Concerned about friend’s engagement to ill partner
DEAR CAROLYN: I have a friend circle (early 30s) that has remained close since high school. One friend recently became engaged to a partner of a few years. A year ago, the partner developed a long-term illness that robs them of nearly all energy.
Before this, the couple worked full time, traveled often, and frequently hosted or attended social events. Now, they are completely confined to their apartment. Their plans to raise children have become a memory, and the rest of Friend’s life will almost certainly be served in a caretaker role.
Friend’s devotion is honorable, but my gut feeling says Friend hasn’t fully processed the gravity of Partner’s health. I recently listened as Partner derided the idea of ever returning to Friend’s cherished family vacation house, preferring to not leave the apartment at all. Friend said nothing.
Friend wanted children before, and I’m afraid Friend is making a tremendous error in judgment committing to Partner for life. Am I wrong? What can I say or do to gently tell Friend to think about this life choice?
By not saying anything, I am giving Friend my tacit approval, but Friend can be guarded about vulnerable topics, and I don’t want to lose Friend as a friend.
— Waving From the Sidelines
DEAR READER: Know who else probably hasn’t fully processed the gravity of Partner’s health? Partner.
Your concerns are on target regardless, I’m guessing. Friend just committed to a life circumscribed by three factors: Partner’s illness, Partner’s preference for both to respond to the illness together with home confinement and Friend’s (possibly silent) acquiescence to those terms. Only one of those factors was out of their hands.
Friend, meanwhile, brought to this relationship a reluctance to discuss tough things, which creates ideal conditions for weak self-advocacy. That alone is a case for speaking up.
However: Both are in almost impossible positions, and you can’t discount that. Partner’s life of travel, parties and plans abruptly hit a wall. Brutal. Friend faces either staying or the guilt and integrity damage of leaving a sick partner just for being sick. Rule No. 1 of meddling is to think your message through: Can anyone “tell” Friend to reconsider this engagement “gently” enough to make it okay? When it’s not your life and your approval has not been sought?
So, new approach. Think of what would qualify as a good outcome (besides a cure):
1. The couple embrace each other’s well-being ungrudgingly for a beautiful life on their new terms. Friend makes a clearheaded assessment of wanting children, yes, but wanting Partner more. Issues like the vacation home trip them up at first, as they stagger under the weight of their new circumstances, but they figure it out.
2. Partner preemptively breaks up with Friend in an act of compassion — a loving-and-setting-free high point, really, acknowledging the guilt bind Friend is in. Partner then recognizes the self-compassion in that gesture, since it erases all risk that Friend marries for duty vs. love. Anyone Partner loves “after” has acceptance built in.
3. After months of patient, mutual support through this wrenching adjustment, Partner and Friend jointly decide to separate.
These are what you really want on Friend’s behalf, yes?
If so, wonderful. Except they’re three outcomes over which you have little to no say — unless your friend trusts you, confides in you, invites you in. (Even then, always ask more than you “tell.”)
So there’s your next move: Be that trusted friend to Friend. Items 1 and 2 on that list are knowing your place, and not having already made up your mind.