Lost Relationship due to Cancer

Connie,
There not worth your time if they can't be with you thru this. Don't take a back seat to anyone. You never know whats down the road for them, they may be regretting their decision someday. See a good therapist, as Wendy said, its easy to walk away, takes courage to face what we are given. Ginger Beane

My wife of 13 years divorced me and left me alone with my 5 year old son and 7 year old daughter within 6 months of my T1G3 diagnosis. However, now I am a happy single dad with full custody of my kids and the cancer had not made a comeback.

It would have been nice to have my life partner care when I was facing so much uncertanty about my future... but now I have the opportunity to find someone really special.

Hi Connie,

Oh I can soooo relate to what you are going thru....

I was married before for almost 8 years when I was dx'd with breast cancer. !0 days after the surgery - he booked. By the Grace of God and Good friends I kept it together for 3 months before he even showed up again. It was quite a while before I felt safe enough again to reveal myself ( physically or emotionally) with a man. Yes , I divorced the "bolter", healed and moved on tho it took some time.
When I was dx'd with the bladder cancer this past January, well, I was just married 5 weeks before on Dec 16. I was so freaked out - I was really worried he would leave too. I even offered to get the marriage annulled if he desired. He has proved to me he meant for better or worse, in sickness or in health. We have yet to have our first fight...lol He has been my hero and best friend thru all this. I doubt we shall ever have that 1st fight.
Keep the faith. Somehow cancer does weed "riffraff" out of our lives. I'll lift you in prayer for healing, Connie. God Bless, Holly

Nope Connie married to an angel for 30 years now. Joe

Hi Connie,

I'm sorry you've been through this. I am lucky to have a good marriage but as a breast cancer survivor I have heard many stories from women that sound like your story. I haven't heard so many stories from women or men with bladder cancer but I am sure they exist.

The only advice I can think of is to find a good therapist to talk with, to help you through this rough time. I believe that it's a phase, a rotten period in your life but that there is definitely someone out there who will love you (warts and all). But perhaps some way to boost your confidence and heal the wounds that hurt you at this moment would be a way to prepare for a better time ahead. I wouldn't want you to get caught in a mind-set as 'victim' of cancer..although we certainly feel like victims sometimes and would especially feel so if it's the cause of a relationship to end. That sounds human.

However, this is actually more his problem than yours...it just shows what a heartless shallow creep he really was.

There was ever a discussion on the board here about the phenomenon of 'angels vs. bolters', how when a person gets a cancer dx, it seems to weed out the riff-raff and pointedly show us who our real friends are. Unfortunately, as in my own personal case--sometimes it seems that everyone you know is the kind of riff raff that won't be there for you post-dx. My life is so extremely oppositie of how it was pre-cancer there is no way to describe it!

Sometimes it's quite painful but then I realize it's time to start counting my blessings. Like...how blessed I am to have a supportive husband. Or that I have no evidence of cancer at this time.

Makes me think we should have some kind of dating service for cancer warriors! Including caregivers...in fact, my work with WebCafe introduced me to a wonderful woman, her husband had end stage blc, she reminded me a lot of my aunt. I introduced them and they became great friends. Sadly, my aunt died from colo-rectal cancer. After my aunt's death that 'caregiver' became the companion to my uncle, the other 'caregiver', and they are very happy together though they share the same sadness of having lost their spouse.

Keep believing that there is someone for everyone.
Hugs,
Wendy

I had been in a relationship for 10 months...I was working on a future with this person. In July 2007, my cancer returned after 7 years, high grade for the first time. It obviously was a very stressful time for me; I counted on the support of the person I most cared for. Imagine my shock when he wouldn't even hug me when I told him about the diagnosis. He showed very little empathy for my fears, stress, and what I had to go through. There were times I cried, and he ignored me. He said it was not a bad situation, but that I was just seeing it that way. Maybe he was in denial. To make a long story short, he became alternately withdrawn and combative. I told him that if he could not be supportive, he would have to leave, but he would not. In September, I finally had to tell him to to away and stay away. As much as that hurt, his treating me like he was hurt more.

It has happened other times. In 2000, when I had my first bc recurrence, I was abruptly dumped by the man I was dating. When herniated disks in my neck temporarily disabled me about 5 years ago, my relationship partner at the time began treating me badly, being sarcastic and mean because I was no longer "fun."

I don't have a supportive family, so I'm pretty much left alone here now.

Has anyone been dumped when their relationship partner found out you had cancer, or another health problem? Or did a partner start treating you badly in order to get out of the relationship, because he/she was too cowardly to say "I can't deal with this cancer thing; I have to leave" ? Or am I the only one? If someone has experienced it, how did you handle it? I am so hurt.

No relationship is perfect, but I was treated well in these relationships until the health problems surfaced, making me feel like I was being punished for it. Talk about adding "insult to injury." I wonder if I'll be able to trust anyone again, because this cancer will recur and recur, and I am really tired of going through this.

Connie