I’m guessing the answers you get will depend on how severe an illness we’re talking about and why he’s stopped taking the meds. So you may want to be more specific.
It depends. How hot is Erica?
I’d be more inclined to give her a pass under that senario.
Especially if not taking those meds made the person dangerous to themselves or others.
I’d understand her decision and not stop being her friend.
If my disability becomes worse, my GF has said she’ll leave me. That sounds horribly callous, but she wants kids, and I wouldn’t be able to parent a child in that situation. I’d be as miserable as she was, with a kid around that I couldn’t be the type of parent to that I want to be. Sure, I’d be able to read stories to the kid, but changing nappies, going to the park (alone with the kid), doing rough play, all the stuff I’ve done with my own kid, that would not happen. And my GF would have to look after me and the kid. If she fell ill she’d still have to get up and do all the caregiving instead of letting me take up the slack.
I mean, we already have problems because she loves going for long walks up mountains and the like and is the kind of person who really wants to do that with her partner, not alone or with a friend. And I can’t work full time, which impacts upon our finances, which impacts upon where we live, etc. Disability isn’t just about looking a bit different or something shallow like that; it changes everything.
I also want to clarify something from a post above - someone mentioned that a quadiplegic friend of theirs still has sex, has fathered children and helped bring them up, etc. I’m not sure how that could happen with quadriplegia. Paraplegia, sure, and it wouldn’t even be uncommon, but quadriplegia means none of your limbs or your torso work. You can’t move very much and you piss in a bag.
I guess the friend could have fathered children through other ways but there’s no point pretending everything else is easy or even, really, possible. Said friend must have either actually been paraplegic or been a bit positively self-deluded.
Not my “friend”, my cousin, an actual relative.
(Actually, they’re not having sex anymore as both have since passed away but that’s neither here nor there.)
First of all, sex is possible for many quadriplegics because erection and ejaculation have a reflexive component. So long as those particular nerves are undamaged and still connected properly to the spine the penis will be capable of erections and ejaculations. Thus, sex and biological fathership are possible for a sizeable number of such men and the greater obstacle is probably finding a willing partner to have sex with. I never quizzed my cousin in detail about her sex life (really, it’s no one’s business but theirs) but yes, there are issues and obstacles like the inability of one partner to move much if at all but they are surmountable.
Of course, it doesn’t help when a couple who are having sex are told/pitied because so many others believe they can’t, or when a man is told he can’t have fathered the children he actually did father. Sure, he never played catch with the kids but there are plenty of able-bodied men who never do that and with less excuse.
As for the “piss in a bag” - lots of people who aren’t paralyzed also have to “piss in a bag”, and some people who are paralyzed don’t need to “piss in a bag” but rather self-catheterize (though, admittedly, that would probably be hard for a quad to do).
And nowhere did I say it was easy for that couple. It wasn’t. Disability, especially on that level, is never easy. Having an extended family willing to help out made a huge difference, as it usually does.
That doesn’t mean I’d judge you and your SO for breaking up if your disability level changes. That’s YOUR business, not mine. Just because my cousin and her husband were able to work things out doesn’t mean that’s the right path for you and yours. That’s why I’d tend to be a lot less judgmental about the couple in the OP than some others.
For more on quadriplegic sex, I recommend the cartoonist John Callahn who in a couple of his writings speaks about masturbating, sex, and almost fatal suffocation during a cunnilingus session. Perhaps not as educational as a dry technical manual but much more entertaining in a very darkly hilarious way.
Schizophrenia or severe bipolarism come to mind.
I think it’s a case of the more you know, the more you know it’s not a black and white situation.
We’ve gazed into the disability abyss and it gazed back. And, in my case, it found every flaw and weakness and made me humble as hell about my “accomplishments” in staying married. I’m not sure at what point I would have cracked, but there was a point. We didn’t reach it, but it was there.
I think these would be deal-breakers for most people. However, I do think that for this hypothetical to parallel the OP’s, the illness shouldn’t be something Goeff can manage. Either he’s always had schizophrenia/bipolar disorder and the medication he was taking prior to getting married has now become ineffective. Or shortly after getting married, he developed drug-resistent schizophrenia/bipolar disorder.
I’ve heard of sad stories from people who claim that the generic drugs they were prescribed aren’t as effective as the name-brand versions, but their insurers won’t cover them and they can’t afford to buy them out-of-pocket (just as aside, I’ve experienced side effects with generics that I didn’t with namebrands). So I can imagine a scenario in which Goeff was doing fine on a certain med, but he started to decline once his meds were switched. Since this was outside of his control, I don’t think Erica should dump his crazy ass right then and there. I think she owes it to him to figure out how best to rectify the situation (maybe she can switch to another job with better insurance). However, I don’t know how easy it would be to live with a psychotic, potentially dangerous person while she tries to find a way.
Also I wouldn’t blame Erica for questioning the wisdom of having a child with someone stricken by such a severe chronic illness, particularly one that is inheritable. It’s one thing to know a person has family history of something. It’s quite another to see that “something” manifest in a person and see firsthand how difficult it is to handle.
It wouldn’t be responsible for Erica to walk away from Goeff without giving some type of financial support. Maybe having to pay spousal support would teach her a lesson about committing to something without thinking long and hard about it first. But I don’t she’s morally obligated to stand by him no matter what.
My thoughts were that Geoff had simply stopped taking his meds. This happens pretty regularly with
some mental illness. Things go downhill fairly quickly when that happens.
But shouldn’t the “why” matter? Some people stop taking their meds because they’d rather drink alcohol and smoke. That’s not a good reason. Some people stop taking their meds because the drugs are causing them to be physically ill. That would be a perfectly good reason.
I’d judge the Erica in the first scenario differently than the Erica in the second one. I think most people would. Would you?
Without the “why”, you might as well ask if it’s alright to divorce someone if the situation changes to anything you don’t want to deal with. I’m fine with people bailing out of a marriage for any number of reasons, but that doesn’t mean I won’t deem some of them petty and indicative of someone who has questionable decision-making abilities (like marrying a person who has a recent history of severe mental illness and not anticipating that he will ever relapse).
No. As someone who has lived with someone who was bipolar and stopped meds, I got DtMFA speech from everyone around us, including his family. Things would begin to go smoothly and he would get the idea that he no longer needed medication. That’s pretty common with other diagnoses as well.
The difference is that society tends to pity the physically disabled but fear those with serious mental health issues.
I dunno, based on the number of time my spouse has had store security called on him because he “walks funny” I’d guess a significant number of able-bodied also fear the physically disabled.
I have a friend sort of like Erica. Her husband has a severe back injury. It has turned him (or contributed to him becoming) bitter and abusive. I wish she would divorce him. She feels obligations due to wedding vows.