Boyfriend Walked Out Due to My Medical Condition

Reader’s Question

I am a 46 year old woman, who was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. Three days prior to my first scheduled chemotherapy treatment, my “significant other” of over 10 years disappeared and subsequently left me to shoulder the burden of the disease and raising two boys (11 and 4) alone. By the grace of God, after nearly a year’s worth of treatments and six surgical procedures, I am still here to take care of my children. Though I’ve recently started seeing other men, unfortunately, I’ve been unable to truly get past the hurt of this situation and need some direction to identify resources to assist me with this challenge. I’ve realized that throwing myself into my career, my boys or relationships with men have been temporary fixes that are not truly addressing the problem and after two years I am still in as much pain today as I was the day he walked out. I don’t want to appear ungrateful as I realize the gift of life should not be taken lightly, but I’d like to secure just a little personal satisfaction and/or happiness for myself before I leave this place.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

As you discovered too late, your “significant other” was a very limited and selfish individual. He remained in the relationship as long as it met his needs. Individuals like this have very shallow emotional ties with others. When you are 80% self-oriented and only 20% other-oriented, it’s easy to drop that 20% (you and the children) and leave. As you review the relationship, you’ll likely to find it was at a standstill for many years prior to your diagnosis of cancer. For the sake of your treatment and recovery, his disappearance was probably a blessing — allowing you to focus on recovery. If he were still present, you would have experienced more daily misery due to his resentment, pouting, etc. because of the way your medical issues inconvenienced him. He would have not stepped-up to the plate and cared for the children, that kind of thing.

A lot of your emotional hurt and misery is likely related to the severe, two-year struggle you’ve experienced. Being a single parent, under treatment/medications, life stressors, financial issues, etc. prompts emotional exhaustion. You have probably exhausted your emotional resources. When this happens, a clinical depression appears. While we readily recognize the normal symptoms of depression — fatigue, crying, sadness, sleep/appetite problems, poor concentration, etc. — depressed folks are also tormented by their thoughts. In your case, you may be tormented by thoughts related to your boyfriend and his departure. If this is true, you should consider adding an antidepressant medication and counseling to your recovery process.

An additional issue is Emotional Memory. Due to the extreme stress at the time, you were emotionally traumatized by your boyfriend’s disappearing act. Your sense of abandonment, hurt, and shock would have been severe. Now, two years later, when you think of those times those same feelings surface again, making you miserable. I’d read my article on Emotional Memory as it offers techniques to deal with trauma memory. You have more important things to do than waste time on old memories, especially unpleasant ones.

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