Husband upset that wife didn't reveal her cancer diagnosis after their separation. + Update
"AITAH for being upset my wife- we’re currently separated-didn’t tell me she was diagnosed with cancer?"
Main-Ganache-7158
My parents were well off and worked hard but they were neglectful towards me. By the time I was 10, they decided I didn’t need a nanny anymore and then I didn’t have parental figures. They spent all of their time and energy at work and didn’t have time for me at all.
When I met my wife, she was a vibrant, intelligent, caring woman. She would give you the shirt off her back. We spent hours and hours together talking about everything and anything. But it slowly slowed down.
She would come home from work crawl immediately into bed and watch TikToks for the next three hours. She wouldn’t engage, would barely do anything, and only did chores sometimes and ended up paying for someone to do her share.
She would always say she’s tired and then stay up all night sometimes or sleep for 18 hours. It was awful to see her flued to her phone or her computer instead of engaging with me.
I asked for separation. It was really hard because she cried and begged me not to and I still loved her, but being with her was like a flashback to my parents. We both knew that separations basically always end in divorce.
An old friend of my wife’s recently reached out to me and cussed me out. She told me that my wife had cancer and how dare I leave her during a tough time. I had no idea she had cancer.
I asked my wife why she hid it from me? And she said that I was divorcing her and she didn’t want to guilt trip me into staying or be manipulative. I asked her how long she had known. She found out three weeks after we separated.
I told her she should have told me. I had noticed her hair seemed thinner and she just seemed frailer overall but she brushed it off as stressed. Honestly, I’m really upset that she didn’t tell me. Do I have a right to be? AITAH?
Edit: Only now did her hair start to thin and she looked weak. She looked obviously ill. For three years before that she wouldn’t get out of bed and alternatively sleep through the weekend and stay up on weekdays. I did all of this chores but she felt guilty and hired a housekeeper for cleaning. I did all of the cooking.
What I saw was a profound disinterest in me. She didnt want to do anything with me. She wouldn’t go on a walk with me, she wouldn’t go out, she would t read a book, she’d just lie in bed watching TikToks.
Her daily screen time was 14-16 hours. I made doctors appointments , I cooked food, I tried to get her up. At some point she just wouldn’t even entertain going to the doctor. After years of her telling me that there was nothing wrong with her, doctors saying she was lazy and blood tests showing no issues and her still lying in bed, I was tired.
If we had known that her body was shutting down, of course I wouldn’t have left. I just wished she actually went to the appointments I had set up before I asked for a separation. I am going to help her any way I can.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after the OP's initial post:
Salt-Version5918
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. She looked sick but whatever. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
bullzeye1983
Especially as he posted here asking about if he is the AH as opposed to any of the forums that would involve the question "what can I do to help her".
DancinginHyrule
Okay, I’m getting a super weird vibe from the part where you compare your (probably sick and stressed) partner to your absent parents. But whatev. YTA. You told her that you could not live with the way she was.
Whether she was being lazy or stressed or had cancer back then too, you didn’t want to take over that care for her. So why would she tell you? She needs help and care but you already told her with your actions that it is not something you wish to do.
rosie_purple13
That weirded me out a bit. I mean she kept telling you that she was just stressed and you couldn’t even say I don’t know you seem different can I help you with anything, maybe you should see a different doctor. I’m worried about you nothing?
MassiveAffect9
Bruh. My wife essentially underwent a 180 physically and emotionally. HUGE RED FLAG. I "pushed her" to go to the doctor, they said she was just lazy. WTAF?! Somehow this corelates to my absentee parents. UHM. YOU SHOULD'VE GONE TO THERAPY FOR THAT ALREADY. Anyway, so I left her. GOOD. SHE DESERVES BETTER!
Two days later, the OP returned with an update.
"(Update) AITAH for being upset my wife- we’re currently separated-didn’t tell me she was diagnosed with cancer?"
Main-Ganache-7158
I talked to my wife. I called her and asked if she wanted to talk. She said okay. When I came over, I noticed that nobody had been over in at least a few weeks. My wife is a clean person so there wasn’t a mess but it was clear that she was doing it on her own.
I apologized for everything. I asked her why she didn’t tell about cancer. She said that she felt guilty because she thought we would go through all the effort and find out she was just “lazy” and I would resent her. Then she thought when we separated that she could just go to a few appointments to show she was physically fine but try to change on her home own to stop being lazy.
She found out that she had cancer. She felt really bad because she hadn’t gone to any appointments I had made. She felt guilty because she knew I would come back if I knew and she didn’t want me to sacrifice for her when she had dismissed my concerns for years.
She sobbed and said that she really felt like she was just being lazy and tired like before. I asked her what she was talking about. A few times during school, she had these intense periods of being really tired and unable to get out of bed.
Her parents took her to a doctor but there was nothing wrong. It wasn’t caused by anxiety and she didn’t feel depressed, just incredibly physically tired. Her parents and doctor dismissed it as laziness.
I don’t like her parents. I said it didn’t sound like laziness, it sounded like a real medical issue. I’m going to help her figure it out but to me, it sounded like an autoimmune disease or flare up.
I told her that I always believe her. I believed her when she said she was just lazy after three years of trying to get her to a doctor, and I would have believed her if she had being honest with me and told me about what she went through as a kid.
She just kept sobbing. I comforted her. After she cried, I checked her fridge for food. There were only a couple of things in the fridge, including some frozen food I had dropped off before.
I asked if she wanted me to go grocery shopping or come over to my apartment for some food. She chose my apartment. I grabbed a few things for her and I took a laundry basket of dirty clothes to wash.
At my apartment, I drew her a bath and cooked dinner for us. She didn’t have any clean pajamas so she wore mine. We had dinner. She just kept saying thank you and I told her she didn’t have to thank me. She’s my wife, of course I’ll take care of through cancer.
She said she made me do all of the chores before too and she didn’t want me to go through that again. I told her that she was sick and tired, and I can do everything again if she stays honest with me about how she feels and doesn’t dismiss it as her being lazy. We ended up cuddling and she fell asleep pretty quickly.
She’s been asleep and awake through today and yesterday. She’s been a bit clingy to me and she looks a lot more comfortable. She’s probably going to stay in my apartment so we’ll have to figure out how to break the lease on hers. I’m not going to divorce or abandon her. She needs a lot of support.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this latest update from the OP:
SteampunkHarley
Damn, being dismissed and being told she's just lazy did a real number on her. Poor woman dismisses herself so no one else does. I'm glad you stuck with her and got her to talk about it. It must of been so difficult for both of you. Hopefully she'll enter therapy and work thru that damage she internalized.
werewere-kokako
She was so afraid of being rejected and called lazy that she tried to go through cancer alone… F her parents…
peter095837
"Her parents and doctor dismissed it as laziness."
Jesus christ, screw the parents and doctors for saying that.
Side note, AITA users really are something aren't they? What's wrong with those comments. I don't know how OP was even the A-hole in the first place.
CharlotteLucasOP
Yeah when medical professionals you trust tell you to your face there’s nothing wrong with you and you’re just making a bad choice to be the way you are, it’s SO difficult to push back against that.
Just ask my disordered eating and chronic malnutrition I’ve probably had for over a decade at this point and only got flagged/treated within the last year by a specialist I found and paid for on my own because nothing else was helping. Other doctors had nothing to say to me that was of any help, and some made suggestions that would have made things worse, had I followed their directions.
casualkateo
Jesus Christ. This hits hard. My dad was diagnosed with cancer in October 2022. Before that both my mom and I noticed he wasn’t looking too good and was becoming lethargic. He dismissed it saying he was just feeling lazy.
After he died last year I realized he was sick for years but none of us, not even him, knew how sick he really was since. Those comments are pretty appalling. They sound like never seen a family member deteriorate slowly and dismiss it entirely until it was too late.
Peeinyourcompost
I just wanna say I have sympathy for every single person in this post EXCEPT the "me me me" commenter. Like was he supposed to psychically intuit the problem, and then commit a felony assault on his partner to physically force her into the office of a doctor she had refused to see and gave every indication she wouldn't have talked to or cooperated with?
What the heck are you so mad at this guy for? He didn't know it was a medical issue, she was telling him it was because she didn't give a darn. We tell people with partners who refuse to participate in the relationship or in life that you have to put on your own oxygen mask first.
Sorchochka
Wow, the rage I have for people (especially doctors) chalking up clear medical issues as laziness. What she was doing was clearly not symptomatic of laziness.
Also OP is such a good and kind person and the comments were so out of pocket. WTF is wrong with people?