Reply to For Better, or Worse: "Open" marriage with a medical ill spouse

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Reply to "For Better, or Worse: "Open" marriage with a medical ill spouse"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel like this is justifiable if the spouse has dementia or is otherwise significantly cogntively impaired. Also perhaps justifiable if the spouse has a long-term physical inability like paralysis. But what seems unjustifiable is stepping out on an acutely or terminally ill spouse. In that case you're taking emotional energy away from them when they really need you in a crisis. This is also very gendered - research shows than husbands are more likely to divorce sick wives. [/quote]

Idk in the cases I've seen, it breathes new life into the spouse (I agree, it's always a man) and they are better able to care for the vegetative or ill spouse. Posters here are making it seem like it's about sex, but it's more about companionship that I've seen. Caring for a vegetative spouse for decades is hard and you really can't judge until you've been there.

I also think that it's normally men that look for this arrangement because women have better support systems of friends and family that they can lean on. Men often don't turn to friends and family and miss the friendship part of a marriage. [/quote]

There's a big difference between "vegetative" and "ill."  If the spouse is cognitively incapacitated for decades, then it's less problematic, I agree.  But if they are say, horribly ill and undergoing brutal chemo, surgery and radiation ... then it seems really hard to justify spending the time and energy on a different relationship, one that could be discovered and devastate the ill spouse.  Basically having an affair when your spouse needs you the most because you "need" sex? Is pretty gross and bad.  [/quote]

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