My husband of 52 years was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease 10 years ago. Currently I am a full-time caregiver. I hope to place my husband in a memory-care facility soon, so that I can move closer to two of my children and their children, all of whom live in Europe. My husband does not know anything about this yet. My guilt is sharp over “dumping” him in this way, even though he might be safer and more active. Do I have the moral right to put him in care and saunter off to live my own life, or do I have the moral duty to continue being his caregiver, having once promised “in sickness and in health”? I’m torn over what’s right and whose rights should prevail. — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Entrusting your husband’s daily care to others could make sense, especially if you think they’d look after him better. But this decision is separate from whether you’ll keep showing up for him. In time, he might not even notice your absence. You say, however, that your husband doesn’t yet know about your plans, which suggests he might be able to understand what’s happening and experience the impact. If so, and your leaving would cause him to feel abandoned, that’s a powerful reason to stay in his life. What has weight here aren’t his “rights” but the deep loyalties that arise from a shared life.
Here’s the other piece: You didn’t get to work this through when you were both well, and having done so might have given you surer footing now. While you can’t turn back time, it’s a lesson for other couples — talk about these things before they become urgent. Still, because you know your husband, you can probably guess what he would have hoped for from you before illness took over, and that’s worth something. In the end, this isn’t a question of balancing his needs with yours, or with the role you could play in the lives of your offspring. The task, rather, is to draw upon your shared history and find a way forward that respects both the life you’ve built together and the person you are today.
A Bonus Question
A few years ago, a close cisgender male friend in a heterosexual marriage began identifying as queer. All of his romantic experiences have been with women. Through therapy, however, he concluded that gender wouldn’t have mattered in choosing a partner when he was single. He’s happily married and is monogamous with his wife.
Still, he’s altered his presentation — fashion, hair, piercings, slang — to align with queer culture, and he openly identifies as part of the queer community and attends queer events. It feels as if my friend is attempting to garner the benefits and cultural cachet of being queer while also living a heteronormative life. Is this permissible authentic expression, or is it cultural appropriation? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
A side eye for the queer guy? It’s because sexual identity and desire are multifarious that many have found value in the expansive category of “queer,” which encompasses people who are transgender, nonbinary or nonhetero. You’ve somehow decided that your friend’s self-presentation is merely a flex — that his makeover is an opportunistic rebrand. In the rarefied social world you share, it seems, straight desire has become the love that dare not speak its name, and fauxmosexuals must be outed as the clout-chasers they are.
But consider: You don’t have access to the erotic theater of his mind. And you can’t police the borders of queerness without becoming the very kind of gatekeeper the word was meant to defy. By identifying as queer, he stands alongside more vulnerable populations — such as transgender folks — contained in this capacious category. That’s not appropriation; it’s alliance.
Readers Respond
Last week’s question was from a reader wondering if they should disclose knowledge of incest. They wrote: “I have been living with a secret for close to 55 years. My first cousin, whom I am very close with, was adopted from a Catholic orphanage in Italy and brought back to the United States when we were both young. … Many years ago, my mother told me in confidence that my cousin’s biological parents were brother and sister. … Over the years, after her adoptive parents died, my cousin has tried to find her biological parents. But the records from the orphanage are sealed. My cousin has a husband, children and grandchildren. I am the only one still alive who knows the truth. … Do I have an obligation to reveal this to her, or should I take it to my grave?”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “You are, it appears, the sole custodian of an intimate truth concealed from the very person it concerns. … Learning that one’s birthparents were siblings would challenge anyone’s sense of self. … Still, though she bears no responsibility whatsoever for circumstances that preceded her existence, our emotional responses to a situation don’t necessarily track with our intellectual understanding of it. Throughout history, people have internalized shame for their origins. … You know your cousin; I do not. But the question is not simply whether she would want this information but whether she has the right to it. We are, as I’ve argued before, entitled to a life informed by the fundamental facts about our existence. Even the painful ones? Perhaps especially those. This truth belongs to her.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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Like the letter writer’s cousin, I was adopted under troubling conditions that were withheld from me for many years. When I finally learned those details, I was furious I hadn’t been told earlier. Unlike the cousin, I found that my information had been recorded as fact in a court of law. I had simply never researched the public records. — Curtis
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How is it going to change your cousin’s life to know that secret? In what way is it going to make it better? To me, the answer is crystal clear: Only in the case of a life-threatening condition would it be better to reveal the secret. It is certain that all of us carry within our genes countless unknown past events. So what? — Herminia
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What good will be served by sharing this uncomfortable information about the cousin’s parents? No good whatsoever, as far as I can see. Fifty-five years is a long time to keep a secret, and bravo to the letter writer for that accomplishment. Keep the secret another 55 years. — Fran
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The sharing of secret information to which another is entitled seems obvious. We are able to have difficult conversations. After a two-decade search that began in my early 20s, I found both my biological parents. Find a way to tell your cousin, and tell her from a place of great love. — Jennifer
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Since the writer’s cousin has “tried to find her biological parents” and has children and grandchildren, she would want to know and deserves the truth. Had the orphanage’s records been unsealed, she would have found out anyway. It might be different if she showed no interest in her ancestry or had no progeny, but that is not the case. She absolutely deserves to know. — Kevin
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