One day a week I volunteer in Palliative Care at our local hospital.
Palliative Care is a relatively new branch of medicine, one that serves the chronically ill and dying.
Some Palliative Care patients have long-term health issues that they need help managing but most of the patients are at the end of their life and Palliative Care serves them until they die or go into hospice care.
It is challenging, working with the very sick and dying, but it is also rewarding and educational.
I find that people are, when dying, very much like they are in life.
In the movies, people have epiphanies when they die.
They recognize their foibles and make amends to everyone they have wronged in their lifetime.
It's all very romantic and heartwarming.
But I have found that this doesn't usually happen.
People die like they live.
My mother was always scared of dying.
When her mother was dying she had a very hard time and did everything she could to prevent it from happening.
When she got sick she refused to believe that she was dying.
She spent every moment focused on her treatment or dealing with the side effects of her treatment.
I was able to get her to talk about dying but she refused to talk about it with anyone else, most especially her husband.
As she got sicker and sicker she got angrier and angrier.
When I said my final good-bye to her I couldn't even get her to open her eyes.
She died with a frown on her face, so different from the sunny person she was in life.
So why am I, who usually writes about divorce, now writing about dying? Because I truly believe that divorcing and dying are very similar processes.
I have talked before about the five stages of grieving after death and have shown that people go through the same stages when dealing with a divorce and its aftermath.
What people often don't think about is that there is little difference in how people behave when they are divorced and how they behaved when they are married.
If your ex was the kind who never did what he said he would do when you were married then he certainly isn't going to suddenly change and do what he said that he would do when you are divorced.
If your ex would fly into a rage every time you let the kids have two scoops of ice cream instead of one after dinner then she certainly isn't going to suddenly change and not care once you are divorced.
This idea, that people behave the same once divorced as they did when they were married, is one that is easy to lose sight of.
As time and space grow, and we don't interact on a daily basis with our exes, we forget their tendencies, those things that drove us crazy and may or may not have contributed to the end of the marriage.
We start expecting our exes to do things they have never done before...
do what they said they would do or not encourage that second scoop.
We need to keep this in mind as we interact with our exes.
This is who they are and that will not change.
What we can change is how we react to it.
OK, so your ex has reneged on an agreement you had made or your children come home from dinner all hyped up on sugar.
What do you do? Do you let the old familiar anger bubble to the surface and have a nasty confrontation with your ex? Or do you perhaps plan ahead.
You come up with an alternate plan in case he drops his end of the bargain.
You make a plan to take the kids for a walk after dinner, to work off that extra sugar.
People are who they are.
Some people just have a hard time remembering what they committed to or agreeing that two scoops of ice cream are no worse than one.
But you are no longer married to that person and you should not let their behavior impact you in a negative way.
Pay attention to how you react and make a plan to make a positive change in your reaction.
For your own sake.
After all, life is short.
I see that every day in Palliative Care.
I can promise you that everyone there would take that extra scoop of ice cream...
Palliative Care is a relatively new branch of medicine, one that serves the chronically ill and dying.
Some Palliative Care patients have long-term health issues that they need help managing but most of the patients are at the end of their life and Palliative Care serves them until they die or go into hospice care.
It is challenging, working with the very sick and dying, but it is also rewarding and educational.
I find that people are, when dying, very much like they are in life.
In the movies, people have epiphanies when they die.
They recognize their foibles and make amends to everyone they have wronged in their lifetime.
It's all very romantic and heartwarming.
But I have found that this doesn't usually happen.
People die like they live.
My mother was always scared of dying.
When her mother was dying she had a very hard time and did everything she could to prevent it from happening.
When she got sick she refused to believe that she was dying.
She spent every moment focused on her treatment or dealing with the side effects of her treatment.
I was able to get her to talk about dying but she refused to talk about it with anyone else, most especially her husband.
As she got sicker and sicker she got angrier and angrier.
When I said my final good-bye to her I couldn't even get her to open her eyes.
She died with a frown on her face, so different from the sunny person she was in life.
So why am I, who usually writes about divorce, now writing about dying? Because I truly believe that divorcing and dying are very similar processes.
I have talked before about the five stages of grieving after death and have shown that people go through the same stages when dealing with a divorce and its aftermath.
What people often don't think about is that there is little difference in how people behave when they are divorced and how they behaved when they are married.
If your ex was the kind who never did what he said he would do when you were married then he certainly isn't going to suddenly change and do what he said that he would do when you are divorced.
If your ex would fly into a rage every time you let the kids have two scoops of ice cream instead of one after dinner then she certainly isn't going to suddenly change and not care once you are divorced.
This idea, that people behave the same once divorced as they did when they were married, is one that is easy to lose sight of.
As time and space grow, and we don't interact on a daily basis with our exes, we forget their tendencies, those things that drove us crazy and may or may not have contributed to the end of the marriage.
We start expecting our exes to do things they have never done before...
do what they said they would do or not encourage that second scoop.
We need to keep this in mind as we interact with our exes.
This is who they are and that will not change.
What we can change is how we react to it.
OK, so your ex has reneged on an agreement you had made or your children come home from dinner all hyped up on sugar.
What do you do? Do you let the old familiar anger bubble to the surface and have a nasty confrontation with your ex? Or do you perhaps plan ahead.
You come up with an alternate plan in case he drops his end of the bargain.
You make a plan to take the kids for a walk after dinner, to work off that extra sugar.
People are who they are.
Some people just have a hard time remembering what they committed to or agreeing that two scoops of ice cream are no worse than one.
But you are no longer married to that person and you should not let their behavior impact you in a negative way.
Pay attention to how you react and make a plan to make a positive change in your reaction.
For your own sake.
After all, life is short.
I see that every day in Palliative Care.
I can promise you that everyone there would take that extra scoop of ice cream...
Source...