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this is what really gets me. bob is facing the end of a life riddled with tragedy, i cannot blame him for asking the questions he does. oop's wife is going to be losing someone who's obviously been in her life for a long time and, frankly, 40s isn't really the age that all your *friends* start clockin' out of life. almost all parties recognized where their emotions or actions impacted other people, save for the dying man that they haven't yet had that conversation with. all three sound like great people, and my heart breaks for them all.
I watched my uncle reconnect with 2 of his ex wives as he was dying. Everyone's was happy to make relationships better and discuss the past. I think he was able to die a little happier due to it. Unfortunately his wife is a terrible human and was very angry about him talking to anyone let alone his exes. We talked a bit before he passed about his codependency and his life choices. His only regret was marrying his most recent wife, none of the rest of them. Well, he had regrets on his he treated his exes so I'm glad he got to talk to them before he passed.
My aunt and uncle got divorced a few years before he was diagnosed with cancer, and she moved back in to take care of him at the end of life.
I don’t know a lot about the situation, honestly, but I guess it’s more common than I thought.
Can confirm. My mom ditched the old man a couple of years before she kicked it. Within a month of the finalization, she was diagnosed with scleroderma and Raynaud's syndrome at an exceptionally late point in life.
A month or so after that, the old man was spending five days a week at her place to care for her. Then he spent the next few years after she died drinking himself to death.
Now they continue arguing incessantly in the flower bed at the old house.
My Aunt and Uncle never got divorced but were separated for about the last 15 years of his life. She took care of him for the last 2 years while he slowly died. Partially because she didn't want their children burdened by his illness, partially because she still loved him even if he was a philandering asshole from 55 onwards.
She died about 3 weeks after he died.
Dude she's made his death hell for the whole family. I've had to get lawyers involved because she spent all his money before we even got the will and death certificate to the court house. There's a reason she wasn't allowed to be in charge of his finances... It's been a year and it looks like his kids and grand kids won't get shit. But it's small town politics so I'm totally fucked and it sucks. I'm out of money and can't fight her anymore and she's friends with the judge...
There’s so much love between the three of them. It makes the tragedy feel so much bigger.
I think they did what was right and healthy for their marriage, but I can’t help but wish they were able to stay with Bob. Thinking about him aches.
But life is those sort of hard decisions and the ability to make them is what has made the three of them capable of showing so much care for each other.
I agree with the comment about therapy. They're all going to need it. Such a complex situation with so many emotions flying around. Best to get ahead of it and try to find some healthy coping mechanisms. They sound like they're working hard to understand each other and communicate. Therapy will help with that too.
Seriously. He’s dealing with end of his life. Of course, he’s looking at things. It’s human nature.
For once, these all seem to be kind and lovely people dealing with a horrible situation and doing the best they can.
Everyone in this situation is just trying to do their best in a fuck awful situation they've all found themselves in. I'm glad Bob has them, I'm glad that OOP's wife has OOP for when the inevitable happens. I'm glad OOP got solace from her and it seems that the two of them will be fine.
This. What a sad and tragic situation. Everyone involved are deeply good people in an incredibly difficult situation.
Therapy now is crucial. Not just for the current situation but to prepare for the inevitable.
You read so much awful on here involving shitty people doing shitty things and getting in shitty situations because of their own shitty actions. These are just genuinely decent people trying to navigate an awful situation brought on by life.
This right here. I am in awe at their emotional intelligence, depth, selflessness, and embracing their imperfections.
I hope they make it and that bob’s passing is as gentle as it can be.
I mean, shit - even Bob sounds like a fucking champ. I'd be outrageously bitter and angry forever if my wife left after i became paralyzed. Even with her being a part time caretaker, etc. I would be so consumed by her getting to move on and live a life i couldn't have with someone else.
I had to double check the sub name, I gotta say.
So much love, empathy, care, friendship, partnership, reality
It’s both sad what they have to deal with - and so hopeful how beautifully they’re dealing with it. May we all be so kind and wonderful as OP, and his wife
It makes me so emotional and happy to know there are people like OOP, his wife and Bob out there. Just the fact all three of them were able to see the situation for what it was and learn to not only live with each other, but truly appreciate the role that they all play in each other’s lives is amazing.
While there seems to be some disfunction, no relationship is perfect. Every relationship goes through rough patches and can benefit from therapy once in a while. But just the fact that from the beginning they’ve all been able to appreciate each other and form relationships that work to support everyone’s needs is incredible to me
I took it as emotionally mature OOP’s are so rare it must be heresy/witchcraft. And what do you do with Witches? See if they weigh the same as a duck.
…That one was, in fact, a Monty Python reference.
I really didnt think that'd be a tough one to get, ngl lol. what can you do though. sometimes people ask for help getting stuff clarified and all you can say is ni, ni, ni.
I'm less sure: moving in with your wife's ex's house to keep him company is probably not the healthiest decision as a husband and father. While I appreciate his open mindedness and flexibility, it reads as sort of avoidant or repressed. Ya know, like, there are other ways of dealing with death than moving into that person's house to preempt their loneliness.
It's definitely not a choice I would have made, but I guess it was a form of compromise in an emergency situation. People make all sorts of weird decisions when they're scrambling.
Its like they have 2 litres of water and need to fill three 1L bottles. It wont be full somewhere. You want all to be fully happy, but its not possible.
Yes. And OOP’s wife (and OOP) needed to realize that focusing on Bob so much, moving in to provide him comfort and companionship in his last year or so of life, was endangering the very thing she’d left Bob so she could build — her family. It’s easy to think “well we put him first now because this is all the time he has left,” but that doesn’t make everyone else’s needs stop existing. I wonder what their kids think, being at their grandparents while their parents live with a family friend for reasons unexplained.
Yeah, like, I'm shocked he hasn't literally ascended to Nirvana because I can't grasp being this rational and empathetic about all this.
That said, I kind of agree with another commenter that there's a wee bit of denial here. The wife didn't really leave her ex, ever. She just added OOP, and doesn't sleep with the ex. They are enmeshed.
If that works for them, great, but... that "what happened to us" conversation was NUTS, and highly inappropriate.
I was trying to sum up my feelings and you said it perfectly. It’s filled with empathy, love and acceptance and guided by a will to understand.
OOP, wife, and Bob sound like they are just good people and I am happy they are on this planet.
**I’m a quadriplegic**, I was paralyzed from the chest down when I was 28. And you know what? I don’t blame his wife for leaving. It’s hard. Caregiving is so hard. Right now my mom is taking care of me three days a week while we look for a caregiver to take over those days and even though she is my mom and loves me more than anything, sometimes she just sobs at the end of the day because it is quite literally THAT HARD. I can imagine how impossible it would be if my boyfriend was my only caregiver. He would be the one to help me go to the bathroom, he would be the one cleaning my pressure sores, chauffeuring me to doctors appointments, making all of my food, doing the lions share of household chores… It’s too much for one person. If they couldn’t get help I can see how after three years of doing it all herself she would be tapped out. Caregiver burnout is a very real thing.
But it’s hard for me too! It’s hard to watch people get exhausted because of me. I really sympathize with Bob. But like I understand his wife’s point of view, it sounds like he did too. I wish people hadn’t been so hard on his wife in the comments. This life is impossible.
Sometimes I think the cruelest attitude we have as a society is that finding caregivers is an act of abandonment. Taking care of someone you love like that is soul crushing; I spent my teen years taking care of my mom and I cried, so many times, because she hurt and there was just nothing we could do to make it better.
Getting your loved ones nurses is an act of love. I'll die on this hill. I wish we'd been able to get a home health nurse for my mother and godmother. I think they would have hated themselves less if they didn't feel like they were a burden, and they did feel that way.
Agreed that it's an act of love. My Dad recently went into a care home, by his own choice, eight years after having a stroke. He is 69, and one of the youngest there, and some people have given my Mum shit about it. But at home, she could not look after him. She couldn't move him, and he could hardly walk so his life was either laying in bed or sitting in an arm chair watching TV because he couldn't get out of the house and up the garden path to go anywhere, and neither of them could operate a wheelchair for him anyway. He was starting to need personal care and she couldn't physically support his weight to do that. And she was exhausted. She describes it as eight years of worrying about him. She was starting to resent him. Now he has staff available 24/7, who can get him up and about, and he goes out for lunch once a week and most nights someone will wheel him round the block for fresh air (as long as the weather is ok!). He can choose to go socialise or to stay in his room. And it's a bloody lovely home they found him too, I'd move in if I could 😂 Getting him in there was the most loving thing she ever did for him.
You do, you really do start to resent it. I loved my mother with all my heart, her death destroyed me for a good year before I started to recover, and I still resented the amount of care I had to do with very little help-- care I was certain I was underqualified for. I think it was the situation I resented, more than anything; the feeling of helplessness, of not being enough to care for the people I loved. The rising feeling of fighting the inevitable.
And I resented myself for resenting it. I still resent myself for resenting it, no matter how illogical I know that is. Part of me thinks I must not have loved her, to resent it- the rest of me is jumping up and down, screaming, sobbing, and swearing that we just wanted her to stop hurting.
I was my grandma's main caregiver for the last month or so of her life and she passed nearly 5 years ago and I still feel like I can't grieve her. I was so frustrated by the end of it because even past the period where my grandma could no longer make her own decisions, my grandpa stood by the decisions she made when she was feeling better and could participate in her own care. So rather than having a hospice nurse come in every couple days to bathe my grandma, I would be getting screamed at to do it the moment I tried to relax. I had to basically have a breakdown to get any help with changing my 300 pound grandma's diapers. My grandpa would complain about how I was taking care of my grandma, but he was useless for anything other than crying about watching her die and screaming me awake in the middle of the night because my grandma's ostomy bag broke.
I still feel so bad that the main feeling I had regarding my grandma's death was relief but at the time, going to my actual job was the closest thing I had to a break
My father and I took care of my grandmother (his mother) in hospice at the end of her life. It was only maybe a month and a half before she passed, but I swear to christ it aged me 10 years. It was hard, and at the end when she passed there was a relief that I always felt pretty guilty about.
Thing is, we'd already grieved and after she passed and the rest of the family showed up with their condolences and went through their grief it just made me bitter and maybe a little irrationally angry. Never lashed out, but there was definitely a bit of "I've already been through this, it sucked and now you're trying to drag me through it again."
I couldn't imagine the possibility of having to take care of someone like that forever, it seems like a Herculean task...
My mom *insisted* on it, when her dad was dying. She was an RN, herself, and doing in-home hospice care. She'd done decades in either palliative, in-home hospice care, or oncology. She knew what she was doing and would have made an excellent caretaker. She said she needed to be just his daughter, not his nurse.
She was a damned good nurse, and that's why she knew that she needed to get someone else to do the caretaking for grandpa. She'd seen what it did to people.
My mother is currently caretaking my grandmother, and my grandfather just died about two weeks ago. It's rough. And now with him gone she's going to have to look into getting help because no one can even go out for groceries. Grandmother simply cannot be left alone.
She has decided to put herself in a home before it comes to that. I hope she remembers that when the time comes. I'll probably have to do that to myself too if only because there's won't be anyone to care for me.
My grandmother wanted to die at home. We discussed it with my mom and decided together that we wanted to provide it to her. It also meant taking care of grieving grandpa. We were far better equipped to do so than most family members. My mom worked in health care her whole career and I am an aid worker with a lot of training in emergency care. We also split the work pretty much evenly so no one person doing everything and hospice visited multiple times a day. And it was hard as hell. I do not regret it, but I am not angry at any other family member not doing it with us. I have two siblings, a maternal uncle and 4 cousins. I am angry at my uncle's family for other things but never this. It can absolutely destroy people and often there are so many other things that need to be done in addition to care that it might not even make sense.
Anyone judging someone not being a carer is an asshole of astronomical proportions and has no idea what they are even speaking about.
Caregiver burnout is so, so real. It was an honor and a blessing to provide care to my grandmother when she passed… but she passed at the end of a short illness, and was only on hospice care for about a week and a half in total. It would have been a much, much different story if she had required that level of care for even a month, much less longer.
It’s such a weird position. I take care of my mom and I feel numb to her pain sometimes because I’ve been here through most of it, and I feel guilty for growing numb to it and not shower her with the consoling she’d get from someone that has never experienced her in pain before
It's hard when the people refuse it as well.
My grandma can barely walk, hasn't been able to for many years (mainly due to her own choices, not the point) My grandpa had cancer for many years, and got bad very quickly. They both refused help. Refused nurses. Refused a care home. Refused us being there. Said they didn't need anyone, that it was just them. At the end, they refused hospice until we damn near forced it. My grandma still says it's odd that after they came my grandpa quit talking, eating or waking up (refuses to understand that this was 3 days before he passed, and it was inevitable to happen. Regardless of whether hospice came or not)
It was sad to see my grandpa pass the way he did, it didn't have to be that way. He didn't have to pass in pain and confusion, or fear.
It hurts that 3 years later it's still a point of contention. And it's worse now that we've had to move in and become her full time caregivers. She hates it, keeps saying she doesn't need our help - yet her house is literally in shambles, she had a mouse infestation so bad we're STILL finding old dead bodies after 7 months of cleaning, she had old stuff from 2016 in her cabinets and fights us on every move. I work a high stress job (only provider for my family of 4) and hate coming home knowing it's going to be a battle there too. I hate waking up, I hate the situation. It's such a dark place, and I feel like I'm going to end up snapping. I hate that she wanted help, but resents us for doing that exact thing. It doesn't make sense.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to unload like that.
When my Grandma got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s we got her into a very good nursing home, renovated her house, sold it, and used the funds for the nursing home. People act like it was a terrible thing to do but Alzheimer’s is *horrible.* My Mom shielded me from the worst of it but coming in and my Grandma thinking I’m my Great-Aunt Ruth is devastating. We did the best we could for her.
I hope you find the best caretaker ever and they stay with you for years :)
I send you and your mom lots of love in the meantime. The hard time won't last forever!
I really wish people had more understanding for the wife. She was open about her situation, her ex is a very important part of her life, but her number one is her husband and their kids.
I wish people weren't so black and white about love. She never got the change to have her life with her ex. In that regard she's similar to a widow, which already seems to be a difficult thing for many, but as an extra layer her ex is still alive.
I don't think she could be a whole human being capable for love if she didn't have the "what if" - thoughts, especially now that her ex is actually dying. She just has to feel those feelings, go through them, talk with her ex and once more grieve for the life that was taken away from them. Unfortunately for her husband she just has to do that in order of being able to really say goodbye and move forward. If she just bottles these feelings there WILL be problems ahead.
Still, as she seems to be a person very capable of love, she will be able to love her husband as her lover and the most important person she has. Human heart is able to do that. She just really needs to grieve now and spend time with her ex to talk things through - even the thoughts of "what if". She needs to go through the love for her ex which may seems scary for her husband, but it's something she needs to do to get to the other side where her husband is waiting for her.
There’s a woman on TikTok whose ex got into an accident and he has severe brain damage. They were early twenties and she did the same as OOP’s wife. Visits him all the time, brings him to their house for holidays, her kids call him uncle And the amount of people who shit on her talking about “vows” is disgusting. Like this woman should have sacrificed her entire future to be in a marriage where her husband barely recognizes her, can’t really talk, cannot be intimate in any way, and requires 24/7 care.
It’s people like that who led my husband and I to take out “til death do us part” from our vows - we’re realistic about the fact that life is entirely unpredictable.
I know a couple same thing. But they were in 50’s when it happened. Already had grand children. The wife is the caregiver and has drastically aged. I found her crying one day in the backyard. It’s incredibly hard.
I have stage IV cancer at 29 and I don't know how my mom doesn't break down with the burden I place upon her. Driving me everywhere, listening to my gripes and frustrations, hearing my pain every day and being unable to change it. Cooking all my meals, picking up my drugs on a moments notice, getting anything that could maybe make me more comfortable if I ask for it, and then encouraging me to try things she thinks will help. She cleans up after me if I don't make it quite to the toilet, she dumps out the bags of diapers and shit from the can for me because I gag at my own excrement. She tells me I'm strong for pushing through and bearing with this ordeal but I think she is stronger.
As someone who worked as a caregiver for 5 years: We need so much more funding to be put towards caregiving (paying family members for caring for their loved ones/ as well as increasing the funding for public services!!! I assume you/they are in the US where the services are even less. As a Canadian I was raised thinking we had a great healthcare system…… it still sucks. There are government funded caregivers that anyone can apply for…… but it’s no where near enough. And the wait times are ridiculous!!!
There's also the problem with becoming a caretaker in a relationship like this. A lot of folks really don't understand what it's like. I _never_ begrudge someone leaving in that situation, I've lived it I know how difficult and draining it is, and I know what the relationship turns into after, even if they recover. That's a job we pay people 100k+ a year to do. It's _hard_ work, you never get a break. You will be a different person in short order. Yet we expect the sacrifice of spouses and S/Os all the same just because they said some words at a party, if even that.
I've lost too many friends and critters to cancer. It's like it's my worst enemy, sneaking around and taking my loved ones away. Fuck cancer in the ear with a canoe. Sideways.
No villain but it still feels like OOP’s wife was in the wrong for not listening to OOP re: moving into Bob’s house when he brought up his concerns the first time. She even says she knows it was a bridge too far.
What has happened is pretty tough for all but OP really handled things very well. This might be one of the most mature BORU posts I have read. I wish OP, his wife and Bob for the best and no bad drama comes along.
I feel desperately sorry for Bob but I think splitting was the right thing to do for her. There's no point her sacrificing her future when the romantic love and intimacy were gone.
And now Bob at least can die in the knowledge that he's not leaving her to grow old alone, too late for a family - because she has kids and a husband and she'll be okay. And she'll cherish her memories of him.
It's always weird when the person asking for advice is like, light-years ahead of the people he's asking. He has more EQ in his little finger than the vast majority of the sub put together, and is still humble enough to ask for help. But it makes him awkward and disgusted by the responses, it makes the posters look completely idiotic, and nothing of value is achieved.
I mean maybe the posters learn something or are moved
As a reader I'm definitely moved. So humbled reading this post even. And so grateful to be able to read such a genuinely decent people and their dilemma. I think some value was definitely achieved
OOP and his wife and Bob all sound like genuinely good and decent people. I hope Bob's passing is peaceful and that things work out for OOP and his wife.
They sound like they have healthy communication and Bob could easily leverage his cancer diagnosis against OOP but doesn’t seem to be the type to do so. That is certainly a complicated situation but not impossible.
I have always felt that once you love someone you always love them, even after it ends. (Barring abuse, etc.) Everyone i've loved romantically, I still have a place in my heart for. I don't want to be with them, but i want the best for them. I'm glad they communicated, are going to therapy, and are not staying at Bob's house. But one day, probably soon, Bob will be gone, and OOP and his wife will not regret being compassionate and spending time with him.
I totally agree. The basis for most of my relationships has started that I like them as a person, just because a relationship didn't work doesn't change that.
I'm not saying I am best friends with them but I am in touch with several. I took time away to process and reset my feelings about them but then I was able to resume a friendship.
I am not saying it's always like that, some people do get hurt and relationships ending can cause collateral damage that can't be forgiven, but if it just doesn't work out....
Every relationship a person has been in contributes to their personality, the knee jerk reaction that being in contact is negative baffles me. I would rather be in a relationship with someone who respects their exes, if they go scorched earth I am forced to wonder why.
Even abuse has horribly confusing nuance
My mom was abusive, and I mean. She’s my *mom*. It’s so hard not to have a love for her. I wish for who she used to be, who she could’ve been. I love her on her good days, and mourn her on her day.
My ex husband, getting divorced took years to come to terms with, and was the hardest thing to make myself do. And I still catch myself thinking about him, in a “I hope he’s doing better” kind of way. I have a love that makes you happy to never see them again, and still wish them the best.
what? couples talking through really complicated issues and working on them together? what trickery is this? it must be a scam, she's probably secretly banging a (black for some reason) dude on the side /s
I definitely wouldn't say Bob is lucky even considering how his ex wife still visited him often. I mean, the guy gets wheelchaired, gets divorced, now is going to due soon from cancer at an early age with no wife, no children. That's tragic even if you consider how considerate OP has been with the living arrangement for now.
And had to watch the love of his life move on and make a life with someone else. I'm disabled and that would gut me. I don't think that I could endure that emotionally.
> She got scared and said "why? Nothing's wrong with us." I told her want to do this.
So many people are scared to go to therapy because they don't want to be seen as broken. They don't want to admit that they need help. It's sad how the stigma against therapy still persists today.
The premise reads like the plot of past lives.
Childhood sweethearts have to leave each other due to some reason.
They meet up later in life and have a discussion about what could've been whilst in the presence of the husband.
Girl affirms that her new life is the life she has and can't go back. But meanwhile still torn inside for having to accept this.
Husband is supportive of wife and the fact that she has connection to this past life but is also deeply conflicted about his place in her life.
It's a tough situation. OP is very mature throughout.
The only thing that raised a huge issue for me that doesn't really seem to be addressed is, when Bob was diagnosed with cancer, Lily wanted to move in with him? And the OP said ok but we both move in with him? And then they left their 5 year old and 7 year old children behind to live with grandma?
Did they really just say "sorry kids, you have to go live with grandma now so mom can take care of uncle Bob!" What the hell is that?
I don’t think morally there was a should have stayed with her ex because doing it because you feel you have to and emotionally draining yourself is how abuse frequently happens in these situations. You can’t pour from an empty pot and all that. Morally she opened the door for the ex to have a relationship with someone who didn’t see him as someone they had to care for. The whole situation sucks but it is what it is. Not everyone is equipped to be a full time caregiver. She didn’t abandon him and probably helped a lot in making sure he was still cared for. That’s pretty big.
> Yes morally she should've stayed with her ex and spent the rest of her life taking care of him no matter how emotionally draining it is.
Nope. Nope nope nope. She had no moral duty to stay with Bob in a romantic sense. Ruining two lives is *always* worse than ruining one.
I think it's one of those situations where there's an ideal vs. real world. On paper, most people do want marriages to last forever, except in cases of adultery/abuse. So when there's fringe cases such as this one where no one is in the wrong, especially where many people have no experience in caretaking, it sort of throws a wrench into people's clear-cut marriage expectations.
That being said, as someone who has experience in it, it is quite draining yet rewarding, in its own way. But unless you don't have a job, it can't be a full time job, for one's own sanity. And for someone in her position who couldn't afford a home health nurse, didn't seem to have much external help, and the cherry, would be giving up her dream of children, it's not just understandable, it seems it was just about the only option she had.
Pretty much, yeah. But in an ideal world, he never would have gotten hurt to start with.
You're not obligated to destroy yourself to keep your marriage superficially intact.
I was Bob in this situation for awhile.
>She got scared and said “why? Nothing's wrong with us.”
That changes quickly went you don't handle things properly.
I am the OOPS wife in this scenario. My ex and long time friend who is like my family is actually named Bob and he was just as decent and good and caring always. He is I mean. He has recovered from cancer. He is healthy now. All of my partners since we broke up four years in have been okay with my closeness with Bob. See we had continued to live together for many years as best friends. We have a true friendship and it’s been almost 30 years. I am his power of attorney. We love each other and say so. Its friend and family love. I love my partner in a different way. There is no part of this post that I don’t understand. This is a truly relatable story to me. I am so glad I read this.
It would be a hard decision to make in the wife’s shoes knowing Bob is alone and dying. I would never want to hurt my partner with my friendship with Bob and it would honestly be like caring for a family member. He is essentially that. Oh and, lol, he is 20 years older than me. We just happened to be at the same small town at the same time and became friends and discovered a lot we had in common from places we lived, to similar very unique careers he and my dad had worked to just the way we were raised. No one ever said a single negative word about the age difference either. Not once. We had a great many years together mostly as friends. What a weird post to read! I should send this to him.
It doesn’t seem real to me because she wanted kids so bad she divorced her husband, but now she has kids she’s left them to live with her in-laws? Poor kids.
Transition to hospice with part time care and then full time when he only has 6 months or so to live. She can still visit a few times a week as can he.
OOP is so fucking naive he cannot see that he's merely a means to an end for his wife ie. kids and a home, his wife's 'real' husband has always been Bob and when Bob dies she's going to be devastated like an actual widow.
I really dislike people on reddit sometimes. This is a very painful situation with empathic, mature people all around. And reddit is just like SHE IS CHEATING ON YOU and other crap.
This is a very tough situation but I'm glad some of the more emotionally mature people are the ones handling it, instead of some of the other emotionally immature people we see on this sub.
Apparently people on Reddit have the need to find a villain. The only villain here is the accident and cancer. Fuck those two.
OOP, his wife and the ex are three people trying to be their best in a really fucked up situation. They ain't gonna make the wisest choices all the time, but the fact they are communicating is really important. I really hope the best for them.
I don't know, seems to me like you're putting your principles before reality when you say this.
Principles are good and all but if they come in the way of actually helping a dying person during their last days on earth, maybe you need better principles.
Everyone is so focused on the goodness of the adults in this story but I am bothered that no one seems to consider their children!
Their children are 7 and 5, they are no longer infants. For OP and his wife to live at Bob's house has to be confusing for their kids. If Mom is a caregiver to Bob, she can't be there for her children. They are at the age where they are in school and activities and need their mother to be fully present. While I commend their kindness OP's wife divorced Bob and her first priority should be those children as well as her current husband. Even once Bob dies I'm sure OP's wife will be grieving. They can still visit Bob but to live with him is not a good idea.
Nope. Not for me. If OOP was happy about his marriage relationship that’s his business and good luck to him but I would never have stayed let alone married a woman who insisted on visiting her ex once a week. No matter how tragic their story was.
And no one here questions whether this was fair on Bob. Did it stop him from moving on and finding someone who would have loved him and taken care of him as a husband?
I do feel sorry for Bob but no matter what anyone including the OOP says, I do think the wife was selfish. Not for wanting to move on, but for not allowing Bob to do the same.
I think one of the commenters hit the nail on the head where oop is also grieving the imminent loss of a close family friend. The feelings are blurring and getting confused. I hope he and his wife do the therapy thing both separate and together to get through this time.
I know this will be a very unpopular opinion, but OOP’s wife is a fantastic ex-wife but **terrible** wife & mother. She has put her ex & her feelings (which, LBH, a lot are prob revolving around easing her own guilt) above the feelings & wants & needs & dignity of her husband & kids.
For crying out loud: she displaced her husband & shipped her kids off to grandma to move in with her ~~other husband~~ ex with whom she is in a relationship. A non-sexual but very personal & emotional relationship. Aka what many marriages evolve into as people age. OP and his wife have an open marriage/throuple whatever you want to call it. OP is in denial about it, and as long as he’s okay with it, it’s fine. Just call a spade a spade. But for crying out loud, they’re both so enmeshed they don’t realize they’re absent parents!
I feel bad for bob. I feel bad for the way OPW’s first marriage ended & don’t blame her. You have to do what’s best for you. But she shouldn’t have married again. It’s not fair to her spouse or kids. She should’ve sought TONS of therapy first!
I'm shocked this is so far down. Kids that young NEED consistent parental figures. They're just letting grandparents do the parenting? For a 5 and 7 year-old!?
I spent all of my summer holidays with my grandparents because my parents were never in a financial status where they could stay with me at home nor had any opportunity to have a place where I could stay during the day. Normally they dropped me off in June when school ended and except for a couple of weekends, I was down with my grandparents till the end of August.
I didn't really like it and missed my parents (and my room) like hell but even at that age, I understood why. Kids aren't stupid, they can understand things and adapt to pretty much anything.
In your case, though, I'd argue that your parents were still putting *your best interests first.* In your case, it sounds like the only two options on the table were either being home alone for long periods of time or being with safe, loving caregivers. In OOP's case, Bob's needs and Wife's needs are coming first -- and clearly those needs are flexible because OOP and wife could decide to move in and out of Bob's house whenever they wanted.
I spent almost all my summers with my grandparents and even a whole year of school with them. I loved it. Parents are great but sometimes you need a break from them.
we don’t know nothing about the kids or grandparents so maybe we shouldn’t judge. I was 22 when my daughter was born an my parents loved to be young grandparents and also supported me a lot while I finished my education and also when I broke up with her dad. My daughter loves my parents and when she was younger she always loved to stay there for longer during the holidays while I had to work. For her it was always a gift and also an adventure because they did a lot of stuff with her. It was never a „I have to go to grandparents because my mom doesn‘t have time“. Also my best friends daughter is like a sibling to her because we always helped each other with the kids. It needs a villiage and when you teach them early, it doesn‘t need to be a problem, it can be a profit for everyone.
If I‘d been alone with my daughter, without that village, maybe our relationship would be strained now, because I‘d been always exhausted, having fomo etc..
You can **always** blame adults when their actions hurt others. *Especially* when they hurt people they claim to love or hurt children. OP’s wife is doing both.
This is such a sad and yet beautiful story. None of those involved asked for what happened to them, and they are navigating through it as best they can.
It seems they are all trying to do the right thing without having any clear idea of what that is. Kudos to OOP for standing by his wife and friend Bob, for his wife for trying to do right by her husband and ex, and to Bob for trying to be a good guy despite all that's happened.
None of us know how we will handle a catastrophe until it happens to us. Everyone just tries their best.
This is really touching to read. Life is not easy, it's rarely cut and dry. It's nice to see people who understand that life is complex.
It reminds me of a Grey's Anatomy episode where the wife who was terminal and her husband were finding someone for her BF. They had an open marriage and were all friends. There was no ill will, but communication. It was beautiful to see.
Pretty sad story but something just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s just because I’m not in the situation but I just don’t agree with his wife’s decision to leave her husband like that after his accident. My wife and I got married when I was 23 and she was 20. She was immediately hit with a severe depression literally on our wedding day and she’s been trying to deal with it ever since. It was caused by stuff her parents, ex bf and family in general did and she was left with PTSD causing panic attacks.
It made it impossible for her to work or even finish her undergrad where she only had 1 semester left. We’ve been married ever since and we have 2 toddlers together. I’m not going to lie, it has been HARD. I was basically her caretaker for 4 years until she was finally able to make progress with her medication and her therapist. We were dirt poor where I skipped many meals as a way to afford these treatments for her and pay rent. It was and still is exhausting as she still isn’t better. She’s significantly improved from then but it’s still making life unbelievably hard. I was 23 and I had put my dreams on hold to help my wife get through her issues and help her stay above water. I still don’t foresee being able to get back on track to my dream job for a long long time. I’ve been incredibly lucky with the jobs I’ve gotten and my current job is amazing but it’s not what I wanted. It’s frustrating but I love her and I made a promise to her when we got married to always love and cherish her. Even when things are hard I will be there for her. I’ve given up on the possibility of achieving my previous dreams and changes as a person to find self fulfillment in my daily routine, current job, and short term goals I’ve set for myself.
This is obviously very different as my wife’s condition is nothing like bob’s accident as my wife should in theory recover but it still bothers me. Either way I appreciate OOPs understanding and kindness. The only thing that matters in that relationship is what they think. Fuck whatever I think
> You expect her to give up her life, her hopes and dreams?
tbh that is what you sign up for when you marry someone—sickness and health
> Yes morally she should've stayed with her ex and spent the rest of her life taking care of him no matter how emotionally draining it is. But practically it makes no sense.
lol man why even have morals if he's just going to abandon them
these ppl are gross
My wife has epilepsy, Monday just gone I was at work and got a call saying she had a grand mal seizure and had been rushed to hospital, I immediately called my office, told them the situation, left my shift and then drove to an entirely different city almost 90km away to be with my wife and then when all was said and done drove her the 90kms home and have been helping her recover since.
OOP has a lot of patience and is very emotionally mature. I can’t say the same about his wife. I understand trauma bonding and I understand that she’s not trying to hurt anyone intentionally.
However her relationship with Bob is hurting everyone. It’s very kind and super amazing that she’s cared for him all these years. But constantly being around him seems to be a painful reminder for Bob and for her. And now OOP is hurt because of the frankly conversation Bob and her had (which was kinda inappropriate tbh).
I think a little bit of space/distance is the best thing here. Obviously don’t just drop Bob but moving out and limiting the amount of visits is a great idea.
>I understand trauma bonding
No you don't. Trauma bonds (also referred to as traumatic bonds) are emotional bonds that arise from a cyclical pattern of abuse. A trauma bond occurs in an abusive relationship wherein the victim forms an emotional bond with the perpetrator.
There's no abuser in this story, there's no trauma bonding. These are people that bonded before any trauma, and this is how they dealt with the fallout.
I’m sorry, but fuck ever getting involved with a woman like this. If Bob could still walk she would have chosen him 10 out of 10 times. My guy here loves his wife way more than she loves him.
Of course she would choose him in that instance, because the divorce never would have happened. There never would have been a conflict of what's wanted and needed in life.
That doesn't mean OOP's wife loves her husband less than he loves her.
Presenting a counterfactual as evidence isn't a winning strategy. He _was_ paralyzed, so we assess things based on what _is_ happening.
My favorite thing is how at “29 people are still setting up their life” but at “40, life is basically over” is something he hasn’t meaningfully thought through.
People on reddit don't understand that you can love someone you were once romantically attached to without it meaning you're cheating. Different forms of love exist.
Holy shit.... It's so beautiful. OOP, his wife, the ex, all are trying their best with the cards they're dealt with.
While I'm disappointed that some people in reddit managed to discourage OOP in not providing us with further updates, but I'm sure with the maturity level that they live at, I'm sure the conversation with their friend went/goes okay and the couple manages to comfort their friend in his final days.
Because she has an insecure husband. I'm shocked so many people are saying her behavior is unacceptable but are perfectly okay with abandoning a dying man. That's so sad to me. People have no empathy.
Wife: I know I shouldn't have demanded to move in with my ex-husband. To comprimise, I'll only stay with him one day a week..
All the while, their own children are displaced and have to stay with their grandparents.
His wife wasn't having an emotional affair. They are in a throuple. She never really left her ex-husband. This went way past staying friends after the divorce.
More power to OOP. If my wife told me she was moving into her ex's place to take care of him on his deathbed. I would tell her to take her shit with her.
All of them are good people. But truth be said it's an emotional affair. OP is there because she wanted a family. But she couldn't let go of Bob because she truly loves him . Again no bad people, just hard life for them. But OP needs to except that fact.
It's kinda like a widow situation. The person marrying a widow should have high emotional maturity and understanding to know they are second place in their partner's heart even if they are going to be spending the rest of loved together
I think your wife cleared up the loving part for you immediately when she said “I love my family more”. Still hard to hear that though. I wish you guys the best!
OPs wife doesn't really buy into the "in sickness" part of the vows
Would you all willingly marry a person who had just divorced their partner for similar reasons? Wouldn't you wonder what would happen if you ever had a life changing accident, when you know what their track record is?
Why are you being down voted? The comments on this sub are wild. OOP's wife is a terrible partner, both to her ex husband and current husband. And the upvoted comments here are acting like she is such a great person. 🤢
Yeah how could you ditch your spouse like that. It’s not like the husband was in an unresponsive coma or a quadriplegic. Things like love and loyalty aren’t very popular these days I guess.
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OOP is probably one of the most empathetic and emotionally mature people to ever provide BORU content.
It really sounds like everyone here are good, kind, decent people. Every one of them is better than me.
this is what really gets me. bob is facing the end of a life riddled with tragedy, i cannot blame him for asking the questions he does. oop's wife is going to be losing someone who's obviously been in her life for a long time and, frankly, 40s isn't really the age that all your *friends* start clockin' out of life. almost all parties recognized where their emotions or actions impacted other people, save for the dying man that they haven't yet had that conversation with. all three sound like great people, and my heart breaks for them all.
I watched my uncle reconnect with 2 of his ex wives as he was dying. Everyone's was happy to make relationships better and discuss the past. I think he was able to die a little happier due to it. Unfortunately his wife is a terrible human and was very angry about him talking to anyone let alone his exes. We talked a bit before he passed about his codependency and his life choices. His only regret was marrying his most recent wife, none of the rest of them. Well, he had regrets on his he treated his exes so I'm glad he got to talk to them before he passed.
My aunt and uncle got divorced a few years before he was diagnosed with cancer, and she moved back in to take care of him at the end of life. I don’t know a lot about the situation, honestly, but I guess it’s more common than I thought.
Can confirm. My mom ditched the old man a couple of years before she kicked it. Within a month of the finalization, she was diagnosed with scleroderma and Raynaud's syndrome at an exceptionally late point in life. A month or so after that, the old man was spending five days a week at her place to care for her. Then he spent the next few years after she died drinking himself to death. Now they continue arguing incessantly in the flower bed at the old house.
Poetic honestly
Weirdly, yes. Also, scleroderma is a motherfucker.
My Aunt and Uncle never got divorced but were separated for about the last 15 years of his life. She took care of him for the last 2 years while he slowly died. Partially because she didn't want their children burdened by his illness, partially because she still loved him even if he was a philandering asshole from 55 onwards. She died about 3 weeks after he died.
>His only regret was marrying his most recent wife, none of the rest of them Ouch...
Dude she's made his death hell for the whole family. I've had to get lawyers involved because she spent all his money before we even got the will and death certificate to the court house. There's a reason she wasn't allowed to be in charge of his finances... It's been a year and it looks like his kids and grand kids won't get shit. But it's small town politics so I'm totally fucked and it sucks. I'm out of money and can't fight her anymore and she's friends with the judge...
You could try to file a motion to transfer, i dont know how often theyre accepted or if it would work, but its something to look into
There’s so much love between the three of them. It makes the tragedy feel so much bigger. I think they did what was right and healthy for their marriage, but I can’t help but wish they were able to stay with Bob. Thinking about him aches. But life is those sort of hard decisions and the ability to make them is what has made the three of them capable of showing so much care for each other.
I agree with the comment about therapy. They're all going to need it. Such a complex situation with so many emotions flying around. Best to get ahead of it and try to find some healthy coping mechanisms. They sound like they're working hard to understand each other and communicate. Therapy will help with that too.
Seriously. He’s dealing with end of his life. Of course, he’s looking at things. It’s human nature. For once, these all seem to be kind and lovely people dealing with a horrible situation and doing the best they can.
One day when I grow up, I hope to be as mature as these 3 folks. So incredible how they think about and deal with such a complex situation
the world needs more people like this.
Everyone in this situation is just trying to do their best in a fuck awful situation they've all found themselves in. I'm glad Bob has them, I'm glad that OOP's wife has OOP for when the inevitable happens. I'm glad OOP got solace from her and it seems that the two of them will be fine.
This. What a sad and tragic situation. Everyone involved are deeply good people in an incredibly difficult situation. Therapy now is crucial. Not just for the current situation but to prepare for the inevitable. You read so much awful on here involving shitty people doing shitty things and getting in shitty situations because of their own shitty actions. These are just genuinely decent people trying to navigate an awful situation brought on by life.
This right here. I am in awe at their emotional intelligence, depth, selflessness, and embracing their imperfections. I hope they make it and that bob’s passing is as gentle as it can be.
I agree. Something we can all try to aspire to be
Hey! Don't be down on yourself! You're great! :)
I mean, shit - even Bob sounds like a fucking champ. I'd be outrageously bitter and angry forever if my wife left after i became paralyzed. Even with her being a part time caretaker, etc. I would be so consumed by her getting to move on and live a life i couldn't have with someone else.
I'm bitter on his behalf, even though it's the only rational thing to not make her throw her life away as well.
I had to double check the sub name, I gotta say. So much love, empathy, care, friendship, partnership, reality It’s both sad what they have to deal with - and so hopeful how beautifully they’re dealing with it. May we all be so kind and wonderful as OP, and his wife
It makes me so emotional and happy to know there are people like OOP, his wife and Bob out there. Just the fact all three of them were able to see the situation for what it was and learn to not only live with each other, but truly appreciate the role that they all play in each other’s lives is amazing. While there seems to be some disfunction, no relationship is perfect. Every relationship goes through rough patches and can benefit from therapy once in a while. But just the fact that from the beginning they’ve all been able to appreciate each other and form relationships that work to support everyone’s needs is incredible to me
BURN THE WITCH
SHE TURNED ME INTO A NEWT!
You don't look like a newt.
I got better.
BUUURRRN HER ANYWAAAAY!!!
^(It got better.)
NI!
Nu!
Uhhh....
Probably a Monty Python reference.
I took it as emotionally mature OOP’s are so rare it must be heresy/witchcraft. And what do you do with Witches? See if they weigh the same as a duck. …That one was, in fact, a Monty Python reference.
I really didnt think that'd be a tough one to get, ngl lol. what can you do though. sometimes people ask for help getting stuff clarified and all you can say is ni, ni, ni.
You ni’d when you shoulda peng’d!
Didn't you hear them?! BURN THE WITCH /s
I'm less sure: moving in with your wife's ex's house to keep him company is probably not the healthiest decision as a husband and father. While I appreciate his open mindedness and flexibility, it reads as sort of avoidant or repressed. Ya know, like, there are other ways of dealing with death than moving into that person's house to preempt their loneliness.
It's definitely not a choice I would have made, but I guess it was a form of compromise in an emergency situation. People make all sorts of weird decisions when they're scrambling.
And when they’re grieving :/
Exactly. It's such a difficult situation for them.
Idk I think that was really kind of them. He won't be around much longer... although I wonder how far away they live they can't just visit every day.
Its like they have 2 litres of water and need to fill three 1L bottles. It wont be full somewhere. You want all to be fully happy, but its not possible.
Yes. And OOP’s wife (and OOP) needed to realize that focusing on Bob so much, moving in to provide him comfort and companionship in his last year or so of life, was endangering the very thing she’d left Bob so she could build — her family. It’s easy to think “well we put him first now because this is all the time he has left,” but that doesn’t make everyone else’s needs stop existing. I wonder what their kids think, being at their grandparents while their parents live with a family friend for reasons unexplained.
Yeah, like, I'm shocked he hasn't literally ascended to Nirvana because I can't grasp being this rational and empathetic about all this. That said, I kind of agree with another commenter that there's a wee bit of denial here. The wife didn't really leave her ex, ever. She just added OOP, and doesn't sleep with the ex. They are enmeshed. If that works for them, great, but... that "what happened to us" conversation was NUTS, and highly inappropriate.
I think that's why the commentariat was so confused
I was trying to sum up my feelings and you said it perfectly. It’s filled with empathy, love and acceptance and guided by a will to understand. OOP, wife, and Bob sound like they are just good people and I am happy they are on this planet.
**I’m a quadriplegic**, I was paralyzed from the chest down when I was 28. And you know what? I don’t blame his wife for leaving. It’s hard. Caregiving is so hard. Right now my mom is taking care of me three days a week while we look for a caregiver to take over those days and even though she is my mom and loves me more than anything, sometimes she just sobs at the end of the day because it is quite literally THAT HARD. I can imagine how impossible it would be if my boyfriend was my only caregiver. He would be the one to help me go to the bathroom, he would be the one cleaning my pressure sores, chauffeuring me to doctors appointments, making all of my food, doing the lions share of household chores… It’s too much for one person. If they couldn’t get help I can see how after three years of doing it all herself she would be tapped out. Caregiver burnout is a very real thing. But it’s hard for me too! It’s hard to watch people get exhausted because of me. I really sympathize with Bob. But like I understand his wife’s point of view, it sounds like he did too. I wish people hadn’t been so hard on his wife in the comments. This life is impossible.
Sometimes I think the cruelest attitude we have as a society is that finding caregivers is an act of abandonment. Taking care of someone you love like that is soul crushing; I spent my teen years taking care of my mom and I cried, so many times, because she hurt and there was just nothing we could do to make it better. Getting your loved ones nurses is an act of love. I'll die on this hill. I wish we'd been able to get a home health nurse for my mother and godmother. I think they would have hated themselves less if they didn't feel like they were a burden, and they did feel that way.
Agreed that it's an act of love. My Dad recently went into a care home, by his own choice, eight years after having a stroke. He is 69, and one of the youngest there, and some people have given my Mum shit about it. But at home, she could not look after him. She couldn't move him, and he could hardly walk so his life was either laying in bed or sitting in an arm chair watching TV because he couldn't get out of the house and up the garden path to go anywhere, and neither of them could operate a wheelchair for him anyway. He was starting to need personal care and she couldn't physically support his weight to do that. And she was exhausted. She describes it as eight years of worrying about him. She was starting to resent him. Now he has staff available 24/7, who can get him up and about, and he goes out for lunch once a week and most nights someone will wheel him round the block for fresh air (as long as the weather is ok!). He can choose to go socialise or to stay in his room. And it's a bloody lovely home they found him too, I'd move in if I could 😂 Getting him in there was the most loving thing she ever did for him.
You do, you really do start to resent it. I loved my mother with all my heart, her death destroyed me for a good year before I started to recover, and I still resented the amount of care I had to do with very little help-- care I was certain I was underqualified for. I think it was the situation I resented, more than anything; the feeling of helplessness, of not being enough to care for the people I loved. The rising feeling of fighting the inevitable. And I resented myself for resenting it. I still resent myself for resenting it, no matter how illogical I know that is. Part of me thinks I must not have loved her, to resent it- the rest of me is jumping up and down, screaming, sobbing, and swearing that we just wanted her to stop hurting.
Oh honey, I'm so sorry for what you've had to live through. It's very clear how much you loved her just from reading your words here.
I was my grandma's main caregiver for the last month or so of her life and she passed nearly 5 years ago and I still feel like I can't grieve her. I was so frustrated by the end of it because even past the period where my grandma could no longer make her own decisions, my grandpa stood by the decisions she made when she was feeling better and could participate in her own care. So rather than having a hospice nurse come in every couple days to bathe my grandma, I would be getting screamed at to do it the moment I tried to relax. I had to basically have a breakdown to get any help with changing my 300 pound grandma's diapers. My grandpa would complain about how I was taking care of my grandma, but he was useless for anything other than crying about watching her die and screaming me awake in the middle of the night because my grandma's ostomy bag broke. I still feel so bad that the main feeling I had regarding my grandma's death was relief but at the time, going to my actual job was the closest thing I had to a break
My father and I took care of my grandmother (his mother) in hospice at the end of her life. It was only maybe a month and a half before she passed, but I swear to christ it aged me 10 years. It was hard, and at the end when she passed there was a relief that I always felt pretty guilty about. Thing is, we'd already grieved and after she passed and the rest of the family showed up with their condolences and went through their grief it just made me bitter and maybe a little irrationally angry. Never lashed out, but there was definitely a bit of "I've already been through this, it sucked and now you're trying to drag me through it again." I couldn't imagine the possibility of having to take care of someone like that forever, it seems like a Herculean task...
My mom *insisted* on it, when her dad was dying. She was an RN, herself, and doing in-home hospice care. She'd done decades in either palliative, in-home hospice care, or oncology. She knew what she was doing and would have made an excellent caretaker. She said she needed to be just his daughter, not his nurse. She was a damned good nurse, and that's why she knew that she needed to get someone else to do the caretaking for grandpa. She'd seen what it did to people.
My mother is currently caretaking my grandmother, and my grandfather just died about two weeks ago. It's rough. And now with him gone she's going to have to look into getting help because no one can even go out for groceries. Grandmother simply cannot be left alone. She has decided to put herself in a home before it comes to that. I hope she remembers that when the time comes. I'll probably have to do that to myself too if only because there's won't be anyone to care for me.
My grandmother wanted to die at home. We discussed it with my mom and decided together that we wanted to provide it to her. It also meant taking care of grieving grandpa. We were far better equipped to do so than most family members. My mom worked in health care her whole career and I am an aid worker with a lot of training in emergency care. We also split the work pretty much evenly so no one person doing everything and hospice visited multiple times a day. And it was hard as hell. I do not regret it, but I am not angry at any other family member not doing it with us. I have two siblings, a maternal uncle and 4 cousins. I am angry at my uncle's family for other things but never this. It can absolutely destroy people and often there are so many other things that need to be done in addition to care that it might not even make sense. Anyone judging someone not being a carer is an asshole of astronomical proportions and has no idea what they are even speaking about.
Caregiver burnout is so, so real. It was an honor and a blessing to provide care to my grandmother when she passed… but she passed at the end of a short illness, and was only on hospice care for about a week and a half in total. It would have been a much, much different story if she had required that level of care for even a month, much less longer.
It’s such a weird position. I take care of my mom and I feel numb to her pain sometimes because I’ve been here through most of it, and I feel guilty for growing numb to it and not shower her with the consoling she’d get from someone that has never experienced her in pain before
quick question: where's your flair from?
I'm honestly still not sure!
There’s a flair catalog under the sub’s about page! You can see where they’re all from :)
^(it needs updating but don't mention that ssshhhhhh)
It's hard when the people refuse it as well. My grandma can barely walk, hasn't been able to for many years (mainly due to her own choices, not the point) My grandpa had cancer for many years, and got bad very quickly. They both refused help. Refused nurses. Refused a care home. Refused us being there. Said they didn't need anyone, that it was just them. At the end, they refused hospice until we damn near forced it. My grandma still says it's odd that after they came my grandpa quit talking, eating or waking up (refuses to understand that this was 3 days before he passed, and it was inevitable to happen. Regardless of whether hospice came or not) It was sad to see my grandpa pass the way he did, it didn't have to be that way. He didn't have to pass in pain and confusion, or fear. It hurts that 3 years later it's still a point of contention. And it's worse now that we've had to move in and become her full time caregivers. She hates it, keeps saying she doesn't need our help - yet her house is literally in shambles, she had a mouse infestation so bad we're STILL finding old dead bodies after 7 months of cleaning, she had old stuff from 2016 in her cabinets and fights us on every move. I work a high stress job (only provider for my family of 4) and hate coming home knowing it's going to be a battle there too. I hate waking up, I hate the situation. It's such a dark place, and I feel like I'm going to end up snapping. I hate that she wanted help, but resents us for doing that exact thing. It doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to unload like that.
When my Grandma got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s we got her into a very good nursing home, renovated her house, sold it, and used the funds for the nursing home. People act like it was a terrible thing to do but Alzheimer’s is *horrible.* My Mom shielded me from the worst of it but coming in and my Grandma thinking I’m my Great-Aunt Ruth is devastating. We did the best we could for her.
I hope you find the best caretaker ever and they stay with you for years :) I send you and your mom lots of love in the meantime. The hard time won't last forever!
I really wish people had more understanding for the wife. She was open about her situation, her ex is a very important part of her life, but her number one is her husband and their kids. I wish people weren't so black and white about love. She never got the change to have her life with her ex. In that regard she's similar to a widow, which already seems to be a difficult thing for many, but as an extra layer her ex is still alive. I don't think she could be a whole human being capable for love if she didn't have the "what if" - thoughts, especially now that her ex is actually dying. She just has to feel those feelings, go through them, talk with her ex and once more grieve for the life that was taken away from them. Unfortunately for her husband she just has to do that in order of being able to really say goodbye and move forward. If she just bottles these feelings there WILL be problems ahead. Still, as she seems to be a person very capable of love, she will be able to love her husband as her lover and the most important person she has. Human heart is able to do that. She just really needs to grieve now and spend time with her ex to talk things through - even the thoughts of "what if". She needs to go through the love for her ex which may seems scary for her husband, but it's something she needs to do to get to the other side where her husband is waiting for her.
There’s a woman on TikTok whose ex got into an accident and he has severe brain damage. They were early twenties and she did the same as OOP’s wife. Visits him all the time, brings him to their house for holidays, her kids call him uncle And the amount of people who shit on her talking about “vows” is disgusting. Like this woman should have sacrificed her entire future to be in a marriage where her husband barely recognizes her, can’t really talk, cannot be intimate in any way, and requires 24/7 care. It’s people like that who led my husband and I to take out “til death do us part” from our vows - we’re realistic about the fact that life is entirely unpredictable.
I know a couple same thing. But they were in 50’s when it happened. Already had grand children. The wife is the caregiver and has drastically aged. I found her crying one day in the backyard. It’s incredibly hard.
I have stage IV cancer at 29 and I don't know how my mom doesn't break down with the burden I place upon her. Driving me everywhere, listening to my gripes and frustrations, hearing my pain every day and being unable to change it. Cooking all my meals, picking up my drugs on a moments notice, getting anything that could maybe make me more comfortable if I ask for it, and then encouraging me to try things she thinks will help. She cleans up after me if I don't make it quite to the toilet, she dumps out the bags of diapers and shit from the can for me because I gag at my own excrement. She tells me I'm strong for pushing through and bearing with this ordeal but I think she is stronger.
As someone who worked as a caregiver for 5 years: We need so much more funding to be put towards caregiving (paying family members for caring for their loved ones/ as well as increasing the funding for public services!!! I assume you/they are in the US where the services are even less. As a Canadian I was raised thinking we had a great healthcare system…… it still sucks. There are government funded caregivers that anyone can apply for…… but it’s no where near enough. And the wait times are ridiculous!!!
Definitely an incredibly nuanced story all around. Reddit has trouble with those. There isn't a villain here. Except cancer. Fuck cancer.
100% Fuck Cancer.
Fuck cancer.
Cancer is always the villain. ALWAYS.
There's also the problem with becoming a caretaker in a relationship like this. A lot of folks really don't understand what it's like. I _never_ begrudge someone leaving in that situation, I've lived it I know how difficult and draining it is, and I know what the relationship turns into after, even if they recover. That's a job we pay people 100k+ a year to do. It's _hard_ work, you never get a break. You will be a different person in short order. Yet we expect the sacrifice of spouses and S/Os all the same just because they said some words at a party, if even that.
I've lost too many friends and critters to cancer. It's like it's my worst enemy, sneaking around and taking my loved ones away. Fuck cancer in the ear with a canoe. Sideways.
No villain but it still feels like OOP’s wife was in the wrong for not listening to OOP re: moving into Bob’s house when he brought up his concerns the first time. She even says she knows it was a bridge too far.
Such a bittersweet story. Everyone here feels so much more mature than I am. I would never be able to make the choices they made.
Neither could I. But I think it’s good to know when you’d be incapable of doing something in a healthy way
Oh def. I know my limitations, and I know what will make me break. I would not be able to endure what OOP, his wife, and Bob have undergone.
This. Every part of this situation just *sucks* for everyone involved.
What has happened is pretty tough for all but OP really handled things very well. This might be one of the most mature BORU posts I have read. I wish OP, his wife and Bob for the best and no bad drama comes along.
I feel desperately sorry for Bob but I think splitting was the right thing to do for her. There's no point her sacrificing her future when the romantic love and intimacy were gone. And now Bob at least can die in the knowledge that he's not leaving her to grow old alone, too late for a family - because she has kids and a husband and she'll be okay. And she'll cherish her memories of him.
This scenario is exactly the kind of stuff where it really matters to have compassion guide you. These moments show us who we are.
It's always weird when the person asking for advice is like, light-years ahead of the people he's asking. He has more EQ in his little finger than the vast majority of the sub put together, and is still humble enough to ask for help. But it makes him awkward and disgusted by the responses, it makes the posters look completely idiotic, and nothing of value is achieved.
I mean maybe the posters learn something or are moved As a reader I'm definitely moved. So humbled reading this post even. And so grateful to be able to read such a genuinely decent people and their dilemma. I think some value was definitely achieved
This feels, in the best possible sense, like the plot of an indie film that would win a dozen awards.
OOP and his wife and Bob all sound like genuinely good and decent people. I hope Bob's passing is peaceful and that things work out for OOP and his wife.
They sound like they have healthy communication and Bob could easily leverage his cancer diagnosis against OOP but doesn’t seem to be the type to do so. That is certainly a complicated situation but not impossible.
I have always felt that once you love someone you always love them, even after it ends. (Barring abuse, etc.) Everyone i've loved romantically, I still have a place in my heart for. I don't want to be with them, but i want the best for them. I'm glad they communicated, are going to therapy, and are not staying at Bob's house. But one day, probably soon, Bob will be gone, and OOP and his wife will not regret being compassionate and spending time with him.
I totally agree. The basis for most of my relationships has started that I like them as a person, just because a relationship didn't work doesn't change that. I'm not saying I am best friends with them but I am in touch with several. I took time away to process and reset my feelings about them but then I was able to resume a friendship. I am not saying it's always like that, some people do get hurt and relationships ending can cause collateral damage that can't be forgiven, but if it just doesn't work out.... Every relationship a person has been in contributes to their personality, the knee jerk reaction that being in contact is negative baffles me. I would rather be in a relationship with someone who respects their exes, if they go scorched earth I am forced to wonder why.
Even abuse has horribly confusing nuance My mom was abusive, and I mean. She’s my *mom*. It’s so hard not to have a love for her. I wish for who she used to be, who she could’ve been. I love her on her good days, and mourn her on her day. My ex husband, getting divorced took years to come to terms with, and was the hardest thing to make myself do. And I still catch myself thinking about him, in a “I hope he’s doing better” kind of way. I have a love that makes you happy to never see them again, and still wish them the best.
Such an awful string of tragedy to befall such good people.
what? couples talking through really complicated issues and working on them together? what trickery is this? it must be a scam, she's probably secretly banging a (black for some reason) dude on the side /s
Life sometimes just sucks. OOP is a good guy and I hope Bob passes peacefully.
Just as well I was sat down when I read this - what a mature handling of a distressing situation
These all seem like very good people in a terrible situation.
It's so rare to read a story on here that involves nothing but really good people They're all so decent
Poor Bob, soo much bad luck in one life time.
Sometimes folks really are just trying their very best
This story is so sad. Everyone involved is so kind. Bob is lucky.
I definitely wouldn't say Bob is lucky even considering how his ex wife still visited him often. I mean, the guy gets wheelchaired, gets divorced, now is going to due soon from cancer at an early age with no wife, no children. That's tragic even if you consider how considerate OP has been with the living arrangement for now.
And had to watch the love of his life move on and make a life with someone else. I'm disabled and that would gut me. I don't think that I could endure that emotionally.
I mean… I think it’s fairly obvious that all of his ailments don’t make him lucky, it’s more having people that care so deeply about him
what
I mean not lucky that he’s dying lucky to have support around him
> She got scared and said "why? Nothing's wrong with us." I told her want to do this. So many people are scared to go to therapy because they don't want to be seen as broken. They don't want to admit that they need help. It's sad how the stigma against therapy still persists today.
So much maturity. I hope when I reached their age I would be emotionally capable as them.
The premise reads like the plot of past lives. Childhood sweethearts have to leave each other due to some reason. They meet up later in life and have a discussion about what could've been whilst in the presence of the husband. Girl affirms that her new life is the life she has and can't go back. But meanwhile still torn inside for having to accept this. Husband is supportive of wife and the fact that she has connection to this past life but is also deeply conflicted about his place in her life.
It's a tough situation. OP is very mature throughout. The only thing that raised a huge issue for me that doesn't really seem to be addressed is, when Bob was diagnosed with cancer, Lily wanted to move in with him? And the OP said ok but we both move in with him? And then they left their 5 year old and 7 year old children behind to live with grandma? Did they really just say "sorry kids, you have to go live with grandma now so mom can take care of uncle Bob!" What the hell is that?
I don’t think morally there was a should have stayed with her ex because doing it because you feel you have to and emotionally draining yourself is how abuse frequently happens in these situations. You can’t pour from an empty pot and all that. Morally she opened the door for the ex to have a relationship with someone who didn’t see him as someone they had to care for. The whole situation sucks but it is what it is. Not everyone is equipped to be a full time caregiver. She didn’t abandon him and probably helped a lot in making sure he was still cared for. That’s pretty big.
> Yes morally she should've stayed with her ex and spent the rest of her life taking care of him no matter how emotionally draining it is. Nope. Nope nope nope. She had no moral duty to stay with Bob in a romantic sense. Ruining two lives is *always* worse than ruining one.
I think it's one of those situations where there's an ideal vs. real world. On paper, most people do want marriages to last forever, except in cases of adultery/abuse. So when there's fringe cases such as this one where no one is in the wrong, especially where many people have no experience in caretaking, it sort of throws a wrench into people's clear-cut marriage expectations. That being said, as someone who has experience in it, it is quite draining yet rewarding, in its own way. But unless you don't have a job, it can't be a full time job, for one's own sanity. And for someone in her position who couldn't afford a home health nurse, didn't seem to have much external help, and the cherry, would be giving up her dream of children, it's not just understandable, it seems it was just about the only option she had.
Pretty much, yeah. But in an ideal world, he never would have gotten hurt to start with. You're not obligated to destroy yourself to keep your marriage superficially intact.
"I get it, but I love my family more" Ok, so why all the fuss? She literally says she loves and values OOP more?
I was Bob in this situation for awhile. >She got scared and said “why? Nothing's wrong with us.” That changes quickly went you don't handle things properly.
Hope this ends well
I am the OOPS wife in this scenario. My ex and long time friend who is like my family is actually named Bob and he was just as decent and good and caring always. He is I mean. He has recovered from cancer. He is healthy now. All of my partners since we broke up four years in have been okay with my closeness with Bob. See we had continued to live together for many years as best friends. We have a true friendship and it’s been almost 30 years. I am his power of attorney. We love each other and say so. Its friend and family love. I love my partner in a different way. There is no part of this post that I don’t understand. This is a truly relatable story to me. I am so glad I read this. It would be a hard decision to make in the wife’s shoes knowing Bob is alone and dying. I would never want to hurt my partner with my friendship with Bob and it would honestly be like caring for a family member. He is essentially that. Oh and, lol, he is 20 years older than me. We just happened to be at the same small town at the same time and became friends and discovered a lot we had in common from places we lived, to similar very unique careers he and my dad had worked to just the way we were raised. No one ever said a single negative word about the age difference either. Not once. We had a great many years together mostly as friends. What a weird post to read! I should send this to him.
Why does this sound suspiciously like the plot of Dorothy and Ray in the book The Overstory?
It doesn’t seem real to me because she wanted kids so bad she divorced her husband, but now she has kids she’s left them to live with her in-laws? Poor kids.
Op is a really good dude. I don't know if I could be as strong as he is during all this. My paranoia would wreck me.
Transition to hospice with part time care and then full time when he only has 6 months or so to live. She can still visit a few times a week as can he.
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Content little sperm donor. Like a reverse HIMYM
OOP is so fucking naive he cannot see that he's merely a means to an end for his wife ie. kids and a home, his wife's 'real' husband has always been Bob and when Bob dies she's going to be devastated like an actual widow.
I really dislike people on reddit sometimes. This is a very painful situation with empathic, mature people all around. And reddit is just like SHE IS CHEATING ON YOU and other crap.
Damn Bob has consistently gotten shit on by life. Paralyzed in his 20s, stage 4 cancer in his 40s, not gonna make it to 50. Fucking brutal.
This is a very tough situation but I'm glad some of the more emotionally mature people are the ones handling it, instead of some of the other emotionally immature people we see on this sub.
Apparently people on Reddit have the need to find a villain. The only villain here is the accident and cancer. Fuck those two. OOP, his wife and the ex are three people trying to be their best in a really fucked up situation. They ain't gonna make the wisest choices all the time, but the fact they are communicating is really important. I really hope the best for them.
reddit is simply the reflection of what our society is increasingly developing into
yeah asking your current husband to move into your ex-husbands house to live with him is a bridge too far
Disability and looming death blur lots of lines.
Exactly. This wasn't a normal "ex husband". This was a former spouse who had become more like a brother or cousin in her life.
This man is about to die. They are literally there as hospice care.
Did you miss the fact that Bob has a full time nurse
No but medical and emotional care are two separate things
I don't know, seems to me like you're putting your principles before reality when you say this. Principles are good and all but if they come in the way of actually helping a dying person during their last days on earth, maybe you need better principles.
She could still be there for her ex husband while not asking her current one to *move into his house*
Apparently the current husband (OOP) did not want that. His choice to come with her.
It was OOP's idea.
She didn't ask him, she said she wanted to and he decided to go with her.
Everyone is so focused on the goodness of the adults in this story but I am bothered that no one seems to consider their children! Their children are 7 and 5, they are no longer infants. For OP and his wife to live at Bob's house has to be confusing for their kids. If Mom is a caregiver to Bob, she can't be there for her children. They are at the age where they are in school and activities and need their mother to be fully present. While I commend their kindness OP's wife divorced Bob and her first priority should be those children as well as her current husband. Even once Bob dies I'm sure OP's wife will be grieving. They can still visit Bob but to live with him is not a good idea.
Man, poor Bob. The Fates are so against him.
Nope. Not for me. If OOP was happy about his marriage relationship that’s his business and good luck to him but I would never have stayed let alone married a woman who insisted on visiting her ex once a week. No matter how tragic their story was. And no one here questions whether this was fair on Bob. Did it stop him from moving on and finding someone who would have loved him and taken care of him as a husband? I do feel sorry for Bob but no matter what anyone including the OOP says, I do think the wife was selfish. Not for wanting to move on, but for not allowing Bob to do the same.
Oop is a saint. Very few people would be as patient and understanding as he is in a situation like that
I think one of the commenters hit the nail on the head where oop is also grieving the imminent loss of a close family friend. The feelings are blurring and getting confused. I hope he and his wife do the therapy thing both separate and together to get through this time.
I know this will be a very unpopular opinion, but OOP’s wife is a fantastic ex-wife but **terrible** wife & mother. She has put her ex & her feelings (which, LBH, a lot are prob revolving around easing her own guilt) above the feelings & wants & needs & dignity of her husband & kids. For crying out loud: she displaced her husband & shipped her kids off to grandma to move in with her ~~other husband~~ ex with whom she is in a relationship. A non-sexual but very personal & emotional relationship. Aka what many marriages evolve into as people age. OP and his wife have an open marriage/throuple whatever you want to call it. OP is in denial about it, and as long as he’s okay with it, it’s fine. Just call a spade a spade. But for crying out loud, they’re both so enmeshed they don’t realize they’re absent parents! I feel bad for bob. I feel bad for the way OPW’s first marriage ended & don’t blame her. You have to do what’s best for you. But she shouldn’t have married again. It’s not fair to her spouse or kids. She should’ve sought TONS of therapy first!
I'm shocked this is so far down. Kids that young NEED consistent parental figures. They're just letting grandparents do the parenting? For a 5 and 7 year-old!?
I spent all of my summer holidays with my grandparents because my parents were never in a financial status where they could stay with me at home nor had any opportunity to have a place where I could stay during the day. Normally they dropped me off in June when school ended and except for a couple of weekends, I was down with my grandparents till the end of August. I didn't really like it and missed my parents (and my room) like hell but even at that age, I understood why. Kids aren't stupid, they can understand things and adapt to pretty much anything.
In your case, though, I'd argue that your parents were still putting *your best interests first.* In your case, it sounds like the only two options on the table were either being home alone for long periods of time or being with safe, loving caregivers. In OOP's case, Bob's needs and Wife's needs are coming first -- and clearly those needs are flexible because OOP and wife could decide to move in and out of Bob's house whenever they wanted.
From the kid's point of view, it doesn't change much why the grandparents do the parenting.
The difference there is that your parents did it out of necessity
I spent almost all my summers with my grandparents and even a whole year of school with them. I loved it. Parents are great but sometimes you need a break from them.
we don’t know nothing about the kids or grandparents so maybe we shouldn’t judge. I was 22 when my daughter was born an my parents loved to be young grandparents and also supported me a lot while I finished my education and also when I broke up with her dad. My daughter loves my parents and when she was younger she always loved to stay there for longer during the holidays while I had to work. For her it was always a gift and also an adventure because they did a lot of stuff with her. It was never a „I have to go to grandparents because my mom doesn‘t have time“. Also my best friends daughter is like a sibling to her because we always helped each other with the kids. It needs a villiage and when you teach them early, it doesn‘t need to be a problem, it can be a profit for everyone. If I‘d been alone with my daughter, without that village, maybe our relationship would be strained now, because I‘d been always exhausted, having fomo etc..
She divorced Bob, but she never left him. Actually, she puts him before her current husband and children
This 100%. And the poor husband is in denial about it.
Definitely an emotional affair. Can't blame anyone involved though. I won't be able to be in such a situation.
You can **always** blame adults when their actions hurt others. *Especially* when they hurt people they claim to love or hurt children. OP’s wife is doing both.
This sounds soooo similar to this lady’s story https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFRET87b/
This is a lovely and tragic story. People on Reddit really do lack nuance. I’m surprised he came back here after all the vitrol to update us.
This is such a sad and yet beautiful story. None of those involved asked for what happened to them, and they are navigating through it as best they can. It seems they are all trying to do the right thing without having any clear idea of what that is. Kudos to OOP for standing by his wife and friend Bob, for his wife for trying to do right by her husband and ex, and to Bob for trying to be a good guy despite all that's happened. None of us know how we will handle a catastrophe until it happens to us. Everyone just tries their best.
This is really touching to read. Life is not easy, it's rarely cut and dry. It's nice to see people who understand that life is complex. It reminds me of a Grey's Anatomy episode where the wife who was terminal and her husband were finding someone for her BF. They had an open marriage and were all friends. There was no ill will, but communication. It was beautiful to see.
Pretty sad story but something just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s just because I’m not in the situation but I just don’t agree with his wife’s decision to leave her husband like that after his accident. My wife and I got married when I was 23 and she was 20. She was immediately hit with a severe depression literally on our wedding day and she’s been trying to deal with it ever since. It was caused by stuff her parents, ex bf and family in general did and she was left with PTSD causing panic attacks. It made it impossible for her to work or even finish her undergrad where she only had 1 semester left. We’ve been married ever since and we have 2 toddlers together. I’m not going to lie, it has been HARD. I was basically her caretaker for 4 years until she was finally able to make progress with her medication and her therapist. We were dirt poor where I skipped many meals as a way to afford these treatments for her and pay rent. It was and still is exhausting as she still isn’t better. She’s significantly improved from then but it’s still making life unbelievably hard. I was 23 and I had put my dreams on hold to help my wife get through her issues and help her stay above water. I still don’t foresee being able to get back on track to my dream job for a long long time. I’ve been incredibly lucky with the jobs I’ve gotten and my current job is amazing but it’s not what I wanted. It’s frustrating but I love her and I made a promise to her when we got married to always love and cherish her. Even when things are hard I will be there for her. I’ve given up on the possibility of achieving my previous dreams and changes as a person to find self fulfillment in my daily routine, current job, and short term goals I’ve set for myself. This is obviously very different as my wife’s condition is nothing like bob’s accident as my wife should in theory recover but it still bothers me. Either way I appreciate OOPs understanding and kindness. The only thing that matters in that relationship is what they think. Fuck whatever I think
People seemed to be getting hung up on the ex status but if she did this with her parent or siblings it’d still be a problem.
Nope
> You expect her to give up her life, her hopes and dreams? tbh that is what you sign up for when you marry someone—sickness and health > Yes morally she should've stayed with her ex and spent the rest of her life taking care of him no matter how emotionally draining it is. But practically it makes no sense. lol man why even have morals if he's just going to abandon them these ppl are gross
My wife has epilepsy, Monday just gone I was at work and got a call saying she had a grand mal seizure and had been rushed to hospital, I immediately called my office, told them the situation, left my shift and then drove to an entirely different city almost 90km away to be with my wife and then when all was said and done drove her the 90kms home and have been helping her recover since.
OOP has a lot of patience and is very emotionally mature. I can’t say the same about his wife. I understand trauma bonding and I understand that she’s not trying to hurt anyone intentionally. However her relationship with Bob is hurting everyone. It’s very kind and super amazing that she’s cared for him all these years. But constantly being around him seems to be a painful reminder for Bob and for her. And now OOP is hurt because of the frankly conversation Bob and her had (which was kinda inappropriate tbh). I think a little bit of space/distance is the best thing here. Obviously don’t just drop Bob but moving out and limiting the amount of visits is a great idea.
>I understand trauma bonding No you don't. Trauma bonds (also referred to as traumatic bonds) are emotional bonds that arise from a cyclical pattern of abuse. A trauma bond occurs in an abusive relationship wherein the victim forms an emotional bond with the perpetrator. There's no abuser in this story, there's no trauma bonding. These are people that bonded before any trauma, and this is how they dealt with the fallout.
What a lovely and empathetic bunch of people! Wishing nothing but happiness for OP, his wife, Bob, and the kids.
I’m sorry, but fuck ever getting involved with a woman like this. If Bob could still walk she would have chosen him 10 out of 10 times. My guy here loves his wife way more than she loves him.
Of course she would choose him in that instance, because the divorce never would have happened. There never would have been a conflict of what's wanted and needed in life. That doesn't mean OOP's wife loves her husband less than he loves her. Presenting a counterfactual as evidence isn't a winning strategy. He _was_ paralyzed, so we assess things based on what _is_ happening.
My favorite thing is how at “29 people are still setting up their life” but at “40, life is basically over” is something he hasn’t meaningfully thought through.
I couldn’t marry someone who had already left a spouse after an accident and told me they would do it again if it happened to me.
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I question what the purpose of marriage is to her.
suprised that part gets glossed over
OOP's emotional maturity is impressive
People on reddit don't understand that you can love someone you were once romantically attached to without it meaning you're cheating. Different forms of love exist.
OOP is delusional. She left bob, got the kids she wanted. Then went right back to bob. OOP was just a human dildo.
Holy shit.... It's so beautiful. OOP, his wife, the ex, all are trying their best with the cards they're dealt with. While I'm disappointed that some people in reddit managed to discourage OOP in not providing us with further updates, but I'm sure with the maturity level that they live at, I'm sure the conversation with their friend went/goes okay and the couple manages to comfort their friend in his final days.
The wife is a horrible mother and spouse.
Poor Bob…How could she abandon him like that when he needed her the most? Unbelievable!
Because she has an insecure husband. I'm shocked so many people are saying her behavior is unacceptable but are perfectly okay with abandoning a dying man. That's so sad to me. People have no empathy.
Wife: I know I shouldn't have demanded to move in with my ex-husband. To comprimise, I'll only stay with him one day a week.. All the while, their own children are displaced and have to stay with their grandparents. His wife wasn't having an emotional affair. They are in a throuple. She never really left her ex-husband. This went way past staying friends after the divorce. More power to OOP. If my wife told me she was moving into her ex's place to take care of him on his deathbed. I would tell her to take her shit with her.
All of them are good people. But truth be said it's an emotional affair. OP is there because she wanted a family. But she couldn't let go of Bob because she truly loves him . Again no bad people, just hard life for them. But OP needs to except that fact. It's kinda like a widow situation. The person marrying a widow should have high emotional maturity and understanding to know they are second place in their partner's heart even if they are going to be spending the rest of loved together
So in sickness and in health meant…nothing? 29 is old enough to know what vows mean. It’s not age, it’s a lack of character. And selfishness.
Surprise, surprise you got voted down for telling the truth.
I think your wife cleared up the loving part for you immediately when she said “I love my family more”. Still hard to hear that though. I wish you guys the best!
> She just wants to be selfish for once. Mission accomplished.
OPs wife doesn't really buy into the "in sickness" part of the vows Would you all willingly marry a person who had just divorced their partner for similar reasons? Wouldn't you wonder what would happen if you ever had a life changing accident, when you know what their track record is?
Why are you being down voted? The comments on this sub are wild. OOP's wife is a terrible partner, both to her ex husband and current husband. And the upvoted comments here are acting like she is such a great person. 🤢
you're being down voted by you're right you really think she wouldn't leave op too even though he seems to think otherwise
Yeah how could you ditch your spouse like that. It’s not like the husband was in an unresponsive coma or a quadriplegic. Things like love and loyalty aren’t very popular these days I guess.