Living Around the Edges

How do I make a life around the edges of his cancer? I know the theory and I know the good advice of support groups and advisors. I am not supposed to make my life around him. I am supposed to make my own life and live my own life, and while I can go through the motions of doing that no one admits how hard it is to do that from the inside. I am always in the wrong place. If I am out I wonder if I should be home and when I am home I am resentful that I am missing my own life. This is compounded by thinking that with Stage Three cancer he might really be dying so what kind of life will I have at the end of his cancer?

I think of the movie Ghost: What we regret is not loving. So I think to myself, “love more, love him now. He is here and this is today’s reality so love him now.” Nice idea, nice inspirational topic. But what doe sit mean in practical terms?

Do I go to work and keep my job/career/work going and going well because I will need that later. I will have to support myself later and I may have to support us now if cancer gets as expensive as it’s reputed to be. We are not married so how does that play out financially? Do I support him? Do we merge our finances even though legally he has a wife? And his wife is the person who will receive his life insurance. I will bankrupt myself to care for him but his wife will get the life insurance if he dies. And then I feel all of the shame that flows onto me for even thinking that thought. How horrible am I that I think of money and finances and the need to take care of myself.

But he is not taking care of me and this hurts. That is about more than cancer. And then I have this resentment that he has protected the wife that he says did not fulfill him but will not protect me; the woman he says brought him to life. What do I do with that? I can hear my friends saying, “Protect yourself, take care of yourself”.

What is emotionally healthy behavior in caregiving? What do you regret later: not taking care of yourself? Or not spending more time to take care of the other person? It’s a no win situation and filled with fraught pain no matter which way I turn. I am shamed into silence because I care about my own well being and I am hurt that he is not taking care of me.