessions of chemo and my only escape is work. All our friends tell me how brave I am, but I feel like a fraud and a chump. If I had broken up with him immediately, I would have been home-free. If he hadn’t gotten sick, I could be publicly mad and then move on—and worse, I know if the shoe was on the other foot, he would have left me. I am trapped. I don’t want to make my boyfriend any sicker. I don’t want him to die, but I also don’t want to devote the next several months to playing nurse to him. If I leave him now, I will get crucified. I mentioned still being hurt by his infidelity to a friend I considered myself close to; she asked how I can feel that way when he has cancer. Please help me.

A: Oh, I’m so sorry. This is just unbearably painful, and I’m additionally sorry that you’ve been pressured by friends and your boyfriend’s family to stay in a humiliating, loveless relationship just because your boyfriend is ill. You need to leave. You get to leave. He is not alone in the world; if his brothers were willing to coordinate over helping him cheat on you, they’ll be able to coordinate taking him to doctor’s appointments and chemo sessions now that he actually needs their help. You will not make him sicker by leaving; you did not give him cancer, and you cannot make it worse.


Please line up a session with a therapist who can help you plan out just how you’ll leave and who you can call to be in your corner when you do. I understand that the optics of the situation feel overwhelming, and just saying, “Don’t worry if his family thinks you’re a monster for leaving him when he has cancer” might seem flippant or dismissive of the very real fear of being seen as a bad person. But you don’t have to see those people again, and you can’t force yourself to stay in a miserable situation just so they’ll think you’re a sweetheart. He will find material and emotional support from his family and friends. The doctors will treat his cancer. You cannot offer him anything they cannot.

Please tell your own friends just how hard this situation has been on you and how much you need their help and support as you end this relationship. I hope your friend who tried to dismiss your pain in light of your soon-to-be-ex’s cancer is an outlier, but if you do meet with that objection, all you need to say is this: “I’m absolutely devastated that he’s sick, and I’m so glad that he’s getting treatment. I hope he recovers and has a long and healthy life. But to be trapped in a loveless relationship without trust was absolutely killing me. I couldn’t be helpful to either him or myself. The timing was awful and caused us both a lot of pain; trust me when I say this was the best possible outcome.”

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I wonder if Whole Man Disposal Service will do bulk hauls?

God I feel bad for LW. I wish I could give her my next paycheck towards faking her death and starting over in another city, or at least one friend who won't join everyone else in punishing her for leaving her cheating SO as if she were the embodiment of his cancer. I really hope things got better for her, and not worse with 2020. (this letter is from 2019)

[cereta]

Fun statistic: six times as many men leave wives if those wives become seriously ill as women leave men. I am trying to imagine a man writing this letter, and utterly failing.

[conuly]

Came here to cite that stat.

[lemonsharks]

I can imagine a gay man writing this letter. I can imagine a noninsignificant number of gay men in the 80s and 90s subbing "AIDs" out for "aggressive, fatal cancer" and simply not stating their own gender to the advice column.

I definitely can't see an allocishet man writing this letter though. Especially if his woman-partner had cheated.

[lemonsharks]

“Don’t worry if his family thinks you’re a monster for leaving him when he has cancer” might seem flippant or dismissive of the very real fear of being seen as a bad person.

I would like to tell the LW that she gets to not care what BF's relatives who facilitated his infidelity think of her. She is allowed to put their feelings into the box of "they get to feel what they feel far the fuck away from LW".

I would also advise LW to reframe the narrative with her own friends: He pressured her to stay. She can't trust whether he's being truthful about still loving her or just doesn't want to do cancer alone. She can't be his free 24 hour home health aid. She knows she's ~not supposed to say it~ but she didn't sign up for this.

Maybe throw in an, "It's like a switch turned off after I found out he'd had an affair and I can't turn it back on again. I don't love him and I'm afraid I'll be worse than useless, or even dangerous, to his health if I stay."

And I wish the advice had been clearer about reminding her friends that they're her friends first and she needs them to be fully and unquestionably on her side.

[jadelennox]

part of me wants to point out to the LW that bf -- and his brothers! -- put her life at risk for however long. An assumption of fidelity in a sexual relationship is a medical decision. LW sounds to me both like she's mostly aroud hets, and like she's young enough that she might not have been sexually active back when sex was scarier, but even though HIV's not a death sentence any more doesn't mean it's safe or okay to lie to your partner about something that could give them an STD. And in this day an age, that should be obvious. If you think your partner was out taking a walk, and actually he was sneaking into the ICU maskless, then you obviously have a right to be furious. Cheating and lying about it is dangerous, before you ever get to all the rest of the shit.

(It's the lying I'm mad about, to be clear. STDs mean that if you lie about how many people you're sleeping with you're preventing them from informed consent. He could be having orgies in the syphilis ward and that's fine as long as she knows.)

But LW is also a good person, seems like, and there's no way that leaving this guy (as she ought to) is going to leave her unscathed. She needs a trusted person--a therapist, a religious leader, the one friend who didn't tell her she's soooo nice--who can help her with the process. It's going to leave scars.

[likeaduck]

This is a tangent but:

IMO if you're only mad about the lying because of STI risk, you're not mad about the lying. And the comparison between cheating and lying and going into an ICU maskless makes it seem like you're suggesting that cheating sex is inherently a lot riskier than non-cheating sex, which is just not true, and risks perpetuating a link between STIs and moral behaviour that's not accurate and can be harmful--people have a hard enough time getting out of the mindset that getting an STI is a punishment for a moral failing without adding more links between those meanings when we're trying to navigate emotionally charged situation. Cheating means an unknown and unagreed-to level of (physical) risk, yes, but not necessarily a higher one that if it had been discussed or than existed previously. (It means a higher level of emotional risk certainly! And that's real, and it can feel like it should mean a much higher level of physical risk, but it doesn't actually give you that information.)

[jadelennox]

I mean, I'm not that mad about the lying, though I phrased it as if I were. I'm mad about the lack of informed consent.

makes it seem like you're suggesting that cheating sex is inherently a lot riskier than non-cheating sex

No, as I said, cheating sex inherently prevents the person cheated upon from making a risk calculation.

People have gone to the courts about being lied to during sex. They've claimed it was assault to be told their partner was cis when they were trans, and that's obviously bullshit. They've claimed it was assault to be told their partner was HIV negative when the partner knew they were positive, and that is something the courts have often upheld. A lie is not inherently risky. A "moral failing" is not inherently risky, and I don't believe in that kind of moral failing anyway.

To make it clear it's not a moral issue: I would be exactly the same kind of angry if the partner decided to selflessly volunteer in the covid ward without informing LW. Or if they saved someone from a dirty bomb and decided to store the spent uranium in the basement for safety without telling their partner. Dating someone, sleeping with someone, exchanging bodily fluids with someone: these are risk calculations, and once you start having that relationship with someone, you assume the essentials havent chanced. People have a right to make informed ones.

[likeaduck]

I'm not saying people don't have the right to make informed choices. I'm saying, I think it's worth examining what's informing the amount of energy you're bringing to an analogy when the only comparisons you make are as high risk as COVID wards and spent uranium.

[jadelennox]

I think it's worth examining what's informing the amount of energy you're bringing to an analogy

Uh-huh.

[tielan]

My question to LW is: what happens after he dies/beats the cancer?

I kinda feel like the cancer shouldn't be part of the equation at all. It's obfuscating the basic fact that she has someone she was in a relationship with who cheated and lied and whose family enabled him with that cheating and lying - someone who doesn't respect her.

Is that going to change if she nurses him through cancer? Or will he pick himself up, find someone else, and leave her bawling and deleting his number from her phone all over again...only this time it'll be after he's used up to another 5 years of her life looking after someone she doesn't actually love anymore?

A note about friends: if I had a friend who was caring for a ne'er-do-well through his personal crisis of whatever, if I valued the friendship and didn't know how to address the issue subtly and sidewise, I would tell them they were strong and amazing and I couldn't do what they were doing - with absolute truth. She might find that her friends are of the "oh god, I'm so glad you dumped him, he was a complete tool but I didn't dare say" persuasion.

[cimorene]

if I valued the friendship and didn't know how to address the issue subtly and sidewise, I would tell them they were strong and amazing and I couldn't do what they were doing - with absolute truth.

+1. When they say they talked to him and he's says he still loves her and she's going to try and make it work, you... can't really say "No, but it really sounded like you were going to dump him! What happened to that???"