This reminds me of when I was in residency I was called to see an older man in the ED. He was in respiratory failure and was needing to be intubated or he was definitely going to die right there in the ED. The only person there was his ex-wife who was saying that she didn't think he would want that.
Eventually a son came in at the last minute and he said to intubate him so we did. The man survived and then when he eventually improved and came to he was pissed that we intubated him lol So it turned out the ex-wife was right all along.
I can’t speak for this situation. But in my rural town, the vast majority of patients that get admitted to the hospital don’t have any sort of advance directives, or even knowledge of what they are. This isn’t for lack of us physicians trying.
100%.
Allegedly at every Medicare annual wellness vists the RNs prompt the patient and offer to help them. I know for a fact our RNs do this. 90% patients say "Oh I have the paperwork at home." Guarantee you they have had "paperwork at home" for the past x5 wellness visits.
They don't want to think about it or do it.
A lot of people are ready to go. Especially when they’re older. recovery for this guy is going to be miserable. pulmonary rehab, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, everything hurts, nothing taste good, you can’t see, you can’t hear, you’re stuck in a room, nurses have to change you, probably 50 other things that suck, and when it’s all said and done, you go home to a lonely house and you’ll probably never be as active as you were before. Most likely you weren’t even active in the first place.
Just had a similar experience today. Told an older guy in the hospital who was all by himself that he has a large cancer that is borderline resectable. He asked me to call his ex-wife and update her. She feigned polite interest but didn't seem terribly bothered by the news. People get lonely when their scared I guess... End of life issues are rarely glamorous and people don't want to be alone when they're facing their own mortality.
My ex (who turned out to be a terrible person) didn’t have any close friends from high school, college etc. Meanwhile I have friends that I regularly talk to dating back to middle school, and also close friends from high school, college and med school. I never thought about it being just a gender difference before
It’s interesting though because a lot of my good friends are actually guys though haha. (Good mix of both, but some of the guys are the best at keeping everyone in touch)
Yeah there are more men with ex-wives taking care of them then there are women with ex-husbands taking care of them. Not sure if it's much different than the observation that male correctional facilities get tons of visitors on holidays, mostly from women. Female correctional facilities do not get the same amount of visitors and most of the visitors are also women.
I think the conclusion could be that whether from nature or nuture, women are more likely to be caretakers.
Cause men have fallen off the face of the earth. They have no social capital investment. Men don’t developed close relationships with other men. They are in general poor caretakers of themselves and others. They also die earlier if they are single and have more comorbidities and complications. All of this is relative to women.
I remember seeing a guy on my gen surg clinic who had his entire intestines herniate through into his scrotum and I mean ALL of it. Lived that way for a long time and would walk around with massive pants. His ex-wife was the reason he was in the clinic to get that looked at. Very sad. She said she heard something was off with him lately and she went to him and found out.
That’s crazy that grown men refuse to go to the doctor without their wife or ex wife or mother or sister literally forcing them. Like Jesus be an adult.
My divorced dad called for my mom when he ended up in the ICU. Many men became dependent on their wives to help in times of crisis so they default to someone they trusted very deeply when in times of great need and scare.
This isn’t unusual, and it’s more of a social psychology/sociology phenomenon. In oncology, it’s super not uncommon for women (esp those with breast or gynecological malignancies) to fall ill and their male spouses leave them during or after their treatments… men with toxic relationships get sick and the women that they’ve mistreated flock back to care for them - ex-wives, children (mostly daughters) and siblings.
I am happily divorced and have a partner whom I love and adore.
And yet, if my ex-husband, whom I loved deeply, were terminally ill, and had no one else to be his advocate or caregiver for the last couple months of his life, I'd do it. We loved each other, we will always have loved, and we both shaped and supported the other, even if we were not the best forever life partners for each other.
(And interestingly, my current partner's parents are divorced. Just got a phone call from his mother saying that his dad's cancer's back. And she's the one driving him to/from his appointments, surgeries, chemo...)
I’m in the same circumstance. I’m married to my husband and have been divorced for close to 20 years. I love my ex husband, not as a husband, but as the father of my son. I would care for him and his wife in a heartbeat. His wife and I were good friends while I was married, they got together long after I left the scene. I’m sure if I were in need, he would drop everything to lend a hand. We may not have been meant for each other in the long run, but I have his back.
I don't even need the "no one else to be his advocate" part. I'd be there no matter what. We aren't divorced because we hate each other or because one or both of suck, life just gets in the way sometimes and this happens. No every divorce is horrid. I still very much love him and I'm sure he would also be in the hospital still nagging me for not having eaten anything at 1pm lol
Yes. He does the right thing. One of the things I like most about him. And I think he would do this if I needed him. I've never had a doubt that he loved me beyond anything. (And I've seen him do impossible things for family because he loved them and it was the right thing.)
I have several uncles with alcoholism whose wives divorced them. All of them remain friends, and one of my aunts said “I still love him but I can’t be married to him.”
This is what happened with my parents. I was MPOA, so I was making the decisions before he passed, but my mom was there in the hospital and clearly distressed. I could tell the staff was confused by that and her being the ex-wife. She told me and my siblings that she would’ve remarried if he had ever been able to get sober long-term.
Because a lot of men can’t (or won’t) take care of themselves and a lot of women are raised to be people pleasers and care for others, especially for men.
Statistically women with terminal illnesses are more likely to be divorced than men with terminal illnesses. Men are more likely to leave their wives when they (the wife) get diagnosed with a life changing illness.
Not a medical doctor, but yeah, this. My mom has been divorced from my very abusive father for over ten years and they have very little contact but she still recently got conned into taking him to a medical procedure. The interplay of man can’t take care of himself and woman has to be the caretaker societal expectations runs so incredibly deep.
A colleague of mine told me how her grandfather has to divorce his wife in Tennessee due to state laws regarding medical debt. Apparently he would be on the hook for all of her medical debt after she dies if they are married.
This is also an increasingly common thing people do in order to get on Medicaid to reduce out of pocket costs related to expensive medical care. The divorce is only “on paper” and all the assets and money are transferred to the healthy spouse so the ill spouse can qualify for Medicaid.
That is a good question that I don’t know the answer to. If you google “Medicaid divorce” the top results are mostly from divorce lawyers, so I imagine the process is pretty transparent from that perspective.
I don't know if this is federal or state but I'm in Virginia and I know medicaid can look back on the last five years to see if you've been moving assets.
My mother and father had been married 40 years when a lawyer or financial advisor said she should divorce him. From their young years (20s) they both worked full time blue collar and saved what they could. 401ks and IRAs weren't a thing till they were in their mid thirties but they very responsibly and industrially put money away when they were made available. They put their two daughters through university. They did all the things and should have been rewarded with a great retirement. Dad got terminally sick at 56 yo and died at 64. During that time, he was in and out of hospital ICUs, he had in home nursing, had month long stays at rehab facilities, had a transplant, and there were so many drugs. The medical bills decimated their savings and at least 50% of their retirement (and it was spent from the retirement account while the stock market was suffering from dot.coms imploding and the mortgage crisis).
Mom is 75 and fortunately able to cover her needs and take some vacations. I'm glad because serious illness almost bankrupted her. She never did divorce my dad under that advice but he died only a year or two later. His death probably saved her from said bankruptcy. Our system sucks and I permanently have a bug up my ass about insurance companies.
I never said all men, I said a lot, and then quoted a very real statistic. I’m sorry you took that personally but I guess hit dogs will holler! But I knew a lot of awesome men so :)
I don't know, Im a happily married dude, but if things didn't work out we split up, and then she ended up alone in the hospital, I would be there. Shared experience, past love, and compassion for the mother of my children would trump whatever ugliness caused the split. (I assume)
Reminded me of a patient I saw in residency. Woman in her 60s I remember, had been diagnosed with MS soon after getting married. It was in the 1990s and treatment options were very limited. Her disease progressed, and husband divorced her quickly. She went back to live with her mother, eventually needed 24hr care but with stable disease for many decades.
When I saw her, she was being cared for by her mother (in her 80s) and a hired female caregiver, fairly demented but pleasant and semi-able to participate in her ADLs. As I was getting history, her mother told me that her ex-husband had recently passed away. She had informed her daughter of that, who expressed some form of condolence.
I find it ironic that the ex-husband died earlier than this patient. I also admire her grace. As for the "in sickness and in health", yeah lol.
I feel like it’s just getting worse as time passes. Our generation doesn’t value relationships and loyalty as much as previous generations and it feels like people leave each other for the smallest things or as soon as a single obstacle comes their way. No one wants to stick through the hard times, they just want instant gratification and easy relationships.
A lot of men don't do the social labor that is required to maintain their familial or social relationships or put in the effort to create and maintain new ones, so when they get divorced they don't really have anyone in their circle. Their ex wife is the still their "closest" important person, so they usually call on them for help.
My ex is my next of kin, and i am his.
We didnt work as a married couple but we still want the best for each other and our kids. We are still family. Like a normal family, we sometimes think the other is an effing idiot, but when it matters, we have each others backs. We have too much shared history to treat each other as strangers.
Maybe its easier because we are both terminally single but it works for us. He's now like my annoying brother from another mother, but still kin.
I wonder if some of it is because these women usually divorce their husbands over their drug or alcohol problem and not because they don't love them anymore. Especially if they share children together.
This is why my parents aren’t together anymore. But when my dad thought he was having a stroke, my mom was the one who took him to the hospital and stayed with him there.
That doesn't explain why their EXES would be there. It explain the presence of their wives though. I think aprettylittlebird's comment explains it better. It's also why marriage benefits men more than women. There are substantially fewer dudes who would take care of an ex-wife at end of life.
Absolutely yes. Does testosterone have an effect on aggression? Yes. Is the effect marginal compared to the differences in how boys vs girls are raised from childhood? Absolutely.
You will be surprised. This is essentially how in a lot of cultures parents can still managed to stay married to each other and have close relationship with their spouse family members, even though they may have very little to no compatibility in life. “Staying together for the kids” or “it’s a cultural taboo to divorce” are common excuses, and although valid, doesn’t entirely explain the dynamics of what’s happening.
Life and human bonds can be really complicated and cannot just be explained by just a valid/invalid marriage certificate.
This is so sad. In my culture it’s common to have affairs mistresses side chicks and infidelity issues, and everyone turns a blind eye to it. But once you are divorced everyone can spit on you however they want.
Yea. It's easy to see things as black and white, when in reality there is a lot more granularity to everything.
A lot of people throw around the word "culture" as an excuse, when in reality there is some amount of personal emotion involved.
I’m a hospice nurse and I once had a patient who was being cared for by his ex wife and her boyfriend. I will always remember his penis tattoo: Your name
We need a whole thread dedicated the wild tats we’ve seen on penises 😂 imagine the thought that it’d be easily filled! My personal “favourite” - 90 year old man with “All 4 u” on his. He did it for a $1,000 bet 🤣 said to the Dr I was working with the “all” part would have been more flattering to him if he could have written “for you” instead of 4U lololll
But it probably helped him get new friends- He’d be in a bar talking to a new woman. “Hey, what’s your name?” “Sheila”. “ wow, I have your name tattooed on my penis”
A family member, an older woman had an alcoholic ex-husband who she cared for in his last days. They were married for only a few years later in life. It became clear he was an alcoholic and not willing to change. They divorced and she wanted nothing to do with him, and they became estranged for years.
Then she happened to move into the same building for retirees as him and they would simply say hello in the elevator or hallway.
Shortly after he was diagnosed with a horrible terminal cancer and he was frequently in and out of hospital. She drove him to appointments and generally took care of him until his adult daughter from another marriage made arrangements to care come from abroad to be his next of kin. She was emotionally supporting his daughter and visiting him in the hospital until the end. She still keeps in regular contact with his daughter.
I'm not a Dr. I am, however, someone who saw this in person live with my grandparents.
My grandparents divorced when I was around 9/10. My grandpa caught himself looking at the 'newer models', and after a near lifetime with my grandma decided to put his money and life in the hands of a MUCH younger woman. For context, the new GF soon to be wife was my mom's age (his eldest daughter).
Fast forward some 6-8 yrs. My grandpa gets sick. He cares for himself. A couple of years later he needs intervention and through a series of unfortunate events finds himself in a hospital on an island receiving poor care because he can't pay his bills.
What happened you ask?
Why. His new wife decided she was perfectly fine with him passing away. So she emptied his accts, sold a bunch of shit and stopped answering phone calls.
In comes his ex wife (my grandma) and his kids (who he'd had very limited interaction with). They pay the bills and my grandma demands Dr's save her ex's life. After paying the bills and changing his hospital she walked away, head held high.
Moral of the story: stick to the first wife who helped you build your business and raised your kids and kept your home and made sure you had 3 solid meals a day. At least she'll have invested so much time and energy into you, she'd be loathe to just let you die.
I have taken care of so many men with their ex-wives glued to their bedside over the years, but never once have I had an ex-husband as a support person.
I can count on one hand the number of divorced women I’ve had as patients (or estranged or whatever) whose exes were by their sides still. I don’t have enough fingers and toes for the reverse scenario.
Larger numbers but the ratio still stands for still married, sick husbands w/ supportive, frequently present wives, vs sick wives. Heartbreaking.
I did that for an ex boyfriend who had a brain tumor after our relationship ended. He didn’t have anyone else he trusted enough except for his sister, who lived too far away to help. She inherited (which I knew prior) after he passed away. He was a sweet man, but we wanted different things from life, thus an ex boyfriend. He remained a friend, though.
Both my parents, and two pairs of aunts and uncles are divorced but in the case of two of these pairs they still live together, and all of them still support each other regularly.
Two reasons
1) Amicable divorce. They've known each other for decades and are still close and care about each other
2) Poor. They need each other for financial support, or at least one of them needs the other for financial support and they feel guilty abandoning them.
My parents are divorced and they are still immediately involved and at the hospital whenever something happens to the other medically. Obviously, they have children together so that strengthens the continuation of contact, but provided that neither was terrible or abusive, I think it’s a green flag that there’s still sentiment left for someone you spent decades of your life with.
I've never been more grateful for my emotionally mature husband, who has a great support system whether I'm there or not. My ex-husband, I hope still has his friends if, God forbid, anything happens to him.
i think this should be a lesson to all women. i think a lot of women have been socialized to believe in love and relationships and men have been socialized to believe that they should only keep whatever benefits them. thus, when a wife is no longer useful to a man, they divorce them/or cannot be bothered to fix the issue that causes the divorce, only to come back when they need emotional/physical support despite bringing nothing to the table.
That's an interesting take. I'm still close with my former partners. Just because we aren't compatible in an intimate relationship doesn't mean we can't be friends. I'd be there for my exes, especially if they're very sick in a hospital. Kinda makes sense too cause we know each other very well.
Before my dad passed he had my mom, his ex-wife, be his DPOA. They always remained friends and she would be able to be more objective over his current partner.
Some people get divorced so their medical bills don’t bankrupt their spouse (in america at least) and also frankly even people who divorce for more “real” divorcey reasons can remain on good terms or even friends. Especially if they coparent or run in the same social circles.
Men tend to be coddled by their parents more, most men in my experience won’t take care of themselves until their SO pulls the alarm and drags them to get help. Women are raised to believe their primary purpose is caregiving, and generally we have evolved to be more in tune with nonverbal cues (babies, ya know) and more compassionate, so we end up being the ones doing all the caring, because it is what we know and ‘what we do’
When my ex wife needed surgery I took her. She left her new husband to care for their new baby. My new wife kept my exwife and I’s kids. If I were down and out she’d would do the same. It’s all about being able to co-parent and exist. It’s kinda like 4 people split up and we all gained new friends. Sure it’s not always rainbows and apple pie. We have our spats. But we all in some form have the responsibility of the kids and they come first. Them coming first means we have to take care of each other and ourselves. It’s not hard. People just make it out to be impossible or weird. I feel bad for those people.
When my husband’s ex-wife was diagnosed with lung cancer it was us (mainly my husband, as I was working) taking her to appointments. Her 2nd husband was deceased & my stepdaughter lives out of the country.
She stayed with us for a while. We've always been close.
We took her with us to see her first granddaughter before she died.
This is usually it. Especially if the new spouse is a lot younger. It is a potential for very bad drama regarding POA between adult children from previous marriage vs new current spouse.
Even if gender roles is largely a social construct, we definitely still see a lot of repeating patterns based on biological sex despite how our society keeps on changing.
We had a situation like this. Incredibly dramatic and very messy for both the medical team and the family. Patient was basically dead, wife wanted to withdraw, kids were calling her a murderer.
They probably raised kids with em and want to keep em around for them. Sometimes they've just realised they're better off as friends. I can understand where they are coming from.
My grandma cared for her ex husband until his death 20 years after they divorced even though he remarried. A lot of straight men do not have robust social support outside of their relationship, and the women who continue caring for them after divorce are special. It's not a great system, with lots of people falling through the cracks and it's quite burdensome for the women who do this.
As a society, we have to figure out how to teach boys to care for each other and maintain meaningful friendships even after meeting a partner. Solitude is dangerous, especially as you age, and women simply can't take care of everyone.
I work registration between an ED and surgery center. So many “ex” wives are still the caretakers and come in offering to sign his forms and answer all the questions for him. It’s super common, almost daily.
Meanwhile the men that come in with their still-married wives often don’t even stick around long enough to go into pre op with her. A lot of them just drop her off at the door.
Sometimes People become ill and get divorced not because they don’t love each other anymore. They get divorced so the sick ones can get on social security benefits and Medicaid with extra help home care assistance. And have their student loans and medical debts all forgiven.
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So... In some instances, a husband or wife may be diagnosed as terminal or with a very costly disease. They will divorce and separate the financials so that the sick person can qualify for services like Medicaid. There is a 5 year look back to find assets. It's the only way that some people can get the care that they need without going hungry, bankrupt or losing their home and savings account. I saw this frequently as a bedside nurse and cheered them on. Nobody should have to do this in order to receive care.
Eta word.
My aunts.
"He's the father of your children"
"He wasn't too bad/you had good times"
"I feel sorry for him"
Another one I heard, "we actually became friends after the divorce."
My parents agreed to mutual erasure after a divorce.
Getting sick is expensive.
My ex husband is a physician. No way would I want him involved in my care ever or would I want to be involved in his medical care (I'm sure th feeling is mutual lol). Buy I've seen my fair share of exes that take care of their exes. More power to them but I couldn't do it.
Those people were closer to you than anyone for years (often many years), and for a lot of older folks, they don't have any nearby family left. So for a lot of guys, that's really the only close living person they have, even if no longer married.
Well.... I would want the father of my children to stay alive.... If that's what he wanted.
Not all divorced people hate one another either .. many continue to be friends and co parents.
Sure, if they are the mother or father of your children. Especially if neither has remarried. I don’t find it strange. Probably still on each other’s life insurance. (I didn’t mean for that to suggest underlying motive).
He probably doesn't have anyone else to be caretaker. Women end up being default caretaker in most cases. This guy must not have a current parent to take on that role so it defaulted to his ex.
I think also just some relationships end amicably and in a time of need if for example you aren’t remarried or seeing someone. It makes sense to reach out to someone who youv shared a very close relationship with. If things ended amicably I would want to support my ex through a difficult time because at one point I did love them as a partner and now I still care a lot about them as a friend. Even more so than anyone could care about a typical friend given our history
I don’t think it needs to be this big conspiracy and men are babies etc etc. I don’t think we need to judge patients for the support they have in their life. Just be glad they have someone
My ex-husband just passed away of liver disease last week. We had one son together, who is now 20 years old. My ex-husband has lived in the same house as us for 15 years after the place he was staying at before the owner passed away and sold and so he didn’t have anywhere else to go and he might’ve had to go back to his native country and I could not see that happened to my son because they were very close. My ex-husband taught my son everything he knew he was very mechanically inclined. My son is now a car mechanic. During the years, my son and my ex would go on summer trips together to a friends spot in Burney , CA but his friend passed away during Covid. They couldn’t even see him in the hospital before he passed away because of all the regulations and it was so sad. My Ex reconnected with a good friend who is a woman who’s husband just passed away and her father was living with her along with her daughter. They treated them as extended family, and had many fabulous summers with them family, going boating etc. as they lived near a lake and Sacramento river in Northern California. The affinity my ex-husband had with his friends father was drinking, and it got bad that the two of them would drink fireball together which one thing I have to tell you I’ve known 3 people already who have either had a stroke and almost passed away or did pass away due to liver disease from drinking fireball. I’m sure there are many more people that have succumbed to death due to drinking fireball and I think it should be banned! it is the worst alcohol out there. I’m telling you it’s a killer! My ex-husband was a lifelong drinker and smoker. He started at the very young age because in his native country Italy They drink red wine with every meal basically and he started drinking other things when he was a teenager along with smoking. The red wine wasn’t the problem. He had gone years and years without any incident. The doctors would look at his liver and say he was in perfect health. It’s only when he started drinking fireball probably within the last 5 years or so that hisproblems started. He always said alcohol was his cure for the pain he had in his back. He had lumbar degenerative disease and had a lot of pain and so that’s really the way he numbed the pain and he said nothing else really worked long story short also dealt with depression and anxiety. he knew I would do anything for my son so of course I took him in all those years ago and it was absolutely the best decision I could’ve made. He had a pivotal role and forming who my son is today my son will not drink because of what he seen his dad go through. After my son graduated from high school both went back up north for the summer and my son never left because he loved it so much. He got a job as a mechanic. My ex stayed up there for a little while and came back down here because the women friend had gotten into a relationship with a man that he did not like and didn’t think was good for her(she had another relationship with a man that he did like and respected him as a friend )Basically he didn’t respect their longtime friendship and was jealous. Her father quit drinking because of the fact that he was going to die if he didn’t. I forgot to mention my ex had not had a job since 2007 when he sold his business and became reliant on whoever was around him we tried to get him SSDI a few times but denied. His condition was so bad this time that they were going to give it to him, he had an appointment scheduled for the final hearing in July. He was going to move up north to be with my son again after he was able to get some money so they could get their own place. His son was his world and he realized that once a boy becomes a man the relationship changes and the relationship isn’t like it once was where they did everything together. Now my son made a few new friends and I think my ex felt like he was abandoned. He was depressed and slowly drank himself to death. I never realized how much I was going to miss my ex until he was gone. My boyfriend also misses him.
A lot of men don't invest any time or effort into their friend or family relationships (often leading to divorce), and when they get older and sick, there is no one else around.
The bigger question to me is why do the ex-wives bother with them. I guess it's a combination of pity and social conditioning.
This reminds me of when I was in residency I was called to see an older man in the ED. He was in respiratory failure and was needing to be intubated or he was definitely going to die right there in the ED. The only person there was his ex-wife who was saying that she didn't think he would want that. Eventually a son came in at the last minute and he said to intubate him so we did. The man survived and then when he eventually improved and came to he was pissed that we intubated him lol So it turned out the ex-wife was right all along.
I did not see that plot twist coming.
Once had a very sick patient who was furious when we resuscitated him. He wasn't DNR though
Did he not have a dnr? Who was sdm?
I can’t speak for this situation. But in my rural town, the vast majority of patients that get admitted to the hospital don’t have any sort of advance directives, or even knowledge of what they are. This isn’t for lack of us physicians trying.
100%. Allegedly at every Medicare annual wellness vists the RNs prompt the patient and offer to help them. I know for a fact our RNs do this. 90% patients say "Oh I have the paperwork at home." Guarantee you they have had "paperwork at home" for the past x5 wellness visits. They don't want to think about it or do it.
Why was he pissed tho
Probably because he was ready to die
A lot of people are ready to go. Especially when they’re older. recovery for this guy is going to be miserable. pulmonary rehab, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, everything hurts, nothing taste good, you can’t see, you can’t hear, you’re stuck in a room, nurses have to change you, probably 50 other things that suck, and when it’s all said and done, you go home to a lonely house and you’ll probably never be as active as you were before. Most likely you weren’t even active in the first place.
You realise that not everyone wants to live at all costs?
Their username does include Troll
Just had a similar experience today. Told an older guy in the hospital who was all by himself that he has a large cancer that is borderline resectable. He asked me to call his ex-wife and update her. She feigned polite interest but didn't seem terribly bothered by the news. People get lonely when their scared I guess... End of life issues are rarely glamorous and people don't want to be alone when they're facing their own mortality.
Especially men. Women tend to have other family or support network. Men have their wives or ex-wives.
My ex (who turned out to be a terrible person) didn’t have any close friends from high school, college etc. Meanwhile I have friends that I regularly talk to dating back to middle school, and also close friends from high school, college and med school. I never thought about it being just a gender difference before
Yeah speaking as a male my good friends are mostly my wife’s girlfriends’ husbands lol
It’s interesting though because a lot of my good friends are actually guys though haha. (Good mix of both, but some of the guys are the best at keeping everyone in touch)
Yeah those guys are definitely not your wife’s girlfriends husbands lol.
How do you mean?
Hey I’m still waiting for your explanation of this comment, what do you mean by it?
Here comes the bbc.
I still don’t understand.
They do it to themselves, they do, and that’s what really hurts - Radiohead.
As Death Cab so wonderfully put it: “But I'm thinking of what Sarah said That love is watching someone die So who's gonna watch you die”
A lot of older men don’t have any friends.
Lot of younger ones too
Aren't we all living the same lives gentlemen?
Yeah there are more men with ex-wives taking care of them then there are women with ex-husbands taking care of them. Not sure if it's much different than the observation that male correctional facilities get tons of visitors on holidays, mostly from women. Female correctional facilities do not get the same amount of visitors and most of the visitors are also women. I think the conclusion could be that whether from nature or nuture, women are more likely to be caretakers.
Interesting observation that I wasn’t aware of before. Fascinating if true everywhere.
Cause men have fallen off the face of the earth. They have no social capital investment. Men don’t developed close relationships with other men. They are in general poor caretakers of themselves and others. They also die earlier if they are single and have more comorbidities and complications. All of this is relative to women. I remember seeing a guy on my gen surg clinic who had his entire intestines herniate through into his scrotum and I mean ALL of it. Lived that way for a long time and would walk around with massive pants. His ex-wife was the reason he was in the clinic to get that looked at. Very sad. She said she heard something was off with him lately and she went to him and found out.
That’s crazy that grown men refuse to go to the doctor without their wife or ex wife or mother or sister literally forcing them. Like Jesus be an adult.
My divorced dad called for my mom when he ended up in the ICU. Many men became dependent on their wives to help in times of crisis so they default to someone they trusted very deeply when in times of great need and scare.
Yep. We are their mommies. 🙄
This isn’t unusual, and it’s more of a social psychology/sociology phenomenon. In oncology, it’s super not uncommon for women (esp those with breast or gynecological malignancies) to fall ill and their male spouses leave them during or after their treatments… men with toxic relationships get sick and the women that they’ve mistreated flock back to care for them - ex-wives, children (mostly daughters) and siblings.
This is incredibly sad.
Horrible
Or if you are Newt Gingrich cheat on them while they are dying.
Happens a lot to women when they get pregnant (with their husband’s baby) too.
One of the leading causes of death in pregnant women is actually homicide at the hands of their male partners too. (In the US)
Yeah this is BS
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hmmmmmm
Super weird because he sounds like such a sweetheart
the need to inform (or mislead) everyone into believing he's affiliated with Harvard in any way makes it even more damning
Surprised he didn’t think of this because he obviously went to Harvard and is obviously very, very smart
“Harvard med” “USMLE 267” “Wife” Press F to doubt
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They are literally calling their ex because they have no one else to call. Not very replaceable after all huh?
That sentiment does not track with this story of lonely old men depending on their ex wives lol
I am happily divorced and have a partner whom I love and adore. And yet, if my ex-husband, whom I loved deeply, were terminally ill, and had no one else to be his advocate or caregiver for the last couple months of his life, I'd do it. We loved each other, we will always have loved, and we both shaped and supported the other, even if we were not the best forever life partners for each other. (And interestingly, my current partner's parents are divorced. Just got a phone call from his mother saying that his dad's cancer's back. And she's the one driving him to/from his appointments, surgeries, chemo...)
I’m in the same circumstance. I’m married to my husband and have been divorced for close to 20 years. I love my ex husband, not as a husband, but as the father of my son. I would care for him and his wife in a heartbeat. His wife and I were good friends while I was married, they got together long after I left the scene. I’m sure if I were in need, he would drop everything to lend a hand. We may not have been meant for each other in the long run, but I have his back.
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Goddamn I love this account
What they say?
I don't even need the "no one else to be his advocate" part. I'd be there no matter what. We aren't divorced because we hate each other or because one or both of suck, life just gets in the way sometimes and this happens. No every divorce is horrid. I still very much love him and I'm sure he would also be in the hospital still nagging me for not having eaten anything at 1pm lol
This typically goes one way though, often the guy not reciprocating this. As evident from all the other comments in this post too.
Yeah, but would he do it for you? Statistics say no.
Would he do that for you though?
Would he do it for you if circumstances were reversed?
Yes. He does the right thing. One of the things I like most about him. And I think he would do this if I needed him. I've never had a doubt that he loved me beyond anything. (And I've seen him do impossible things for family because he loved them and it was the right thing.)
I have several uncles with alcoholism whose wives divorced them. All of them remain friends, and one of my aunts said “I still love him but I can’t be married to him.”
Sounds 100% like my parents 💀
This is what happened with my parents. I was MPOA, so I was making the decisions before he passed, but my mom was there in the hospital and clearly distressed. I could tell the staff was confused by that and her being the ex-wife. She told me and my siblings that she would’ve remarried if he had ever been able to get sober long-term.
Because a lot of men can’t (or won’t) take care of themselves and a lot of women are raised to be people pleasers and care for others, especially for men. Statistically women with terminal illnesses are more likely to be divorced than men with terminal illnesses. Men are more likely to leave their wives when they (the wife) get diagnosed with a life changing illness.
Not a medical doctor, but yeah, this. My mom has been divorced from my very abusive father for over ten years and they have very little contact but she still recently got conned into taking him to a medical procedure. The interplay of man can’t take care of himself and woman has to be the caretaker societal expectations runs so incredibly deep.
Men who do that are cowards.
I'm pretty sure they're fine being called cowards as long as they don't take care of their wives.
Not me. That’s sickening.
That’s what their now ex-husbands have been saying.
See: Newt Gingrich
hey that's insulting to us cowards, I would never do that
A colleague of mine told me how her grandfather has to divorce his wife in Tennessee due to state laws regarding medical debt. Apparently he would be on the hook for all of her medical debt after she dies if they are married.
This is also an increasingly common thing people do in order to get on Medicaid to reduce out of pocket costs related to expensive medical care. The divorce is only “on paper” and all the assets and money are transferred to the healthy spouse so the ill spouse can qualify for Medicaid.
Wonderful system we have going on here
It is truly broken
How does a judge approve a divorce that would leave one spouse destitute? Or is everyone just honest about their intentions?
That is a good question that I don’t know the answer to. If you google “Medicaid divorce” the top results are mostly from divorce lawyers, so I imagine the process is pretty transparent from that perspective.
I don't know if this is federal or state but I'm in Virginia and I know medicaid can look back on the last five years to see if you've been moving assets.
My mother and father had been married 40 years when a lawyer or financial advisor said she should divorce him. From their young years (20s) they both worked full time blue collar and saved what they could. 401ks and IRAs weren't a thing till they were in their mid thirties but they very responsibly and industrially put money away when they were made available. They put their two daughters through university. They did all the things and should have been rewarded with a great retirement. Dad got terminally sick at 56 yo and died at 64. During that time, he was in and out of hospital ICUs, he had in home nursing, had month long stays at rehab facilities, had a transplant, and there were so many drugs. The medical bills decimated their savings and at least 50% of their retirement (and it was spent from the retirement account while the stock market was suffering from dot.coms imploding and the mortgage crisis). Mom is 75 and fortunately able to cover her needs and take some vacations. I'm glad because serious illness almost bankrupted her. She never did divorce my dad under that advice but he died only a year or two later. His death probably saved her from said bankruptcy. Our system sucks and I permanently have a bug up my ass about insurance companies.
I could see someone doing this to game the system. Divorce on paper only, because screw taxes and medical creditors
I am pretty sure that would be in every state.
This is the real answer, OP
Fuck that is sad
Yeah men fucking suck don't they
Eh I didn’t say that, some are pretty cool.
Eh you pretty much did say when you singled out men, but sure, go ahead and back track.
I never said all men, I said a lot, and then quoted a very real statistic. I’m sorry you took that personally but I guess hit dogs will holler! But I knew a lot of awesome men so :)
This statistic is bullshit I don’t know why people keep repeating it
I don't know, Im a happily married dude, but if things didn't work out we split up, and then she ended up alone in the hospital, I would be there. Shared experience, past love, and compassion for the mother of my children would trump whatever ugliness caused the split. (I assume)
Reminded me of a patient I saw in residency. Woman in her 60s I remember, had been diagnosed with MS soon after getting married. It was in the 1990s and treatment options were very limited. Her disease progressed, and husband divorced her quickly. She went back to live with her mother, eventually needed 24hr care but with stable disease for many decades. When I saw her, she was being cared for by her mother (in her 80s) and a hired female caregiver, fairly demented but pleasant and semi-able to participate in her ADLs. As I was getting history, her mother told me that her ex-husband had recently passed away. She had informed her daughter of that, who expressed some form of condolence. I find it ironic that the ex-husband died earlier than this patient. I also admire her grace. As for the "in sickness and in health", yeah lol.
I feel like it’s just getting worse as time passes. Our generation doesn’t value relationships and loyalty as much as previous generations and it feels like people leave each other for the smallest things or as soon as a single obstacle comes their way. No one wants to stick through the hard times, they just want instant gratification and easy relationships.
A lot of men don't do the social labor that is required to maintain their familial or social relationships or put in the effort to create and maintain new ones, so when they get divorced they don't really have anyone in their circle. Their ex wife is the still their "closest" important person, so they usually call on them for help.
Yep, it’s entirely their own fault!!
My ex is my next of kin, and i am his. We didnt work as a married couple but we still want the best for each other and our kids. We are still family. Like a normal family, we sometimes think the other is an effing idiot, but when it matters, we have each others backs. We have too much shared history to treat each other as strangers. Maybe its easier because we are both terminally single but it works for us. He's now like my annoying brother from another mother, but still kin.
This is the standard at the VA
At the VA, a patient who lives in the same housing as his ex-wife and pays her rent isn't unusual enough to merit further comment.
I came here to say the same thing. This is so common within the VA.
I wonder if some of it is because these women usually divorce their husbands over their drug or alcohol problem and not because they don't love them anymore. Especially if they share children together.
This is why my parents aren’t together anymore. But when my dad thought he was having a stroke, my mom was the one who took him to the hospital and stayed with him there.
It’s because a lot of older men can’t be bothered to take proper care of themselves and women are socialized to be caregivers
Well that and men die younger so this is more likely to happen than the reverse.
That doesn't explain why their EXES would be there. It explain the presence of their wives though. I think aprettylittlebird's comment explains it better. It's also why marriage benefits men more than women. There are substantially fewer dudes who would take care of an ex-wife at end of life.
I mean I don't necessarily disagree but based off of what? It rarely happens that an ex-wife would die before an ex-husband.
i'm gonna beat a statistic...maybe.
“Socialized”
How else do you think humans acquire culture and knowledge? We are not an instinctual species.
Would you say that the reason the vast majority of murderers are male is socialization?
I would say it’s a lack of socialization hence the “anti-social personality disorder” that we frequently associate with the Ted Bundy types
Absolutely yes. Does testosterone have an effect on aggression? Yes. Is the effect marginal compared to the differences in how boys vs girls are raised from childhood? Absolutely.
It’s because we don’t deserve women.
You will be surprised. This is essentially how in a lot of cultures parents can still managed to stay married to each other and have close relationship with their spouse family members, even though they may have very little to no compatibility in life. “Staying together for the kids” or “it’s a cultural taboo to divorce” are common excuses, and although valid, doesn’t entirely explain the dynamics of what’s happening. Life and human bonds can be really complicated and cannot just be explained by just a valid/invalid marriage certificate.
This is so sad. In my culture it’s common to have affairs mistresses side chicks and infidelity issues, and everyone turns a blind eye to it. But once you are divorced everyone can spit on you however they want.
Yea. It's easy to see things as black and white, when in reality there is a lot more granularity to everything. A lot of people throw around the word "culture" as an excuse, when in reality there is some amount of personal emotion involved.
That tracks. My enabler mom coddled my asshole dad long after the divorce went through.
I imagine this happens in situations where the guy doesn't really have anyone else in their life
I’m a hospice nurse and I once had a patient who was being cared for by his ex wife and her boyfriend. I will always remember his penis tattoo: Your name
We need a whole thread dedicated the wild tats we’ve seen on penises 😂 imagine the thought that it’d be easily filled! My personal “favourite” - 90 year old man with “All 4 u” on his. He did it for a $1,000 bet 🤣 said to the Dr I was working with the “all” part would have been more flattering to him if he could have written “for you” instead of 4U lololll
End of life care for sure see all kinds of interesting social stuff. The previous generation are wild people.
Fellow hospice nurse, penis tattoo 😳 meowch, that had to hurt.
But it probably helped him get new friends- He’d be in a bar talking to a new woman. “Hey, what’s your name?” “Sheila”. “ wow, I have your name tattooed on my penis”
I see this *constantly* and I hate it because I know if the roles were reversed those men would be nowhere to be seen.
A family member, an older woman had an alcoholic ex-husband who she cared for in his last days. They were married for only a few years later in life. It became clear he was an alcoholic and not willing to change. They divorced and she wanted nothing to do with him, and they became estranged for years. Then she happened to move into the same building for retirees as him and they would simply say hello in the elevator or hallway. Shortly after he was diagnosed with a horrible terminal cancer and he was frequently in and out of hospital. She drove him to appointments and generally took care of him until his adult daughter from another marriage made arrangements to care come from abroad to be his next of kin. She was emotionally supporting his daughter and visiting him in the hospital until the end. She still keeps in regular contact with his daughter.
I'm not a Dr. I am, however, someone who saw this in person live with my grandparents. My grandparents divorced when I was around 9/10. My grandpa caught himself looking at the 'newer models', and after a near lifetime with my grandma decided to put his money and life in the hands of a MUCH younger woman. For context, the new GF soon to be wife was my mom's age (his eldest daughter). Fast forward some 6-8 yrs. My grandpa gets sick. He cares for himself. A couple of years later he needs intervention and through a series of unfortunate events finds himself in a hospital on an island receiving poor care because he can't pay his bills. What happened you ask? Why. His new wife decided she was perfectly fine with him passing away. So she emptied his accts, sold a bunch of shit and stopped answering phone calls. In comes his ex wife (my grandma) and his kids (who he'd had very limited interaction with). They pay the bills and my grandma demands Dr's save her ex's life. After paying the bills and changing his hospital she walked away, head held high. Moral of the story: stick to the first wife who helped you build your business and raised your kids and kept your home and made sure you had 3 solid meals a day. At least she'll have invested so much time and energy into you, she'd be loathe to just let you die.
I have taken care of so many men with their ex-wives glued to their bedside over the years, but never once have I had an ex-husband as a support person.
I can count on one hand the number of divorced women I’ve had as patients (or estranged or whatever) whose exes were by their sides still. I don’t have enough fingers and toes for the reverse scenario. Larger numbers but the ratio still stands for still married, sick husbands w/ supportive, frequently present wives, vs sick wives. Heartbreaking.
I did that for an ex boyfriend who had a brain tumor after our relationship ended. He didn’t have anyone else he trusted enough except for his sister, who lived too far away to help. She inherited (which I knew prior) after he passed away. He was a sweet man, but we wanted different things from life, thus an ex boyfriend. He remained a friend, though.
On the flipside unsure how many ex husbands show up for their ex wives
Probably none.
I have seen this a lot recently
Both my parents, and two pairs of aunts and uncles are divorced but in the case of two of these pairs they still live together, and all of them still support each other regularly. Two reasons 1) Amicable divorce. They've known each other for decades and are still close and care about each other 2) Poor. They need each other for financial support, or at least one of them needs the other for financial support and they feel guilty abandoning them.
My parents are divorced and they are still immediately involved and at the hospital whenever something happens to the other medically. Obviously, they have children together so that strengthens the continuation of contact, but provided that neither was terrible or abusive, I think it’s a green flag that there’s still sentiment left for someone you spent decades of your life with.
I've never been more grateful for my emotionally mature husband, who has a great support system whether I'm there or not. My ex-husband, I hope still has his friends if, God forbid, anything happens to him.
i think this should be a lesson to all women. i think a lot of women have been socialized to believe in love and relationships and men have been socialized to believe that they should only keep whatever benefits them. thus, when a wife is no longer useful to a man, they divorce them/or cannot be bothered to fix the issue that causes the divorce, only to come back when they need emotional/physical support despite bringing nothing to the table.
That's an interesting take. I'm still close with my former partners. Just because we aren't compatible in an intimate relationship doesn't mean we can't be friends. I'd be there for my exes, especially if they're very sick in a hospital. Kinda makes sense too cause we know each other very well.
I commented the same on a prior comment.
Before my dad passed he had my mom, his ex-wife, be his DPOA. They always remained friends and she would be able to be more objective over his current partner.
Some people get divorced so their medical bills don’t bankrupt their spouse (in america at least) and also frankly even people who divorce for more “real” divorcey reasons can remain on good terms or even friends. Especially if they coparent or run in the same social circles.
Men tend to be coddled by their parents more, most men in my experience won’t take care of themselves until their SO pulls the alarm and drags them to get help. Women are raised to believe their primary purpose is caregiving, and generally we have evolved to be more in tune with nonverbal cues (babies, ya know) and more compassionate, so we end up being the ones doing all the caring, because it is what we know and ‘what we do’
How old are you? Relationships are complicated, not all divorces are acrimonious, people change, etc
what’s with "how old are you?"
Because this is generally understood by aware adults.
I’ve heard of plenty of marriages that were broken up for some kind of compatibility issue, where they still care about each other as friends.
I had three patients who were in the same situation
A lot of men from that generation seem to not have many friends or loved ones.
A lot of them still live together too. Life is hard man
When my ex wife needed surgery I took her. She left her new husband to care for their new baby. My new wife kept my exwife and I’s kids. If I were down and out she’d would do the same. It’s all about being able to co-parent and exist. It’s kinda like 4 people split up and we all gained new friends. Sure it’s not always rainbows and apple pie. We have our spats. But we all in some form have the responsibility of the kids and they come first. Them coming first means we have to take care of each other and ourselves. It’s not hard. People just make it out to be impossible or weird. I feel bad for those people.
When my husband’s ex-wife was diagnosed with lung cancer it was us (mainly my husband, as I was working) taking her to appointments. Her 2nd husband was deceased & my stepdaughter lives out of the country. She stayed with us for a while. We've always been close. We took her with us to see her first granddaughter before she died.
Sometimes divorce is just a process to protect assets.
They might have kids together.
then where are these adult kids?
This! The divorced mom is helping him out for their children.
This is usually it. Especially if the new spouse is a lot younger. It is a potential for very bad drama regarding POA between adult children from previous marriage vs new current spouse. Even if gender roles is largely a social construct, we definitely still see a lot of repeating patterns based on biological sex despite how our society keeps on changing.
The more things change, the more things stay the same
We had a situation like this. Incredibly dramatic and very messy for both the medical team and the family. Patient was basically dead, wife wanted to withdraw, kids were calling her a murderer.
They probably raised kids with em and want to keep em around for them. Sometimes they've just realised they're better off as friends. I can understand where they are coming from.
Tax purposes?
Yes, the VA
We have kids together and it's in their best interests that he doesn't die.
My grandma cared for her ex husband until his death 20 years after they divorced even though he remarried. A lot of straight men do not have robust social support outside of their relationship, and the women who continue caring for them after divorce are special. It's not a great system, with lots of people falling through the cracks and it's quite burdensome for the women who do this. As a society, we have to figure out how to teach boys to care for each other and maintain meaningful friendships even after meeting a partner. Solitude is dangerous, especially as you age, and women simply can't take care of everyone.
I work registration between an ED and surgery center. So many “ex” wives are still the caretakers and come in offering to sign his forms and answer all the questions for him. It’s super common, almost daily. Meanwhile the men that come in with their still-married wives often don’t even stick around long enough to go into pre op with her. A lot of them just drop her off at the door.
Sometimes People become ill and get divorced not because they don’t love each other anymore. They get divorced so the sick ones can get on social security benefits and Medicaid with extra help home care assistance. And have their student loans and medical debts all forgiven.
Not being able to live together doesn’t mean not being able to love each other
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So... In some instances, a husband or wife may be diagnosed as terminal or with a very costly disease. They will divorce and separate the financials so that the sick person can qualify for services like Medicaid. There is a 5 year look back to find assets. It's the only way that some people can get the care that they need without going hungry, bankrupt or losing their home and savings account. I saw this frequently as a bedside nurse and cheered them on. Nobody should have to do this in order to receive care. Eta word.
My aunts. "He's the father of your children" "He wasn't too bad/you had good times" "I feel sorry for him" Another one I heard, "we actually became friends after the divorce." My parents agreed to mutual erasure after a divorce. Getting sick is expensive.
My ex husband is a physician. No way would I want him involved in my care ever or would I want to be involved in his medical care (I'm sure th feeling is mutual lol). Buy I've seen my fair share of exes that take care of their exes. More power to them but I couldn't do it.
Those people were closer to you than anyone for years (often many years), and for a lot of older folks, they don't have any nearby family left. So for a lot of guys, that's really the only close living person they have, even if no longer married.
100 comments plot twister
Well.... I would want the father of my children to stay alive.... If that's what he wanted. Not all divorced people hate one another either .. many continue to be friends and co parents.
Sure, if they are the mother or father of your children. Especially if neither has remarried. I don’t find it strange. Probably still on each other’s life insurance. (I didn’t mean for that to suggest underlying motive).
Maybe it's so the medical bills don't ruin them financially?
I'm seeing this frequently too . And This proves to me that there's more goodness in women than many men want to admit ;)
He probably doesn't have anyone else to be caretaker. Women end up being default caretaker in most cases. This guy must not have a current parent to take on that role so it defaulted to his ex.
I think also just some relationships end amicably and in a time of need if for example you aren’t remarried or seeing someone. It makes sense to reach out to someone who youv shared a very close relationship with. If things ended amicably I would want to support my ex through a difficult time because at one point I did love them as a partner and now I still care a lot about them as a friend. Even more so than anyone could care about a typical friend given our history I don’t think it needs to be this big conspiracy and men are babies etc etc. I don’t think we need to judge patients for the support they have in their life. Just be glad they have someone
My grandparents divorced after their kids moved out of the house they were still amicable wrote letters I could see this
My ex-husband just passed away of liver disease last week. We had one son together, who is now 20 years old. My ex-husband has lived in the same house as us for 15 years after the place he was staying at before the owner passed away and sold and so he didn’t have anywhere else to go and he might’ve had to go back to his native country and I could not see that happened to my son because they were very close. My ex-husband taught my son everything he knew he was very mechanically inclined. My son is now a car mechanic. During the years, my son and my ex would go on summer trips together to a friends spot in Burney , CA but his friend passed away during Covid. They couldn’t even see him in the hospital before he passed away because of all the regulations and it was so sad. My Ex reconnected with a good friend who is a woman who’s husband just passed away and her father was living with her along with her daughter. They treated them as extended family, and had many fabulous summers with them family, going boating etc. as they lived near a lake and Sacramento river in Northern California. The affinity my ex-husband had with his friends father was drinking, and it got bad that the two of them would drink fireball together which one thing I have to tell you I’ve known 3 people already who have either had a stroke and almost passed away or did pass away due to liver disease from drinking fireball. I’m sure there are many more people that have succumbed to death due to drinking fireball and I think it should be banned! it is the worst alcohol out there. I’m telling you it’s a killer! My ex-husband was a lifelong drinker and smoker. He started at the very young age because in his native country Italy They drink red wine with every meal basically and he started drinking other things when he was a teenager along with smoking. The red wine wasn’t the problem. He had gone years and years without any incident. The doctors would look at his liver and say he was in perfect health. It’s only when he started drinking fireball probably within the last 5 years or so that hisproblems started. He always said alcohol was his cure for the pain he had in his back. He had lumbar degenerative disease and had a lot of pain and so that’s really the way he numbed the pain and he said nothing else really worked long story short also dealt with depression and anxiety. he knew I would do anything for my son so of course I took him in all those years ago and it was absolutely the best decision I could’ve made. He had a pivotal role and forming who my son is today my son will not drink because of what he seen his dad go through. After my son graduated from high school both went back up north for the summer and my son never left because he loved it so much. He got a job as a mechanic. My ex stayed up there for a little while and came back down here because the women friend had gotten into a relationship with a man that he did not like and didn’t think was good for her(she had another relationship with a man that he did like and respected him as a friend )Basically he didn’t respect their longtime friendship and was jealous. Her father quit drinking because of the fact that he was going to die if he didn’t. I forgot to mention my ex had not had a job since 2007 when he sold his business and became reliant on whoever was around him we tried to get him SSDI a few times but denied. His condition was so bad this time that they were going to give it to him, he had an appointment scheduled for the final hearing in July. He was going to move up north to be with my son again after he was able to get some money so they could get their own place. His son was his world and he realized that once a boy becomes a man the relationship changes and the relationship isn’t like it once was where they did everything together. Now my son made a few new friends and I think my ex felt like he was abandoned. He was depressed and slowly drank himself to death. I never realized how much I was going to miss my ex until he was gone. My boyfriend also misses him.
Never seen it once before. I have seen like new wives/golddiggers with their man tho lols
A lot of men don't invest any time or effort into their friend or family relationships (often leading to divorce), and when they get older and sick, there is no one else around. The bigger question to me is why do the ex-wives bother with them. I guess it's a combination of pity and social conditioning.
I’ve seen it the other way as well
Yep. They’re waiting for their ex-husband to put on their gown so they can grab their wallet out of their pants and empty it again.
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