Getting engaged is a promise of forever that we assume will stretch into our twilight years. But when a terminal diagnosis enters the picture, suddenly, there is an end date in sight, throwing a wrench in that plan of together forever.
For her, the man of her dreams finally arrived, but he comes with a clock that is ticking louder than she ever imagined. Now, she is forced to weigh the joy of a decade of love against the prospect of three decades of widowhood.
Are a few years of happiness worth a lifetime of grief?
This 44-year-old woman is currently engaged, and she only started dating her 44-year-old fiancé a year ago. He has two kids from his first marriage, and he’s basically a single dad because his ex-wife wants nothing to do with them.
She was awestruck by how caring her fiancé was with his kids, since she hadn’t met many men she could classify as great dads. She also appreciated how kind her fiancé was to her, since a lot of guys she used to date were pretty terrible to her.
So, after her fiancé proposed, she anticipated they would have 20 or 30 more years together after the wedding, considering their ages.
“Until he spoke to me this morning and told me that his condition (Pulmonary Fibrosis) was progressing, which will require him to have a transplant. He said that even with treatment, his condition was lethal and he will have 7 to 10 years at most to live,” she explained.
“I was concerned for him but also really upset because if I married my fiancé, I will most likely be widowed by the time I’m in my mid-50s, maybe even sooner. I may end up living another 25-30 years after he’s gone.”
She would have been accepting of his shortened lifespan if she had already spent two decades married to him or if she had given birth to his children, but that’s not the reality of her situation.
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It’s not like she was unaware of her fiancé’s terminal illness. It was something he told her about after she expressed concern over how loudly he snores when he’s asleep at night.
Despite his disclosing his diagnosis, she thought it would be rude to question him about his health, so she refrained from doing so back then.
“Now I’m starting to wish I had or at least looked into Pulmonary Fibrosis on my own, so I would have a better idea of what our future might be like if I married him,” she added.
“Now I’m unsure as to what to do. I still love my fiancé, but how can I invest my life in someone who has only ten years left to live at most?”
“I could end up living another 30 years as a widow after his death, when I already had so little my entire life, even before my current engagement.”
“Another thing that bothers me is how early he asked me to marry him in our relationship, and now I’m starting to wonder if he wanted a caretaker, not just for him, but also his daughter, who suffers from depression and suicidal thoughts.”
Her fiancé took his daughter out of school and is now homeschooling her because of her struggles, and that’s certainly a lot of work for him.
She’s worried that what her fiancé’s daughter is going through isn’t something she will grow out of, but instead, could plague her for the rest of her life and force her to be dependent upon him forever.
This means she just might be burdened with this girl if she does marry her fiancé and he ends up passing away, and she doesn’t want to sign up for that, too.
“I’m not sure if it would be better to leave my fiancé and save myself a lot of grief and possibly a brief marriage, taking care of him and his daughter after he’s gone, or marry him and hope that advances in medical technology years down the line will extend his life?” she wondered.
I am disappointed in her for not doing a deep dive into her fiancé’s diagnosis. She should have done her research to better understand what that means for the two of them.
And getting engaged is not a guarantee of forever; anything can happen at any point in time to take our partner away from us. I would prefer to have a few short years with someone I love than nothing else.
Or, in the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
