staying, from this end

I've had a lot of people remind me, as though left to my own devices I'd forget, that I'm lucky to have Jason. I know it, and I say it a lot, too. He's good support. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel smart and important. But that's not what they mean, and sometimes it's not what I mean either.

What we all collectively mean, at least sometimes, when we say this is that I'm lucky that he stayed.

I don't know that he even knows the extent of it, but doctors and nurses asked regularly how he was coping and how his coping was affecting me. They were always relieved to hear that I wasn't afraid he'd leave, which is so heartbreaking. Even the women who fitted me for my prosthesis kept reminding me that my husband was going to be so happy. They were wrong about that. He wasn't the one who cared.

It does not say good things about what we expect from men that so many people approach his having stayed with such gratitude and surprise. It insults Jason. It indicates that abandonment is a common experience for a lot of women, so say the nurses, doctors, and prosthesis fitters, most common for women with breast cancer.

On another level, it does terrible things to me. Because I already fell apart about what a burden it was. Because on some level I do not believe that I'm worth the trouble. Because there were times when I wished he would leave me so that he could have the sort of life I wanted him to have. The one he wanted. The one we planned. Because I sat sobbing more times than I can count, cursing the fact that the insurance came through his job, because if it didn't I could have just left, given that he showed no signs of being willing to pick a different life for himself. Because if we all think it's remarkable that he stuck by me, then don't we all think, just a little, that he would have preferred not to? Because if we think that, then aren't we all agreeing that I'm really not worth the trouble?

Because I already feel so fucking lucky and indebted that I'm struggling to consider myself his equal.

So I'm glad that my family is completely head over heels for him. And I'm glad that the people who ask have a positive story to file alongside their collection of bad ones: The Good Man Who Stayed. And I'm glad that on some level I know that he was never going anywhere. What I don't always know is why it was worth staying. But I don't think I can handle another reminder of how lucky I am. But I could take a few that this--that staying--was exactly what we all thought would happen. That it is worthwhile. Because that's the thing I still struggle to believe.