Unconventional advice for caregivers
August 4th, 2009
From the St. Petersburg Times:
A Florida couple offers advice to caregiving spouses who have reached the breaking point: Get out of “caregiver hell” and move on.
Both Rhonda, 42, and David Travland, 68, were previously married to chronically ill spouses who required extensive medical care. Each opted for divorce, putting their former spouses in nursing homes.
They recently founded the Caregiver Survival Institute and self-published a book, The Tough & Tender Caregiver: A Handbook for the Well Spouse.
David Travland, trained as a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor, says marriage is a contract with boundaries. “Vows have limits,” he says. “If the marriage contract is broken, it needs to be renegotiated.”
… many extended friends and family members have been unable to make peace with the decisions they made. David Travland’s son is still so angry he won’t allow his father to see his only grandson.
But the couple believe their former spouses are now happier, more independent and better off without them.
(St. Petersburg Times photo)
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August 9th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Sadly, the article does not reflect everything that is in the book. We spent a great deal of time talking about how to make the caregiving relationship work in a marriage.
Divorce was my only option after 17 years of caregiving because I had minor children to care for living with domestic violence due to illness. David and I both honored our wedding vows to the point that we wanted our own death or illness for relief. My wedding vows did not include “I will feel like committing suicide because of the caregiving demands.”
The book is a self contained support group for healthy partners who are struggling with burnout ~ not advocacy for leaving. However, some caregiving relationships were bad before illness or disability arrived in the relationship and both partners feel stuck and dependent. We try to help untangle the mess.
We have clients from all viewpoints and respect them all, but face it, all caregivers from all beliefs have bad days ~ some more than others and there is very limited help and few financial resources.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I hope nobody buys their book.
I’m sure it’s difficult to care for an ailing spouse, but whatever happened to “til death do us part” and “in sickness and in health?”