A male friend of mine faked pancreatic cancer about 18 months ago. He wove a very elaborate and plausible web of lies to everyone in his life: brothers, son, ex-wife, co-workers, bosses and friends. He cooked up fake radiation and chemo, a fake oncologist, and it was very believable at the time because he was losing a lot of weight and obviously ill. I don’t know for sure but I believe the only reason he still has his job (white collar managerial) despite all the lies and time off is because the company can’t fire him because he can claim some sort of disability.
For whatever reason, I was his main outlet for angst, suicide threats, weepy phone calls and visits and so on. It was, at the time, a very stressful period in my life…especially since 5 months previously I (or we - he knew her also) had lost a very dear friend to ovarian cancer. I was very saddened that it appeared that I was losing another good friend to cancer, and I felt quite helpless.
Like everyone else in his life, I bought it hook, line and sinker. Along with other people in his life, I cooked him food appropriate for someone with pancreatic cancer, tried to arrange visits to support groups, offered any and all support possible, gave him a shoulder to cry on, literally, about a dozen times - pancreatic cancer is not one of your more fun cancers.
After about three months of drama, he wound up in the emergency room with liver ascites and in life-threatening DTs. The whole cancer drama? No cancer. The whole thing was an elaborate charade to cover up chronic, and well-disguised alcoholism that almost killed him. That all came out when he ended up in the ER.
At the time, friends and I decided that no matter what the cause, he was a very sick man and we would support him. By his own account he has been sober now for about 18 months - with AA although not working the program, and therapy - and is doing well physically.
However. He has never once, not ever, apologised for his behaviour. Not once acknowledged that his lies affected anyone else. When I called him on that, the only thing he said was that he’d “acted like a jerk.” Then changed the subject. He refuses to talk about it, beyond giving me updates on his sobriety date and how he’s doing medically. His son and ex-wife have, it seems, forgiven him…but the last time I went with him to a company picnic, it looked to me like his co-workers treated him as a pariah.
Over the last year, I’ve felt my friendship slipping and I’ve barely spent any time with him. For a while I felt badly about that, but recently I’ve felt like just telling him that his apparent refusal to take responsibility for being an utter shit has just killed a good, seven-year friendship…which has always been 100 percent platonic BTW - but basically, I am angry, finally.
Angry that he faked cancer so soon after a good mutual friend died after fighting it for almost two years. Angry that he’s refused to realise that his histrionics seriously impacted other people. And that he didn’t trust people in his life with the truth - any of us would have been understanding and supportive if he’d simply come forward with the truth - that his drinking had gotten out of control. And angry about being lied to!
I know it looks as if I’m asking for “permission” to let this friendship go, but now that I’ve written it down it seems clear to me.
I’d still be interested in hearing how you think you’d respond to this situation, though.
