Monday, August 27, 2007
I know a few women who'd had a breast cancer diagnosis, and I've been aware of many more. And something I'd noticed that made we wonder - almost all of them ended long term relationships within three years of the diagnosis. Most sooner.
Whether there was a lumpectomy or mastectomy didn't seem to matter. How long the couple had been together, or whether there were children or not didn't seem to matter. It doesn't even matter whether the relationship was still sexual or not. Sometimes it was the woman who opted out, but more often it was the man.
The same thing doesn't seem to apply for other cancers.
What's the deal? Why?
In the 70s, when I first got into Mid-Eastern dance, in Washington, D.C., it was not unusual for a woman to leave her husband within three years of starting dancing. Ibrahim Farrah spoke at a hafla in 1979 or '80, and he asked how many women in the audience had divorced or broken a relationship shortly after beginning lessons, and almost every hand in the room went up. It was amazing. He said that the dance changed women. That it gave them confidence, improved their self-image, made them stronger, and made them want more from life. Marriages made after dancing a while, when the women knew what they wanted, tended to last.
I don't know if the dance has the same effect now, because young women today start out stronger and with higher expectations for themselves and from life. In the 70s we were still second-class citizens.
So I'm sort of wondering if breast cancer changes a woman in a similar way. Does it make her look differently at her life as a woman? Does it change her expectations and interactions such that her husband doesn't know her any more?
What's the deal?
What brought this up is friends. The relationship is ten years old. The diagnosis was four or five months ago. They are splitting up. I don't believe it. He says it's him, he "decided it's time", but he says she agrees, and it's mutual. They'd been looking forward to a European vacation coming up in two weeks, and they've cancelled it.
I don't understand.
.
1 comment:
Haven't been in this position myself, but my guess is that the woman is suddenly and irrevocably faced with her mortality, no matter what stage the cancer is. Anything that's been limping along is reconsidered and most likely cast out.
For the men, I'm willing and hoping to be wrong here, but I'm thinking the whole mastectomy or even lumpectomy thing is too much for them. Some guys are creeped out at the thought of taking care of someone who actually physically needs them.
I knew someone who was a PCA for a woman who was quadriplegic. The husband left and she was relieved because she knew it was only a matter of time. And he was (obviously) a jerk.
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