The Spouse's Reality Of Dis-Ease Adding To Being-Without-Others

adding to a sense of being-alone in the world. Not all research participants were able to accompany their spouse to the out-of-town hospital centre as they had family, work, and business commitments to meet. For example, one research participant felt that the stress of trying to juggle home and family was too much, as he could not please anybody. His wife was also resentful that he was unable to travel with her for the period of time that she was hospitalised out-of-town. He knew his wife was not managing the hospitalisation alone, which added to his sense of guilt that home was coping without her. To add to the tension, whenever this research participant travelled to spend time with his wife, they would argue about the situation. His sense of being-without-others came from a dread of seeing her, knowing that they would argue, but also knowing that she needed him, which added to his sense of helplessness and isolation:

I tried to do everything at once. And yeah, I was pretty down . . . I was torn, very torn. I guess why I was really torn was, because I knew I could cope, but I knew she wasn 't, and that was the hardest thing. And no matter what I did, it wasn 't enough .. . [As well as my wife's

guilty for that as well .. . I can by and large switch off if I have to from what ever I am doing. But Ifound I couldn 't do that. The whole thing was all getting mixed up, and I guess when that starts to happen, I guess you start to question your own ability, what to think, and what you are doing, and why are you doing it, and what your actual values are. I hated it because I knew where I had to be. But even when I went there it was never enough . . . It was almost better to be away, because as soon as you go down there, you know that you are going to get bombarded, and you don 't really want to be. Of course, you went anyway. I wanted to be there, but I also knew what _.

fi 4

was In store or me ... .

These research participants were under the impression that they were alone in not being with their spouse at this time, a further indication of feeling isolated and in a no-win situation:

He absolutely hated it . . . He was the youngest one, and . . feeling a bit nauseous, and was just lonely. Yeah. And everyone else has their husband or wife, partner with them. And I hated that; thinking that he was down there on his own . .. (Alice, p.5).

At the time they did not realise that they were not the only ones who had not been able to accompany their spouses. Another research participant wanted to point out that other patients did not have a spouse with them at the hospital, and that he was not the only one in the world who was unable to be there with his wife:

[When she was going to be hospitalised out-of-town] we agreed that

it was best that the kids had the stability and not just be farmed out in fact. And the other thing was that most of the other husbands and

wives that were there, although in saying that most of them didn '( have kids, or the kids had left home, so they were able to be there together the whole time. But that was brought up quite often. [She] was one of the only ones. But what I noticed was that, yes it 's true but, it wasn 't the spouse that was with them, the other ones in most of the cases, it was an older daughter or other family member that was there with them. And we, even though [she] had that, with her sister and other people, I mean on occasion, my eldest daughter [spent time

there with her], I mean we took [our daughter] out of school for a

week, and one for another time. Um we tried to do the best we

Family support is essential so the couples can maintain the household (Maughan et aI., 2002). However, men are less likely to fully confide the effect of a shared

4 This quote is not cited to maintain the confidentiality of this research participant. Specific

citation details can be supplied if required.

life crisis especially to people other than their wives, as such disclosure is a sign of wealrness (Edwards, Nazroo, & Brown, 1 998). If these claims, made by

Edwards et aI., were applied to the men in the current research, the one person that could support them during the time of non-local tertiary hospitalisation would be unable to do so because her own health status was compromised. This inability to confide the effect of a shared life crisis added to a sense of being-alone and isolated, especially when the couple were physically separated by the out-of-town hospitalisation.

Sometimes, I just wanted to get away, and just get away from it. I just wanted to go. I did say . . . on one or two occasions ''I've just had enough. I really just, I need to get away from here. I just feel like getting on a plane and getting away from everyone " . . .It was just too

muchfor me, in my head at times (Edward, p.6).

The research participants felt isolated from the spouse that they were fretting about, and found that their role as wife or husband within the partnership, changed to one of being both parents, having to keep watch over the sick spouse, or having to be the peacemaker.