A few weeks ago I mused over the business of defining love. I implied that it was a sticky subject (shut up 2legs) but I shall offer you a sort of suggestion to ponder. There is in the sort of Disney version of love a state wherein the object of your affections is perfect, beyond reproach, bereft of faults. Well that's nonsense, obviously. You might get that for a bit, or you might get that if the person you love (or, more likely, think you love) isn't somebody you actually know that well. If you know the person, and especially if you are in a relationship with them, and especially if you live with them, you will be aware of at least some of their faults. You may well be aware of faults they possess that nobody else sees. That's not the point. The point is that because you love them you are not mindlessly blind to their faults, you are tolerant of them. You accept them as aspects of their personality you have to live with in order to have this person in your life. To you, that is a good deal. Love isn't blind, it's patient.

Now the reason I mention this is that I knew a carer briefly for whom this was a real issue. Let's call them Derek, because that absolutely is not Derek's actual name. Anyway, Derek had been married (happily, as far as I know) for many years. But his spouse's mental health was becoming a serious problem. There were the suicide attempts. The last one had flooded the house with diesel fumes and required a terrifying and heroic rescue attempt on Derek's part. There was the drinking. There was the drinking and driving. And there was the fact that general behaviour was increasingly dominating Derek's life. The last time I saw him, Derek had moved out. He was not saying words like 'divorce' out loud but he seemed to be sadly starting to concede that the marriage was over.

My own circumstances are very different. I don't anticipate ever being obliged to wonder how much hellish behaviour I could tolerate, but how much care I could cope with giving. In extremis, what if my wife became totally dependent on me? What if I had to give up my job and devote all of my time to her care? What if I joined the ranks of carers for whom leaving their caree is a feat of organisation? What if, in what is surely the worst case scenario, she reaches a state where she is no longer there mentally, no longer really my wife at all, just a contentedly deluded person with no idea who I was? These things are not likely with her condition but meeting many other cares for whom these are either a current scenario or a potential future has given me cause to ask the questions.

Well, much as I weekly pretend to, I don't have all the answers. Instead, by way of a compromise, I will give you mine. I can't imagine turning by back on my wife because I can't imagine not feeling that her wellbeing and happiness were so important to me that the only person I could trust to look after her is me. This is not to say that nobody is better qualified or more capable. It is simply that I need to be very sure that they were giving her the level of attention that I would, that her care and wellbeing mattered to them as much as it would , as it does, to me. Anything less, and they simply aren't going far enough.

Articles by benjaminpmoore Archive

benjaminpmoore

14.01.13 Front Page

Back Issue Page