OT - Pat Robertson

Okay, I loathe and detest Pat Roberston and almost everything he says and I know for a fact that his followers are just pitiful...but on this one, I can actually see what he's saying.

My step-father had Alzheimer's.  Back in the day, there were no resources except those we carved out of the existing laws.  My mother got a legal separation from him so that there was a court order saying that he had to pay her support--otherwise, ALL of his money would have gone to nursing homes---this way, my mom got to keep "her half."

Thing is, a HUGE part of her died, too.  When people now ask me when my mother started getting sick, it was at his diagnosis.  It wasn't one of those "poor little old people who were 80 and they'd been together 60 years and one can't go on without the other" things.  They'd been married less than 20 years.  But my mom's hope for her senior years, for the rest of her life, all died along with his diagnosis.

Mom just stopped doing anything, stopped being responsible, stopped being a truly competent, independent adult when he got sick.  She even asked my permission to go on a tour to London...she was an adult and had her own money...why would she need MY permission?

I think now...he's been dead for over twenty years...she would have been better off if she had divorced him.  Not so much to start whoring around, as much as to say, "The man I married is gone" (kind of what PR said) "and I need to mourn that death and move on and I don't know THIS person, but because of the promises I made to the man I married, I'll take care of this person...at a distance if need be...so that I can continue to live."

My mother has been a "walking wounded" Alzheimer's spouse and widow for almost thirty years.  I think, that in her case, a divorce would have provided her with a needed document...a line in the sand, if you will...that might have allowed her to keep living. 

DD and I were talking about this last night, after DH and I had discussed it earlier.  Both DH and I agreed that, so long as care was arranged for and the relationship wasn't totally cut, we were ok with the non-Alzheimers spouse divorcing and starting over.

But that's the "in sickness and health" part: ensuring that the ill spouse still has care and that they are not left totally bereft of a relationship that they may remember in some form.  Nicholas Sparks' "The Notebook" is a sweet (perhaps sickeningly sweet) tale, but not livable IMHO.

And sometimes it's better if the spouse isn't involved... An aunt of DH's who developed Alzheimers perceived her husband as her father-in-law, and freaked out whenever he came around.  But she perceived their son as her husband in younger days and was much more willing to cooperate with things he proposed.  It was a tough situation all around.

In the end, there are many ways to honor vows - and the ultimate question is the spirit is being honored, moreso than the letter.

DD was a little freaked, but also after a bit said she was glad we were thinking about these things now (she's 25, so adult).

You and your husband had a conversation and agreed to do this.  In my eyes that's totally different from the other situation. 

I would feel the same way about a spouse in a coma.  To divorce them would feel like abandonment.  Betrayal. 

And so if one of your kids at age 25, marries someone, who is at age 26, critically injured in a traffic accident but kept alive...your kid should have NO life of his or her own until that other person DIES?  Even if it takes twenty more years?

That's not a marriage..that's a death sentence for the non-injured spouse.  And unreasonable.

I would never try to dictate to another person what they should do.  It's not my place. 
I can only speak to what those vows mean to me personally.  When I stood up in the church and promised to stay with my husband through sickness and health, there wasn't a clause that said mental health was exempt.  He will be my one true love until either he dies or I do. 

I took issue with Pat Robertson because he is supposed to be a Christian leader and upholding the sanctity of marriage.  For years he's used the Bible to beat people over the head and justify his twisted agenda. 

Truthfully, if anyone else would have made those same remarks, I probably wouldn't have had such a visceral response.

Hey!  I have that response when I see his face!

Bu in this case, as the person who had to take over my mother's life 30 years ago when her husband was diagnosed...I really wish she had decided to live instead of die with him.

Yeah...the stricken person often CANNOT remember those vows.  Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had to go to the nursing home and visit her husband and his "girlfriend" there.  And her husband didn't realy know who SHE was.

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/national/main3494982.shtm l

It's so confusing.  If the patient is happy and comfortable and doing things that help him enjoy what's left of his life, why should the spouse...the one who doesn't have the disease, but has a broken heart, not be encouraged to make a new life for herself?

Here is another story - of someone who decided to move on, while still caring for and about the stricken spouse - and a little bit about the new person in the "relationship."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/23/sunday/main7274728 .shtml

Wow, what a touching story!  That is how people should be. 

This coming from the same guy who thinks gay folk getting married destroys "traditional" marriage.  Isn't 'til death do us part a LARGE part of "traditional" marriage?

That being said, I suppose it really matters how "far away" the person is who is suffering from Alzheimers.  I have a dear family member who has her good and not so good days.  At what point do you "pull the plug" on the marriage?  Some people go a long long time with mixed clarity.

Personally, I'd rather someone stay married...and just date or have friends with benefits, until the patient is terminal.  With human nature the way it is, once divorced, visits (to a nursing facility) would probably fall WAY off, and then there's the added pressure from the "other man or woman" to spend time with THEM and not the patient. 

Yep, a horrid situation to consider.  And, Pat Robertson is an ass.

-Cyn