What would you do?

Doesn't a dying guy have a last request Sad

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dlowan wrote:

Blimey Camille - that IS tough.

of course he needs to attend to his daughter and her mother - and to himself.

I fully understand he needs to attend to his daughter, but why her mother? They are no longer a couple and the divorce is nothing more than the final decree. I understand there will be a certain amount of emotional support they give each other as the parents that I can't understand, but beyond that, and helping run errands or something, what is acceptable? The house is paid for so it's not like there will be bills to pay for the mother and he's got his own townhouse he has to pay rent on.

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Linkat wrote:

I would not move in with any false pretense though. I would introduce my boyfriend, but give your child some notification first. If she is upset of the situation, I would not throw this boyfriend in her face, but give her a chance to get used to it. In other words, I would not have him over, but go visit him and slowly introduce him to her.

I think the idea is to move back and make it appear as if he's "come home", which is what she and mommy want, which would mean no visits to or from the new person. There is the fear that the stress of having to deal with this new person would bring on her death much quicker, which I can relate to having seen this firsthand with my dad. From the other side, there is the fear that mommy will use the emotional situation to try to manipulate daddy into not divorcing.

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Yes, Mikeymike, but not if it involves sacrificing the futures of others.

I agree with dlowan, Camille.

As difficult as it would be, honesty is the best policy. If he moves back in and plays "happy family," it will only be a matter of time until his daughter figures it out. And then the trust between father & daughter will be damaged. Better to be up front now, and give her time to adjust while she can. He can spend as much time as he wants with her and his ex-wife. He doesn't have to move into their house to do that.

Besides, his life will not end with his daughter's. He deserves to have a future. And so do you. I hope the two of you can figure out a way to get through this time together.

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Linkat wrote:

This would also be a selfish reason for me and not only to help my child. I would want as much time as possible with my child. If I could affordably take a leave of absence from work if they situation got worse I would.

Well of course this is preferred but there is no way to tell at this point if the situation will get worse in a few weeks, months or years. The idea of moving back right away is a catch-22. What if he moves in to make his daughter happy and then the cancer is arrested short term by chemo and it turns into years? That's the tricky part. Nobody wants her to die quicker, but at the same time, is it fair to everyone involved to resort to moving in and staying there long before it's necessary?

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Eva wrote:

I agree with dlowan, Camille.

As difficult as it would be, honesty is the best policy. If he moves back in and plays "happy family," it will only be a matter of time until his daughter figures it out. And then the trust between father & daughter will be damaged.

That was my thought as well, that he owes her honesty and integrity.
But that's a lot easier for me to say since she's not my child. I've never had kids of my own so I'm trying to understand how other parents might feel and react.

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I do want to say how much I appreciate everyone talking this through with me.

I want to help and understand as much as I can, but it's also very, very painful for me.

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Your daughter is part of you both, and deserves (scrap that) MUST have your full attention.
You have known her, and cared for her for 22 years, the next few (a too small part of that) is an integral part of both your lives.
But you cannot create a staged farce for her final years.
Talk to her, seperately, and together, and work out the best way to ensure a meaningfull exchange in the final 'act'.
Life will not stop just because it has been temporaly defined; all who know and love her and all of you, should have a chance to be involved.

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Camille wrote:

I think the idea is to move back and make it appear as if he's "come home", which is what she and mommy want, which would mean no visits to or from the new person. There is the fear that the stress of having to deal with this new person would bring on her death much quicker, which I can relate to having seen this firsthand with my dad. From the other side, there is the fear that mommy will use the emotional situation to try to manipulate daddy into not divorcing.

Oh, Camille! I am so sorry. I hope I am wrong, but this is beginning to sound like emotional blackmail. He needs to sit down and think clearly: Is it his daughter's reaction he's worried about, or is it the stress caused to the daughter by his ex-wife's inability to accept the divorce & new relationship? I think he needs to get things straightened out with the mother first.

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Eva wrote:

Camille wrote:

Oh, Camille! I am so sorry. I hope I am wrong, but this is beginning to sound like emotional blackmail. He needs to sit down and think clearly: Is it his daughter's reaction he's worried about, or is it the stress caused to the daughter by his ex-wife's inability to accept the divorce & new relationship? I think he needs to get things straightened out with the mother first.

I don't think either the mother or the daughter has accepted the separation and coming divorce, and she certainly hasn't accepted me as she's managed to wiggle out of any attempts to meet her. He did go back several times to try to resolve things but it never worked. So it could be a little of both.

I wonder how much of this also revolves around her brother's actions and him now lying in a long term care facility for the rest of his life in PVS.
With her own cancer operation and chemo/radiation right before him attempting suicide, I don't know if she had time to greive the loss of her reproductive side, let alone the loss of her brother.

That brings another part into this too. The family has sort of come to accept the state of the brother and even though all the doctors say the brain damage is worse than thought and getting worse, and that he will never improve or regain consciousness, they still hope for a miracle and don't want to pull the feeding tube. His dad is the only one that thinks that is what should be done but since he's married, it's not up to his parents, but up to his wife.

There seems to be a lot of hoping for things to be "back to normal" in this family from the parents, grandparents and sibling. "Back to normal" is the son recovering, the father returning "home", and of course a miracle for the daughter. They seem unable to accept change and reality, maybe because they really haven't had many losses before this.

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Pretend to be together again? That is real denial, isn't it. Sigh. I hope it is just a stage for your partner - it is common in the early stages of dealing with crap like this - sounds as though, indeed, some folk in the family have not moved beyond it even with the son. How long has it been since he hurt himself?

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I think moving back in is a terrible idea. It sets up major mixed signals with the mother and it probably won't do for the daughter what she thinks it will. She seems to think it will mean happy family when the reality is it will very likely mean tense bunch of people with pasted smiles on their faces, trying to make it appear as if everything's all right. These kinds of farces rarely hold up, and the idea of minimizing the stress in the daughter's life will not be served by this kind of play-acting.

Assuming he lives nearby (which seems to be the case), he should stay put. The daughter is still able to go to both her mother's and father's homes. The daughter is not bedridden and is still somewhat functioning.

As for having the daughter meet you, the whole idea can be introduced gradually. Since she'd be coming to see him at his home, he should have pictures of you and him up and out where they can be seen. It's a natural conversation starter: "who is this woman with you who isn't Mom?" Then he can lead into, "I've met a special lady who I care about a great deal and I hope you will agree to meet her when you are ready. This does not mean that I think bad things about your mother or that I am denigrating your mother with my new relationship." And then let the daughter dictate the timetable. It's possible that she will never agree to meet you, and that's a possibility that has to be acknowledged, but at least the truth is out and the daughter, if she is at all perceptive, will understand what kind of an impossible situation she has put her dad into. And then, presumably, she will drop it.

As for dealing with the ex, I say let the circumstances be dictated by the daughter's illness, at least in part. It's not good to possibly lead the mother on and stoke what may be reconciliation fantasies. When the daughter becomes very, very ill, it's possible that you will have already met her. Or, maybe not, but at that point in time it will be, most likely, either hospital or hospice care and the daughter will not notice the difference between if Dad sleeps at the townhouse or the ancestral home.

As for you and your feelings, of course you are the only one who can make these decisions. Is the whole arrangement worth it? Do you want to wait on what the daughter will decide? Things may work out and it may all be wonderful. Or things may not work out, and there could be bad feelings. But just because the daughter is terminally ill does not mean that unpleasant things can never, ever be discussed or that her parents cannot have a semblance of their own independent existences. For you, I think the question has to be: am I willing to be a part of what happens, and how will that decision sit with me in the future?

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dlowan wrote:

Pretend to be together again? That is real denial, isn't it. Sigh. I hope it is just a stage for your partner - it is common in the early stages of dealing with crap like this - sounds as though, indeed, some folk in the family have not moved beyond it even with the son. How long has it been since he hurt himself?

Last fall. He and his wife had been having some problems and she asked for a separation. He has two small kids and she had another from a previous relationship he was very close to. He tried to work things out, but the wife insisted on a separation, which she now says she only wanted to be temporary to get some distance for a little while. While she was at work and the kids were gone, he rigged up a rope in the basement and hung himself. Unexpectedly a baby sitter stopped by the house to pick up something and found him. They had no idea how long he had been there other than he had talked to his wife about an hour or so before.
Paramedics brought him back and the first few days didn't look good. Lack of oxygen to the brain, heart attack, but luckily no spinal damage, just some minor damage on the neck that would heal on it's own. He was in a coma. For a short while he started to exhibit signs that he might make it and have brain activity, so the treatment became more agressive.
Unfortunately, the damage was more severe and has gotten worse. So now you have this young, healthy body houses a brain that has major damage and no consciousness. He could live like this for another 40-50 years. His eyes are open but his only moves are reactive moves. It is very, very sad to see him and all I can do is pray that he really has no consciousness, not even a spurt here or there. To be trapped in a body like that with no way to escape would have to be harder than living with the pain of divorce alone.

Of course, one has to wonder how much his parent's own separation and divorce factored in to this decision. It didn't happen until he was an adult and not at home, but he never did see his parents resolve this, accept it and move on. Could that have made him feel his life would forever be in limbo like theirs? Who knows, but the thoughts that it might bring on guilty feelings by his parents.

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jespah wrote:

As for you and your feelings, of course you are the only one who can make these decisions. Is the whole arrangement worth it? Do you want to wait on what the daughter will decide? Things may work out and it may all be wonderful. Or things may not work out, and there could be bad feelings. But just because the daughter is terminally ill does not mean that unpleasant things can never, ever be discussed or that her parents cannot have a semblance of their own independent existences. For you, I think the question has to be: am I willing to be a part of what happens, and how will that decision sit with me in the future?

My biggest concern is that in his grief and guilt he moves in to pacify his daughter and we are unable to be together at all because of the act that daddy has come home. Is it fair to me to say I deserve time and attention too when his daughter is dying? Is it fair to ask me to not be able to be there to support him throughout this? I run into issues because my idea of a healthy, loving relationship is one where you share the good times and the bad, and you are there for each other. Of course I want to be the one he turns to, but I can't be if he is with his daughter most of the time, living there or not, and I can't be with him.

This hurts for so many reasons. I never got to develop a relationship with the son, and now the daughter. I know how much this has got to be eating up the parents and I want to be able to help someway, even if it just means holding him while he cries, or helping to get supplies, or whatever. I can only imagine how much her parents must be hurting.

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Camille. This is so tough. I agree with everything Dlowan has said, and Jespah.

My concern is that I think that I think (bear with me here) he must make the decision to move back or not, that if you are very insistant that he shouldn't, and he doesn't - then you will be tied to his potential guilt (inappropriate to me, but he might have it) for not moving back. If he decides not to move back on his own, that would seem a stronger decision on his part.

and then, if he does move back, I think, if I were in your place, I would want to move on in life. And, I don't know if that would be wise or foolish.

when I said I think I think - about not pushing him to not move back - I may be wrong about the not pushing him. If I had not tried to convince him not to and he moved back and I left and went on with my life, would I regret not having tried to convince him?

What a circle.

Plus, I am leaving out that you might stay on the sidelines for the time for the whole situation to unfold, the child to die, the period of grief. How sad and frustrating that would be. And I don't know if doing that would be wise or foolish either.

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Yes, Osso got at what I was going to say, reading though -- that there are really a few separate issues here.

1.) What he should do in a general, empirical sense (the way you phrased your initial question.)

2.) What you would do if he decides to go back.

3.) What say, if any, you have in the matter.

I very much agree that this is his decision to make. You can certainly think things through yourself and decide what is and isn't acceptable to you, and make that known. But I don't think you should decide what HE should do and then try to influence his decision.

It may well feel horribly unfair to lump the breakup of a good relationship on top of all of the other horrible stuff he has been through. But I think it is reasonable for you to consider what your reaction would be if he decides to do that, and tell him.

Meanwhile, I think it is a terrible idea for him to move back in and pretend to be back with the 22-year-old's mother. They split up for a reason -- that is going to come to the fore, and there will be ugliness that is not what the girl wants, no matter what she thinks. He can certainly be there for her in any number of ways without living there.

That said, I don't think now is the time to force an introduction on her if that is not what she wants. As long as there is not lying involved -- if she knows you exist, knows her father is with you, but just doesn't want to meet you -- I don't think that issue should be forced. Hopefully she will come to a point where she wants a meeting, but I do think that a 22-year-old facing impending death gets some irrational requests. Having her father move back in isn't one of them.

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sozobe wrote:

I very much agree that this is his decision to make. You can certainly think things through yourself and decide what is and isn't acceptable to you, and make that known. But I don't think you should decide what HE should do and then try to influence his decision.

I know, and I think that's what he may think I'm doing, trying to make the decision for him. It just caught me completely offguard that he would even consider going back there as "home" and putting on an act, short or long, destroying his life and relationship in the process, regardless of the circumstances. My trying to show him that wasn't a rational, logical or smart move could easily be seen as my attempting to tell him what to do.
At the same time, I don't want to just give up and lose what we have either.

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ossobuco wrote:

What a circle.

It's all a catch-22

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sozobe wrote:

Meanwhile, I think it is a terrible idea for him to move back in and pretend to be back with the 22-year-old's mother. They split up for a reason -- that is going to come to the fore, and there will be ugliness that is not what the girl wants, no matter what she thinks. He can certainly be there for her in any number of ways without living there.

Would you feel the same if he moved in but had a separate bedroom but at the same time was not free to have visitors or phone calls? Or would that be too much like pretending I don't exist and daddy's come home?

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Not phone calls? This whole Act thing disturbs me. Part of me can see his wanting to be physically close to the daughter. Denying your existence... really doesn't seem reasonable... as sozobe says, not a last wish type gift.

Is the former home far away from where he lives now? (thinking, motel rental...)

Well, let me not try to solve this, that isn't appropriate either.

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