So there are some things that have been really weighing on me lately and I’m wondering if anyone has experience or advice in this area.
Some background info: I have Cystic Fibrosis, a lung disease that I have had all my life. By and large, I have been really healthy and have taken good care of myself, but the average life expectancy of CF is around 38; I’m now 32. I can feel my health starting to gradually decline, and in the next ten years I will probably need increasingly intense medical procedures (i.e. transplants, IV antibiotics, lung cleanings, etc.) to stay alive.
The problem isn’t my health just yet. Rather, it’s my wife that I’m concerned about; I’m starting to really worry that she is not prepared for my inevitable decline and death.
A friend of ours just lost his dad after years of him being in really bad health, and it brought up a conversation about what we would want if we were in a coma or terminally ill. I made the comment that when my health gets bad, I won’t want to hang on for years and drag the people I love through misery just to stay alive for a little while longer. To me, bad quality of life is no life at all. My wife responded curtly, “Your health isn’t going to get bad” and changed the subject. She wouldn’t talk about it again. That struck me as odd, and I can’t get it out of my head. I’ve tried to broach this topic with her in the past, such as drafting a living will, but she either refuses to talk about it or stops talking altogether which is very unlike her.
I suppose my question is, how do I prepare her for the end of my life? She does not deal well with loss, having only lost two family members her whole life (great-grandparents), and the thought of even losing her aging cat can send her into a panic attack. I also worry that she might leave out of self-preservation if I get really sick, though that may just be paranoia on my part. Since we’ve been together, I haven’t experienced a truly bad sickness (knock on wood). I really want to make it as easy as possible on her when I die, and I’m afraid it’ll crush her.
I’m also concerned about leaving her with massive medical debt as a result of all the care I’ll need at the end. I’ve even toyed with the idea of divorcing her to keep her from having to assume my inevitable medical debt, though I’m not 100% sure if that would work or if it’s even necessary. I'm also doing whatever I can to leave her with enough life insurance to keep her comfortable.
tl;dr – Is there any way to prepare my wife for my eventual death and make it easier on her?
Submitted August 30, 2018 at 04:21AM by doombucket03 https://ift.tt/2wrGGCH
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