My fiance and I have been together for eight years – and in just the last two, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and his father found out he has colon cancer. Now my fiance is convinced he, too, may die soon – an obsession that's changing his personality.
I'm worried for him and don't know how to help him. If I try talking about it, he snaps at me and shuts down. I'm afraid pent-up emotions about his parents have created this anxiety about his own death. How can I help him?
After being surrounded with illness and death, it's not unusual that your fiance is focusing on "the end" a bit too much. It may be a way for him to grieve, and it should subside in time. The good news is, we tend to wear our fears out. We worry, obsess, over-think -- finally exhaust ourselves, and it passes.
In the meantime, it takes a bit of intuition to know what's the right thing to say, the right suggestion to make, or when it's necessary to seek help. Do a lot of listening and encouraging. You're his lifeline, but he has to be willing to hold onto the rope.
One important thing you can do is to help him find a bereavement group. Your fiance needs to be able to talk this out before he chooses to move on, but he may not have the energy to look for an outlet himself. Places of worship, hospitals, community centers, and many hospices run bereavement groups. Look for one facilitated by a moderator trained to help people deal with their grief -- you don't want a group that simply feeds and encourages his current thoughts; you need one that moves toward health.
One of the best antidotes for death is life. Surround the two of you with it. Go to a petting zoo. Visit friends with young children or animals. Plant a garden. After my mother died, I was so down that I knew I had to do something to infuse my family's life with joy and hope. We got a puppy. That may seem crazy considering it's extra work, but it made all the difference in the world to have something to look forward to each day -- the desire to protect, the cuddling, and even the daily commitment of a walk was good for us at a very difficult time. You'll probably have to be the planning committee for your relationship right now, but that's what marriage and partnerships are all about.
Sometimes, after we've tried everything else and given someone a long time to recover, someone in your shoes might also have to say loud and clear, "Snap out of it!" It's a jolt and it may sound heartless, but it's like yelling at someone to stop before they jump off a cliff.
Conversely, be aware of signs of true depression. If he really takes a dip -- can't sleep or sleeps too much (12 hours or more), grows anxious to the point of not being able to function, loses weight or gains weight rapidly, and remedies like activity and the bereavement group don't help -- he may need to talk to a professional counselor who specializes in grief.
The good news is that while your fiancé may be struggling emotionally, everything in us is geared toward staying alive. We eat, we breathe, we form relationships, we work, we make homes for ourselves -- so trust that his natural order will come back and he'll find balance in time.
As a couple you'll experience many celebrations and losses. Your patience, encouragement, and steady love can help him navigate this tough time. He's had some hard blows, and your support can help him find purpose and passion again. Part of the resiliency of a good relationship comes from the struggles you face together.
I'm concerned about the anonymous note above. Please contact someone for help. I've felt useless and overwhelmed myself and learned that only God can really give me the certainty that I am loved unconditionally and worthwhile. He does not want us to go to Him for His sake but ours. I once desperatly needed that. If you want to talk to someone, contact me at joriebooty@yahoo.com
This is a slippery slope, and stopping the free fall can be hard. I'm stuck, yes, that's the word, caring for my 87 year old father with mixed dementias, still reasonably functional, but his presence has destroyed my privacy, and his 'quirks' are driving my stress thru the roof. Worse still, I've been unemployed for going on 15 months, with unemployment on its last extension. At 50+, I'm viewed as "too old, too expensive", so where I once made a nice salary, I'm likely looking at substantially less if and when I'm hired. The house I worked for is in jeopardy. I feel trapped because my father and I are both living off of his pension, and we can't move him to an appropriate assisted living facility until I have enough income to cover bills. As I watch him age, watch others age around me, and see elderly in nursing homes, I wonder why bother 'keeping on'. The only thing keeping me going are my cats - I need them, they need me. If they weren't here, it would be so easy to chuck it all. There isn't a week that goes by when I don't think once or twice of how I'd end my life when the time comes, particularly if I'm diagnosed with something like ALZ or terminal illness, since I don't have any kids, and would want to burden the few relatives that I have with my care. Maybe if I was working, I'd find something to be optimistic about. But for now, the caregiving, financial strain and loss of self due to unemployment is getting harder to bear.