Dear Prudence: My Ex Is Dying...

[minoanmiss]

...I Want to Take Care of Her During Her Final Days. My Fiancée Says Absolutely Not.



Dear Prudence,

After graduate school, I had a serious girlfriend, “Sasha.” We were very much in love, super compatible, and lived together for a few years, but I wanted kids and she didn’t. The relationship was so good that we stayed together for five years trying to change our own minds on the subject but at the end of the day, we split up. It was heartbreaking for us both but because of the reason or the breakup, we were able to stay friends. We kept in touch, checked in at holidays, major life events, etc. We gave each other advice (not on dating!) and had drinks every so often. We even reconnected intimately and tried to give it another go a couple of years after the split but the kids thing was still too big an issue.

Anyway, a couple of years ago, I moved across the country from our hometown and met my now fiancée, “Kelly.” My contact with Sasha naturally kind of tapered off to just birthdays and the like. Kelly is amazing. Now I just learned from Sasha’s best friend that Sasha has stage 4 cancer. The friend was in my new town and ended up spilling this over drinks. Sasha has no family so her friends have really stepped up to take her to appointments, cook for her, etc. Best Friend was explaining that they’re happy to do it but it’s really hard because they almost all have young kids and work. And Sasha is super reluctant to be a burden so Best Friend is worried things are falling through the cracks.

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Here’s the thing: The nature of my job and my finances means I can work from anywhere. I’d really like to (with Sasha’s permission of course, which Best Friend was also positive she would give) return to our hometown and help. I could take up the burden of the appointments, the cooking and shopping. I know it would be a huge help to her friends, and I still care a lot about Sasha.

Kelly, my fiancée, said absolutely not. I explained I could afford to rent a small place near Sasha and fly home to Kelly for at least a week a month but that this was something I really wanted to do. It wouldn’t be forever. I hate to be blunt but it’s unlikely she will go into remission. I have explained over and over that I love Kelly and I’m not trying to rekindle a romance with an ex who is battling cancer! I just feel that I have the time and resources to help someone who meant a lot to me. Kelly thinks it’s too much and that I’m choosing Sasha over her. We keep going around in circles and I feel like time is slipping by. I haven’t even mentioned this all to Sasha because I don’t want to offer to come if Kelly isn’t going to be supportive. But I’m growing frustrated with Kelly and vice versa. I love her and I don’t want to lose her but I also really want to be there for Sasha. What do I do?

—Not a Walk to Remember

This may not be A Walk to Remember, but you and Sasha are certainly giving Nicholas Sparks a run for his money. I don’t say this to indicate that you belong together or that this is fate or anything of the sort, but I can see how it seems that way for Kelly. As I read your question, I felt for all parties involved. If we’re being as unemotional as possible (ha! A tall order), it is an unimaginable gift for you to be with Sasha in what are most likely her final months of life, simply to provide caregiving for a former love. I can understand why you feel compelled to do so, especially knowing she doesn’t have anyone else. But this will create an issue in your current relationship. I don’t agree with Kelly’s perception that choosing to care for Sasha means you want to be with her romantically, but I understand why it would be difficult for her to believe that is true.

This is complicated, and I wish I could offer you a clear option forward, but this situation can illuminate many truths for you. I think your way forward is to ask yourself a series of questions and mull over your answers. You love Kelly, and you don’t want to lose her, so you have to ask yourself: Are you willing to risk your relationship? And if you don’t go to Sasha, how will that change your perception of Kelly and your feelings about her? Who do you want to be for Sasha? Who do you want to be for Kelly? But most importantly, who do you want to be at this current moment? Can you live with being whoever you become after you’ve made your choice?

Comments

[jadelennox]

Can you live with being whoever you become after you’ve made your choice?

This is what I was thinking through the whole letter. What a shit situation all around. In the end, this comes down to a set of very practical choices. Ten years from now, LW could be the person who married Kelly but never saw Sasha again, or spent six terrible months with Sasha but lost Kelly. Pick one.

(There are other possibilities, but those are the two up for discussion.)

[lethe1]

I think if LW decides not to go and care for Sasha because Kelly is opposed, LW may start to feel a lot of resentment towards Kelly after Sasha has passed.

[rmc28]

For real. I find my instinctive sympathy is with the LW and their desire to care for Sasha; in their shoes I'd be tempted to tell Kelly that it wasn't a choice between her and Sasha, but she sure is making it one, and not in a good way.

[ellen_fremedon]

And they've learned that they and Kelly have some differences around jealousy and the primacy of romantic relationships that they need to work through, whether or not LW goes to care for Sasha.

[topaz_eyes]

This is a heartbreaking situation all around, and LW clearly wants to do the Right Thing by both Sasha and Kelly. But Sasha herself apparently has not reached out to LW at all. LW only found out because one of Sasha's friends spill(ed) this over drinks. This makes me wonder whether Sasha wants LW back in her life right now, or whether she even wants LW to know.

I haven’t even mentioned this all to Sasha because I don’t want to offer to come if Kelly isn’t going to be supportive.

LW really needs to talk to Sasha and find out what she wants before they go any further with planning. And perhaps LW and Kelly should attend counselling to discuss this too, and work through this issue if they can.

[minoanmiss]

Oh good point. I missed how exactly LW found out

[azurelunatic]

Speaking solely for myself, when they found Round 2 (and just far enough away from the original site that it was Stage 4) I didn't have the energy to start contacting people outside my closest circles. I wasn't asking people who knew to keep it a secret, but I just could not bear the idea of having to manage the emotions of people I wasn't That Close To while I was still managing my own emotions around it, as well as being the one to take point on figuring out logistics and try to figure out the knock-on effects from treatment.

(My chemotherapist doesn't like to use the word "remission" in my situation, but I'm in the chronic disease with maintenance appointments every month and a half category at the moment, and not the wrapping up my affairs category.)

LW could potentially make a real difference in Sasha's remaining life by taking the extra money that they'd be spending on the small apartment and plane trips, or some percentage of it, and making sure Sasha doesn't have to worry about getting takeout delivered or getting a rideshare. My aunt and uncle did something like that for me, and that has earned them acknowledgment position #2 in my Everything I Know About Cancer, Personally book (right behind my partner). Along with my eternal gratitude. LW should check with a lawyer first, and make sure to make the gift in a way that would not fuck up Sasha's access to medical care.

[dissectionist]

So, speaking as someone who knows a great deal about cancer: I think LW has a vision that this would automatically be very short-term. Even with stage 4 cancers, survival can extend for years. Even to use one of the most vicious cancers as our example, glioblastoma (a particularly nasty brain cancer that tends to move very fast, meaning 75% of patients will pass within a year post-diagnosis), 5% of glioblastoma patients will live past five years post-diagnosis, and 20% will last 1-5 years.

If we look at a different cancer that’s much more likely for Sasha, breast cancer, with stage 4 over 30% of patients will be alive at 5 years post-diagnosis, and about 13% are alive past a decade post-diagnosis.

Media depictions almost never show this, because it’s far more dramatic to have a character get cancer and then it’s a flurry of activity for weeks or months until the still-vibrant-and-beautiful character has their poignant death scene and then the show can switch to covering the aftermath. It’s far less interesting to watch someone balancing life with cancer for years and years, so we just don’t see it. But that way of handling it in popular media means that people tend to be Stage 4 as imminent death, and in most cases, it isn’t.

So unless LW is prepared to take on a responsibility that could last a decade or longer, it would be far better to offer a time-limited arrangement. “I’d love to spend time with you and give your friends a break, so I’d like to come stay for a month to help out.” That way he’s not setting himself up for becoming resentful when Sasha living longer than he expected, and Sasha isn’t set up for feeling stressed when he’s trying to keep going year after year. Kelly might even be more okay with it if it’s a very time-limited arrangement that he takes on periodically.

[dissectionist]

It won’t let me edit, but that should have said “most people tend to see stage 4 as imminent death” and “when Sasha lives longer”.

[minoanmiss]

that was very naughty of DW not letting you edit.

[conuly]

Putting aside issues like "how long is this cancer really going to take to kill Sasha, realistically?" and "Is LW actually equipped for this role?" I gotta say - I'm not liking Kelly here. It's not that I don't get her concerns, but... I don't like her. And LW needs to seriously consider if he can be with somebody whose priorities and viewpoints are so radically different from his, whatever he decides to do about his ex. To me, this is a fundamental incompatibility on an even deeper level than kids or no kids.

[topaz_eyes]

On some fundamental level it sounds like Kelly does not trust LW to be around Sasha. And/or Kelly feels on some level that LW constantly (maybe unconsciously) compares her to Sasha, who does kinda come across here as LW's "one true love" and "the one that got away." I think Kelly and LW should consider couples' counselling for this situation.

[melannen]

Kelly does come off really badly here, but I'd have a lot less sympathy if a) they weren't engaged, b) they weren't planning to have kids, c) he'd been really close with Sasha the whole time he was dating Kelly, or d) this wasn't going to involve a semi-permanent cross-country move for only one of them.

I think people would be a lot more sympathetic to Kelly if they were already married with kids. It *is* different when they're just engaged and don't have dependents. But presuming LW was wise enough to start out his dates going forward with "I really want kids, and soon" and only date people who agreed, I have a lot of sympathy for Kelly not being happy that he wants to move away from her and put all their future plans on indefinite hold for an ex he hasn't even been talking to much lately.

Don't get me wrong, I also have a lot of sympathy for LW but from Kelly's POV this is "an old school friend of my fiance's mentioned to him that an old ex of his was in trouble, and now he wants to drop everything and move cross-country for her, and thinks I'm unreasonable for acting like this is a lot". It's hard all around. But LW needs to really think about if he's willing to risk Kelly and the future they planned for Sasha's sake, and if he is, he needs to talk to Sasha about it, and if she agrees, the best thing probably would be to tell Kelly that he understands why she's upset but he needs to do this, and he loves Kelly but he's willing to take an official break from their engagement and then reassess once Sasha's gone if that's what Kelly needs.

[movingfinger]

What does Sasha want?

[minoanmiss]

This is the essential question. It makes sense that LW wanted to come up with a form for his offered help to take when he proposes it but he's gotten far too detailed t this point. He should hve taled to Sadie several layers of complexity ago.