Dear Del,

My boyfriend and I have been together almost a year. We have known each other awhile as we were both in the Army together, but I got out Feb of last year due to Cancer. He has known I have been fighting this disease, but since he deployed in October things have changed. I have been deployed to Iraq as well so I know how things can get lonely and depressing, but I’m not going to make excuses for him.

Well, in the beginning things were good. Then he started getting to where he would be really mean to me in the things he would say and accuse me of stuff I wasn’t doing. I am not a snoopy person, but for some reason gut instinct told me to check his myspace account. Low and behold, everything he was accusing me of he was doing. I was devastated to say the least. I really built this man up in my mind and he ended up being like the rest of the men I have been with. I trusted him and NEVER thought he would do something like that. Well, I confronted him about it and of course he got defensive…Blah, blah, blah. We discussed how this talking sexual to other females was still cheating and it was more of an emotional cheating and that’s just as bad. Since then he has opened up more to me, but I still feel like he is holding something back.

Two days ago he tells me he feels distant from me because he is scared because I am sick. Alright, he has known I have been sick for almost a year, so now he feels distant? He is deployed and I have no way of physically being able to address the issue other than Yahoo IM. So, when I openly try to communicate how I feel and how this upsets me, he turns it around on ME! Like I am the bad guy, and how I’m trying to make him feel bad for the way he feels. I don’t understand what’s going on here. One minute he’s all about us and our future together, and then the next he barely wants to talk to me. I know he suffers from depression and this is no excuse, but I don’t know what I am suppose to do here.

I have opened up all communication in efforts of trying to find out what’s going on. He tells me him feeling distant doesn’t change the fact that he loves me, doesn’t make him love me any less, and it has nothing to do with me, but if me being sick is causing him to feel distant because he is scared it has a lot to do with me. I just don’t know how to handle the situation anymore or know if maybe this is his way of telling me he has other interest now. How would I handle this. It seems like I only piss him off when I try to discuss things, it always ends up with me apologizing for everything and taking the blame.

Is it possible he is talking to other women on the internet again or has someone showing interest in him? I don’t know how to approach this anymore. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Dear Nichole,

I am so sorry for your circumstances. I guess it is somewhat “natural” for any person who loves another that has become ill, to feel confused and distant, BUT if the love is great and real, most people would want to stay with their loved one who is going thru such an illness rather than putting themselves first.  Not everyone is capable of that.  My advice to you at this time, even hard as it may be, is to break it off with him and concentrate on getting well.  Otherwise the stress that this is causing you may be very harmful to your condition.  Good Luck and
God bless!

P.S.  Anyone who would be mean to a sick loved one is a big fat Zero in my book!

Sincerely,

Del