![]() I knew a woman who left her husband when he developed a form of muscular dystrophy. Other severe illnesses may cause other devastating problems. Living with a manic spouse means dealing with constant conflict. The marriages of bipolar patients end in divorce about 95% of the time. Once a marriage has taken place, a greater tolerance is expected by a husband or wife to the other becoming seriously ill. The woman felt guilty, but was unwilling to sign on to a lifetime of nursing her husband. I know of a couple that broke apart after the young man suffered a brain injury and developed a severe form of Parkinsonism. During a courtship period a couple may break apart because one of them has spent time in a mental hospital, or, for that matter, any sort of hospital. “…in sickness and in health” means something different depending on how long the loving relationship has lasted. No such parent commands his or her child to leave the home, though, without feeling guilty. Parents have a responsibility to other children and to themselves. Some parents despair quicker than others, but there is a point beyond which even the most committed parent cannot go. If nothing works, the family in final desperation will make him leave. ![]() These include psychotherapy, and ultimately jail. All sorts of treatment have been contrived to deal with recalcitrant youths. ![]() Invariably, in those unhappy circumstances, parents engage in increasingly desperate attempts to save that adolescent from himself. An example of this sort of behavior is the young man who steals from parents to obtain drugs, or who is violent to a sibling or even to a parent. In later adolescence, however, children reach a level of autonomy where sometimes, rarely, a young boy or girl behaves so badly, so destructively to other members of the family, that the family is driven to expelling him or her. Parents often work at jobs that threaten their health and well-being so that their child may thrive. It is easy to imagine parents risking their lives to extract their children from a burning building or from a flooded river. The unconditional love referred to above extends into the child’s adolescence more or less unchanged.
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