abiggerhammer

My husband killed himself last year after five years of a debilitating neurological disorder that the doctors never figured out on top of lifelong depression and Crohn's disease. I think dignity had a lot to do with his decision. He was incredibly frustrated by the fact that he needed to accept help from other people, particularly because he was an independent but sensitive guy and hated to feel like he was a burden on anyone.

Not an hour goes by that I don't miss him terribly and wish he were still here, sick or not. I'm dating again, but my entire life is different because of his absence.

Your situation's obviously different from my husband's; he did have a DNR, for instance, and I was totally on board with that. What I find myself wishing, still, is that he'd just involved me more in his decision-making process. I may not understand personally what it's like to be stuck in a body that's slowly becoming less and less functional, but I've watched it happen and I can understand why a person would want to be free of that kind of prison. But we lived an hour away from a country where assisted suicide is legal, and it was quietly known in the town we lived in that there was a doctor who would, if he felt the situation merited it and had been thought through, prescribe a lethal barbiturate cocktail. There were better options.

It's still pretty hard to sort through all the feels on this, but I think what I'm trying to say is that it's going to hurt your family a lot more if you make this decision without them. That doesn't mean "cave in to them," it means tell them what you're thinking about, and if you've made a decision, give them a heads-up about it. They are feeling isolated and helpless, for obvious reasons. Nothing about this is going to be easy, but the more you can communicate to them what you are thinking and feeling, the less difficult it will be.

This goes for your kids too, especially because they're smart. Smart kids' imaginations can come up with all kinds of ways to torment them about unanswered questions surrounding the death of a loved one.

edit: accidentally a word

GO TEAM YOU. You were in the right place at the right time and you did the right thing to make a difference quickly.

How is she doing now?

From a German "quite a bowler" means that he bowls a lot, not necessarily that he's great at it. Source: have run into this confusion with many Germans.