The essential question [the article explores is]: Is it ever justified for a spouse to divorce his or her mate when, via health or accident, that spouse suffers from dementia and/or some other similar condition or handicap?….
Year’s after Robert’s collapse, it is clear that he has stabilized in terms of his physical condition. He can talk. He remembers some things, but not others. His wife visits him frequently in his assisted-living home. There is no question that he is being taken care of, with loving attention.
Then a man from the wife’s past comes back into her life and that of her family. Eventually, they face the big question.
Page felt 30 again but was racked with guilt. “I believed my vows so strongly that they just kept ringing in my ears.”
She consulted her minister, who told her that by continuing to take care of Robert, she was still honoring those vows.
And that’s that. That’s all that we learn.
There is, in other words, no other religious content to the discussion….
I highly recommend reading the original article.
“. . . .in sickness and in health. . . .” seems to me to say it all
C. Wingate, I agree with you. The original story tells the whole story, clearly, fully and compassionately.
I also read the original story.
I know someone whose wife is in assisted living for Alzheimer’s. He has reconnected with a high school friend whose husband died. They are shacked up in his (and his wife’s) house, (and in a sexual relationship) because he doesn’t feel that he should divorce his wife.
I wonder whether things like this are covered in seminary pastoral theology classes. I wonder how many Episcopal priests would even consider petitioning their Bishop for permission to marry a couple under such circumstances.
A civil divorce, and a civil re-marriage, perhaps. Yet, that doesn’t attend to the spiritual needs of those concerned.
It is a tragic story, beautifully told. Beautifully told stories can sometimes lead us down paths that we wouldn’t have otherwise gone down, though. I feel for Page… but I do not accept that the “pastoral” response is to find a way for her to exempt herself from her vows to find “happiness” with another man.
The world we live in is full of beauty and sorrow in equally profound measures. As people we naturally recoil from pain. Our gut instinct may be to find a way for people like Page circumvent their sorrow by finding happiness with another; the pastoral response, I believe, is something quite different. It is to help them find God’s own strength and consolation in the midst of their sorrow so that they can hold fast in their grief.
The assumption that lies behind this article is that true healing only comes when new love is found. As Christians, I don’t think we can take this kind of presupposition on. God asks hard things of us sometimes– even terribly hard things. At that point it becomes a matter of faith. Do we trust him to meet our needs, spiritual and otherwise, or do we need to have our needs met by a new partner? Our happiness cannot be our guide here. The vows we have made are our guides. “In sickness and in health,” and “until death do we part.” I have little doubt that God wants to redeem the situation in the article. I do doubt that the redemption he desires will be found by remarrying while the first spouse is still alive, though.
Either way, Lord have mercy…
It’s one thing to wax poetic and theological about the issue as a hypothetical and quite another to actually live with it. For that reason, I think it’s inappropriate to play armchair ethicist/moralist on other people’s decisions, even hypothetical ones.
But I do think that situations such as these should provide impetus for personal soul-searching and some very frank discussions before it becomes an issue. Couples should discuss their feelings and what they think is reasonable and acceptable in such situations BEFORE they get married, probably with their spiritual adviser. If they don’t agree or they can’t accept the other’s views, then perhaps they shouldn’t be making those vows in the first place.
In this case, if they discuss what is reasonable and ethical with their pastor before marriage, and if their pastor is Christian, he is going to tell them that they make a life-long vow to “keep only” to each other “as long as we both shall live.”
I could imagine some circumstances in which the spouse was in a permanent vegatative state such that you could say that they were effectively dead, but that isn’t even within a mile of this case. They make a big point here over and over again that “Robert” doesn’t really mind. [Not clear what would be the ethics if Robert DID mind.] So, the argument appears to be that “until death do us part” really means “until my spouse reaches a mental state such that he says he doesn’t mind my divorcing him.”
Suppose your spouse became catatonically depressed such that he did nothing but sit and stare out the window all day. OK then to divorce him as long as he says (or doesn’t say) he doesn’t mind?
I agree with #5, the assumption behind this article is that a person cannot reasonably live alone. That to deny them another partner would be like denying them food and water.
I remember a letter to the “ethicist” in the NY Times magazine once. A woman’s husband had become permanently impotent and also completely uninterested in sex as a result of a medical condition. She wanted to know if it was OK for her to have sex on the side with someone else as long as it didn’t take her away from her husband or damage their relationship. The answer was — “this is a horribly difficult ethical dilemna, but yes it’s OK because how could you possibly be expected to live the rest of your life without sex?”
This case is simply the emotional flip side of the same question. “My husband has become mentally incapable of being my emotionally-supportive life partner. Is it OK then if I go out and find another emotionally-supportive life partner?” “Yes — because you couldn’t possibly be expected to live out the rest of your life without emotional support.”
I also remember at my sister’s wedding, the msgr. preached on the vow of “until death do us part.” He said that Christians are the only people who make such a vow, which is incomprehensible to most people because of the thousand and one cases (such as this one) where a person (even a good person) might consider it necessary to leave their spouse and find another one. To the world, he said, this vow is folly. Yet, “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
[blockquote]…if their pastor is Christian, he is going to tell them that they make a life-long vow to “keep only†to each other “as long as we both shall live.â€[/blockquote]
Hear, hear. As an unmarried (and therefore celibate) Christian, I find myself profoundly frustrated with this cultural assumption that one must have sexual/emotional fulfillment to lead a good or meaningful life, and that with enough ethical contortions, anything may be made morally justifiable to that end. Yes, there are profoundly difficult situations. But as humans, we suffer from loneliness — no matter how great our relationships with other people are. We ALL have desires that are unfulfilled. And this is a point at which the Gospel confronts the world head-on. Because [i]God does not call us never to suffer[/i]. On the contrary. The question is — will we be faithful to the vows we have made before God, and obedient to His commandments? or not? Will we submit our suffering to Christ, as suffering [i]with Him[/i], and let it be transformed, for our own sanctification? Will we take up the cross and follow?
I know it isn’t always easy or fun. I struggle too. And I know it will be hard, and I will be challenged, in offering pastoral counsel in such situations. But again, I think Catholic Mom gets it right: “…with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Thanks — but it was really the monseigneur at the Cathedral in Denver who said it. 🙂 But he said it really well because my sister has been married for 20 years now and I still remember it.
You will remember that when Jesus tells the disciples that a man may not “put away his wife and take another” (which was allowed under the laws of Moses) they are shocked and say “if this is the case, then a man is better not to marry.” In other words — are you really really saying that when you take a wife you’re stuck with her FOREVER?? If so, who would be crazy enough to get married.?
Jesus replies, somewhat cryptically, that “not all men can receive this, but those to whom it is given.” The Catholic interpretation of this — and the reason that we believe that marriage is a sacrament — is that it takes a gift of the Holy Sprit to receive and accept this teaching in its entirety, without loopholes and exceptions. But this gift of the Holy Spirit is granted sacramentally through Holy Matrimony.
#9 Preach it!! Amen & Amen. I was going to make some similar comments as someone who is also single & celibate, but you’ve said everything I wanted to say so eloquently. Thank you!