Caring for loved ones.

Those of us who had seen grandmothers or great-aunts or the married men of their generation nursing their marriage partners through their last illnesses, or years of ill-health, did realise what those promises could entail.

However, to live life, we all push the thought of illness and death to the backs of our minds - quite rightly. There is absolutely no point, as my Grannie used to say, in worrying about something that might never happen, nor in worrying about something , such as death, which will, but as we don't know when, how or in which order we will depart this life, it is best to just get on with living it.

As a new widow my one great consolation was knowing I had been with my husband all the way to the bitter end.

And I literally thanked God for the fact that the burden of watching my husband die had been laid on my shoulders, as I had also been given the strength to cope with it - also on the days when I just wanted to scream "This cannot be happening to US!"

I doubted then, and still doubt, that my dear husband would have been able to cope at all if I had been the one to die first.

That said: let the young ones setting out on the adventure marriage can be and perhaps should be regard the "in sickeness and in health until death us do part" as something that is very, very far off in the future.

We all know that future may come far sooner than we wanted or visualized, or that the marriage may have proved a bad mistake and divorce the only sane solution, but honestly you cannot be expected to believe that that will happen to you either, when you take the decision to marry the person you love.

I thought about it because I knew I'd be in that situation soon after I married as husband had Parkinson's You'd never know from my photo on the day !

Twopence

As a young couple with life ahead I don't think you consider what lies ahead. Our plans for children didn't materialise but the disappointment drew us very close together. When my DH developed dementia 5 years ago we faced it together and it was very hard as he became unaware of what was happening to him. I lost him in February after 57 happy years. He was at home and I hope he understood that I did my best for him. 😢

I'm sure he did, just as he would have done for you.

I’m seeing this from a different perspective. I’m terminally ill with a rare and aggressive sarcoma cancer. I’m on my third line chemo and to be honest if it wasn’t for my family I wouldn’t carry on with it. Everyone says how upbeat and strong I am but inside I’m a wreck. We’ve been married almost 40 years and for all of that time I’ve been everyone’s rock. I’ve never had a rock. My mother is a narcissist who at 90 is still trying to control my life and my husband, who is a good dad and granddad relies on me too much. I have been given about 6 months left to live but fully intend to be here for several more years for my family. I worry about my husband managing without my private pension and the benefits I get for being at the end of life. My husband is in complete denial and shuts out when I try to talk to him about the future.

Oscar Wilde said "youth is wasted on the young"

I don't agree. I couldn't be bothered with it now.

For me, I dont tend to do the ifs and buts in life, in general.
Too many people around me in real life, do that for my liking already.
It seems to me, at least 3/4 of the time anyway, for the majority people, things dont plan out with all the different scenarios.

But I do take the point. Everything is fluffy when young.

I knew when I got married (in 1986) that we probably wouldn't have a long marriage as my husband had had a kidney transplant in 1972 and he was also 15 years older than myself. I was nearly a widow within a couple of weeks and many times after that but in the end we made nearly 11 years before he passed away from Septicaemia (known as Sepsis these days) nearly making 25 years after the transplant. Even so we did plan for later life, like I was going to retire from full-time working when he got to 65 - obviously that didn't happen and I'm still working 4 days a week.

Whiff, your lovely homage to your husband brought tears to my eyes.

As a young couple with life ahead I don't think you consider what lies ahead. Our plans for children didn't materialise but the disappointment drew us very close together. When my DH developed dementia 5 years ago we faced it together and it was very hard as he became unaware of what was happening to him. I lost him in February after 57 happy years. He was at home and I hope he understood that I did my best for him. 😢

Whiff

I always thought I would die first as I was born disabled with a hole in the side of my heart as well. But it was my fit healthy husband who got Cancer and died aged 47, 20 years ago. But he is still and always will be my husband and as far as I am concerned I am still married and always will be. Grief is the price we pay for loving and being so loved in return. We met when I was 16 he was 18 we had 29 years and married 22 when he died. But I am so lucky to have found the other half of me and he always said I was his other half we made a whole . The moment he took his last breath half of me died to and will never be whole again. But my husband was a wise man and knew what I needed to live without him and it was a series of promises. The main one was live my life to the full. But it took me until moving here in 2019 to do just that as I had both parents and mother in law to look after her died.

We are atheists but we did get married in church 1981 . We told the vicar we where he said do you believe in the marriage vows and will you keep them . We both said yes and he said that was could enough for him . The service was tailored to us my ring wasn't blessed and cut the god stuff out of the vows. But we did have prayers and hymns at my parents request and we would do anything for them. The only alternative was a grotty registry office. My dad went to hear the banns.

My disability never phased my husband and when my health got worse in 1988 and the limb jerks started he just said we alter our way of life to suit you. Our children where 4 and 6 months. I used a stick and wheelchair from aged 29. When the children where older I didn't use my wheelchair but still have to use my stick.

My husband was diagnosed with grade 4 malignant melanoma in January 2001 and told he wouldn't live 5 years he died in February 2004 at home with me and the children.

He is my one and only the love of my life .

Your love for him and for each other absolutely shines through your post. It was an honour to read it.

We've been married for fifty six years and my husband came through for me twenty three years ago when I had bowel cancer, he was wonderful. I haven't so far had to face anything with him but am ready and willing. It wasn't in my mind when we married but I think if someone had mentioned it I would have had confidence in him, hopefully he would have thought the same about me.

Having attended a lavish, much anticipated (even before a prospective husband appeared!) wedding a few years ago, excuse me if I’m a bit cynical! Divorce is very much on the cards already as one party did not expect the other to have the problems they have! Working through them is being considered at present but if that does not accord with the aggrieved party’s desire for perfect harmony, it’s curtains for the entire shebang! I’m not sure that some unions are entered into with the correct consideration these days, if they ever were! Only now, divorce is so easy perhaps people see no reason to keep going when the going gets tough.

I think I just hoped we would have each others backs in whatever horrible situation we faced. Oh to be young and nieve again.

As a nurse I more or less knew what was to come in old age. I got cancer first and DH cared for me after the operations and through chemotherapy. One year into my treatment he developed cancer which was inoperable, four years later he died. I cared for DH right up until the last 24 hours of his life when he was admitted to a nursing home after it was decided I could no longer manage.
Do the wedding vows still include the words " in sickness and health " ?

I'm divorced now, but still see my ex at the odd family event. Towards the end of the marriage he turned into someone I felt I barely knew and I'm so glad he's no longer my responsibility. If we had stayed together I would still have taken my vows seriously and care for him if the need had arisen, though he is in fact still physically healthy. But in the end it was his affair that ended the marriage after 19 years, and once I was over the shock, I was relieved to not have to keep on trying to make things work as he wasn't the person I thought I'd married.
Having said all that, I wouldn't change anything. If we hadn't married I wouldn't have my DD or DS or my GC.
My biggest concern for my future is to keep myself able to be independent so as not to be a burden on my children. I see friends now caring for partners with terrible needs, including Alzeimers and Parkinson's disease, and wonder where they would be without their caring partner. In many cases the burden would fall on their children and I wouldn't want that for mine.

I think a lot do think about it.
We certainly did as we had pre marriage lessons from the vicar!
And a friend had married her very seriously boyfriend who died a few weeks later,he was very young.
It was the richer or poorer which worried me! We knew we wouldn’t be rich but never imagined how poor we would be in the first few years!

I don’t remember thinking about anything like that, and to be honest I don’t think we should.

Let the young have their dreams and their good times. That's a beautiful wise sentiment Luckygirl3. When you're young it's all about reaching for the stars and a life of love and hope. I think it was Victor Hugo who said, "--Il n'y a rien de tel qu'un rêve pour créer l'avenir--, there's nothing like a dream to create a future.
And dreaming that dream with someone else is priceless.

To like ....

I think it us good to remember that in the main there have been lots of good years before the bad times, so young couples are right too be looking forward with happy hearts.

I looked after a man who, by the last few years of his life, bore only a passing resemblance to the man I married.
If I were to be honest I did not like him. There was little tomlike. But it did not occur to me (or indeed my lovely DDs) not to do our best for him, as he would have done for me in similar circumstances.
Let the young have their dreams and their good times ....

I don't think it is very often thought about in the excitement of new love/lust. I feel very lucky to have, inadvertently, picked a good partner - from lots of points of view. It is a bit of a gamble isn't it.

But has that to do with the person you are, the person you married, or a combination of both? I think there has to be a kind of partnership and understanding that goes beyond a few basic wedding vows.

Actually, I was just thinking the other day that if I could go back and relive my life, exactly as it has been lived so far I would.
Not because it has been a bed of roses, because it hasn't and i have suffered all sorts of problems tragedies, as has everyone else, but nothin insurmountable and I have grown into a healthy old age, in reasonable comfort, with my family intact and that more than makes all the other problems worth while.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I was very unwell on my wedding day, knowing we had a difficult time ahead. Six weeks after my wedding, I was in HDU and DH and my mother were told to expect the worst.

Six weeks later on Christmas Eve, against all the odds, I returned home after being told I would never be fit to work, nor be strong enough to have children.

Forty seven years later, despite episodes of ill health and many hospital stays, DH is still my rock. He has never faltered.
I had three children, studied for a second degree and had a career in teaching, proving everyone wrong.

DH says he has never regretted marrying me, despite the fact that chronic ill health now impacts greatly on our lives.
He has never once complained about having to support me.

I agree that love and commitment being important.