Note: Pursuant to Canuck's request, I now repaste this article to the root...Neil===============================================================================Dear Dove,
Talk about dilemma, the quandary your girlfriend is in represents one heck of a dilemma. First of all I must admit that I’m by no means a suitable candidate to answer this kind of “life” question. I’ve been living on an ivory towel for too long and am too young and immature to gain sufficient life wisdom to adequately cope with this kind real life tragedy. In my humble opinion, Mary, uncle Ben or even David are probably the better person to give you a gratifying solution. Nonetheless, I will give you my two pennies worth.
It’s not easy to depart from someone you fell in love with for over three years, especially when it was due to outside factors beyond the control of that person. Meanwhile I can understand a mother’s sentiment, as she would never want her daughter to marry a man with a contagious disease and sacrifice her daughter’s entire life’s happiness. I admire the young man’s heartfelt consideration for your girlfriend by asking her to leave him. You mentioned that hepatitis B could be incurable, so another concern we should not neglect is the possibility of bearing a child with the virus should this couple feel adamant about staying together. So here’s my point: Your girlfriend has been with her Mom for decades, and she owes her Mom a non-requitable debt for raising her. Given that she’s a filial daughter and her Mom is in poor health, if I were the girl, I would choose to leave the boyfriend. She has a responsibility to take care of her Mom and make certain sacrifices to keep her happy in her finite golden years. It’s the least a daughter can do for a mother. It would have been different if your girlfriend and her boyfriend were married with a kid, then she may justify staying with him in order to maintain a family. Let’s look at this from another angle, would the young man be happy to see the girl staying with him despites his contagious disease? I think Not! He’s extremely unfortunate to catch this disease and regardless of the outcome, he’s in misery, the pain will not vanish. If the girl stays, he may find a tiny bit of consolation, but on top of that, he would also have guilt! I know I would. If this is truly a terminal illness, why would anyone in his right mind wants to drag someone down with him, especially someone he loves so passionately? It’s a given fact that he wants her to leave him, and my heart goes out to him and I respect this kind of consideration and unselfishness. If the girl leaves, it should give the young man some relief and may be, just may be, that would alleviate some of the pain that he is enduring. Knowing that he’s not passing the terrible disease to his loved one, that may just enables him to focus his energy in a better way to fight against this malady, and he can do so with dignity. As a result, he may gain more strength and a high spirit to eventually defeat the disease.
So, upon completing my detailed cost vs. benefits analysis, I would suggest that your girlfriend leaves her boyfriend for now. This may not have to be a permanent departure, who knows, there may be a chance that the young man can recover from his illness. By temporarily isolating herself from him, first, it will make her folks very happy. Secondly, that will release the young man of any guilt, and gain courage to embark in a crude battle against the disease without worrying about anything else. Thirdly, the girl will also be released from the guilt of defying her Mom and can concentrate on giving encouragements and praying for the young man’s ultimate recovery. This is going to be a very painful decision but I feel it is to the best interest of all parties involved. Whereas if she chooses the opposite route, everybody suffers. The mother will be totally heart broken. The young man will have so much guilt, which will certainly dampen his will power to grapple with the disease. And for the girl, poor girl, will be tortured by the pain from three different sources. Gosh, this is ugly, there is too much pain involved, I can feel it even as an outsider on the other side of earth!
Life is all about bringing happiness to your loved ones. Life is also about making sacrifices, if need be, for your loved ones. In order to truly and deeply love, you’d have to bravely endurepain. I am just so glad that a child is not involved in this case. The absence of a young, helpless life makes the whole situation considerably less complicated and painful. A child never asks to be born, so the parents always have to make extremely sure that they are capable of providing the best to that child, or don’t bring him/her into this crude world at all. Sorry I am getting off track here…
Tell your girlfriend Neil says her mother should always come first in her heart. Until she’s actually married, lover and boyfriend come and go, but she will always have only one mother. Our parents give us the most unconditional love the imperfect human being is capable of giving, no other human emotion can compare to this unconditional love. As for men, the prerequisite to love is that you must possess a physical and mental health, as well as sufficient earning power. Once you allow someone to fall in love with you and subsequently marry you, then you have to live by your vows to provide love, care and daily needs to your mate throughout a lifetime. Without the afore-mentioned prerequisite, you have no right to love someone or allow someone to establish emotional attachment on you.
Thank you, Dove, for the chance to express my viewpoints. Tell your girlfriend my heart goes out to her…I hope things will take a turn for the better and everything will turn out to be better than anticipated…
Your friend from CanadaNeil
