'My Wife Has Breast Cancer & I Want A Divorce’ — Man Slammed For Saying He’s Not Attracted To His Ailing Wife
He's seeking advice.
Photographee.eu/Shutterstock People go through hard times when their loved one is sick — from paying numerous hospital bills to watching the person they love suffer through a disease.
And while those hard times can push us to our limits, we can probably all say that if the roles were reversed we'd want our loved ones to stick by us.
However, one man on Reddit had a different perspective.
A man posted about his situation on the AskReddit forum where people can ask questions and internet users can respond with answers.
The man wants a divorce from his wife because he isn’t attracted to her anymore.
The man explained that it had been a few months since the couple and their 2-year-old daughter found out that she had cancer, and that his wife had been going through cancer treatment.
“She's had a [mastectomy] (removal of her breast) and is still going through chemo, so she is bald," he wrote.
The man doesn’t feel attracted to her anymore because of the results of the treatment she's been going through, as well as having cancer itself.
He clarified that he admires her as a person and respects all she has done for him but the attraction he once felt for his wife is no longer there.
“I just want her to understand that it isn't because she's a bad person," he writes, "It's just that as a man I want someone I'm attracted to.”
He even says his wife "disgusts" him — is he not the worst?
He also believes that his wife can tell that he isn’t attracted to her anymore as they haven’t been intimate for two months.
As a result, the man wants to divorce her and also doesn't want to be a part of his daughter's life.
“She might grow up to be unhealthy like her mother, and what guy wants to be tied to unhealthy females?” he explained.
He fears that his daughter might hate him as she grows up and thinks that his wife would tell her that he is a horrible person.
However, it doesn't seem like he cares that much since he doesn't want to be a part of her life anyway.
In the comments, he mentioned that he is willing to support his daughter after they get a divorce to prove that he isn’t a bad person.
He claims that he doesn’t know how to bring up this topic with his wife and wonders whether he should lie to her or tell her the truth because of their daughter.
Redditors emphatically let the man know that he is a horrible person.
Internet users didn’t think the man was right in any sense despite him trying to prove that he isn’t a bad person.
One user wrote, “You're leaving your wife because of something that she cannot control and did not ask for. And furthermore, this is a time when she needs your support most. You are a disgusting, horrible person.”
Another user said, “If she isn't a bad person and she hasn't done anything to directly affect your relationship (like being unfaithful) you really need to ask yourself: 'Did I love my wife or did I just love her breasts and her hair?'”
The man replied to that comment with his reason for wanting to leave and his loss of attraction.
“Because of evolution men are programmed to be attracted to women who are healthy," he wrote. "Why should I stay with her if I'm not happy?”
While the man claimed that he isn't happy with his wife, no amount of justification can characterize him as a good person for leaving a sick person.
Sanika Nalgirkar is a news & entertainment writer at YourTango based in Seattle, Washington. She has a master's degree in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. You can check out some of her writing on her website.