Photo: Kinga Howard and Malte Helmhold / Unsplash
He's keeping his options open.
By NyRee Ausler — Last updated on Nov 05, 2023
A woman on Twitter shared the dating profile her partner set up as she was struggling to get a correct diagnosis for her life-altering illness.
Her story was shared as part of a Twitter thread full of women sharing their experiences of being abandoned by their partners in their time of need.
"Before I was properly diagnosed with multiple myeloma, they thought I had ALS. This is his dating profile I found. I'm fighting for my life, he's out getting laid..." writes a woman named Denise.
The profile, from a man named Kevin, plainly tells other users on the dating app that his "girlfriend has ALS."
Photo: Twitter
"It's pretty overwhelming. I have no desire to cheat on her but she's not going to be around much longer," he wrote. "I'm curious if there are any women that might be interested in someone like me."
Women whose partners left them during their illnesses have bravely shared their stories online.
Denise's story was featured in a TikTok by a woman named Diamond Monae who shared her shock over how husbands treat wives who have been diagnosed with serious illnesses. Diamond reads out stories from women with lived experiences of this statistic.
“I can’t stop thinking about how the divorce rate for men leaving their really sick wives is so high that nurses are taught to warn women patients when they get diagnosed with a serious illness,” reads a tweet that kicked off the personal stories.
A 2009 study showed a vast difference in the instances of partner abandonment between husbands and wives when one spouse comes down with a serious medical condition — men are seven times more likely to leave their sick wives.
One person responded, “That’s because those men didn’t marry a partner, but a housekeeper/child bearer/nanny. A sick woman can’t do those jobs anymore, so the men just leave. They actually feel entitled to this.”
Another woman posted, “This. I’ve heard men married 20, 30 years tell their [wives] 'I didn’t sign up for this.'"
There seems to be a stark difference in how men and women are expected to handle sick partners.
Another point that came up was the fact that if a woman abandons her sick husband, she is rightfully “dragged,” but if a man does the same, people tend to empathize with him. If a man chooses to jump ship while his wife is suffering from illness, women are expected to let him go out of love and wish him well while sick women are left to live out their final days in isolation.
A man hopped into the fray to seemingly justify men checking out of their marriages due to their wives’ illnesses.
“It’s not an easy situation to be in. Being a caregiver is exhausting,” he claimed, adding, “Sometimes, it just knocks you out as well, but loving someone means you want what’s best for them.”
Diamond says she understands the toll serious health issues can take on families, as she has had many people in her family go through cancer. Yet, she finds it hard to excuse the unreliability of men when they are needed most.
“Here’s my thing. You decided to get married. You took those vows. If you didn’t mean that, why the [expletive] you get up there and say it?” she asks.
Diamond importantly notes that not all men will do this, sharing a story of a woman who said her grandfather took care of her grandmother, cooking for her, reading to her, brushing her hair, and even carrying her to bed until he was physically unable.
In closing, she asks a valid question about whether or not you could really love a person and leave them during tough times.
Surely, as time goes on, this is sure to be another reason more and more women are foregoing marriage.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and author of seven books. She covers lifestyle, entertainment and news, and self-focused content, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues