Dear Anne
My husband of 18 months left me alone with a baby and a 3 year old at New Year. He had testicular cancer last year at the age of 23. I don't know if this was his way of dealing with the illness as he dealt with it very well when he went through it. Now it seems as though he wants to have a relationship again. He doesn't like the city we live in and keeps asking me to move away with him. I don't know what to do. I still love him and he's the father of both my kids. Parts of me say this is a chance to give my kids a good life with both their parents together. Other parts are afraid of me and the kids being left again. Help! Shelley
Dear Shelley
I appreciate your dilemma. It's hardly surprising that you feel so torn. Given what's happened to you, it's hardly surprising that you don't know which way your husband will go in the future. So let's have a look at some options.
When your husband had a problem, he held himself together very well, perhaps by cutting off from his emotions. He may have felt vulnerable, ashamed perhaps that he couldn't live up to his own image of what a man should be. The possibilities are endless, and while I can speculate, only he actually knows. In the short term this deliberate numbing can be a great solution but as you and he have both discovered, those feelings don't go away and can crop up later. And that means your thinking (and his!) can get mixed up for a while.
I am sure that your husband has many good qualities and that you love those things about him. However, he has also hurt you terribly. I invite you to realise that you survived the separation and managed on your own. You may not have liked having to take full responsibility for the kids and all the other aspects of being a single parent, but you coped. I hope you can take pride in this achievement. You are a survivor, and while you may hope that better times are ahead, whatever comes you will be able to cope again. What he did was his responsibility, and not your fault. Your self-worth doesn't depend on another person but on what you do, think and feel. You may find it useful to work through books like Women who love too much by Robin Norwood and Are you the one for me? by Barbara de Angelis. Both of these can help you put safe boundaries between your feelings and his.
