Court records say a Kansas City-area man who’s charged with killing his hospitalized wife told police he couldn’t take care of her or afford her medical bills
Per your linked article there was a 79% chance that they would stay married. Divorce is more likely when the wife gets sick then the husband but I wouldn't have define her chances of being alone the way you did.
Aw, man. I didn’t wanna feel this way first thing in the morning.
Some years ago, I was in this weird social circle, owing to my partner at the time.
She was longtime friends with a guy who has his own interesting story, but the relevant part here is that he’s heavily involved in college-aged veteran’s lives. (Mentoring, life guidance, helping people transition back.)
During a get-together put on by him, my partner and I met this young couple. They were basically the model of a young, “trad”, Christian couple. Ben had Boy Scout/youth pastor vibes about him, and Sarah was super funny, kind and never seemed to forget personal details. Both were great to talk to, with broad knowledge and experience. He was a bit more Christian oriented, and a bit more conservative, but was earnest and it wasn’t really a thing that came up unless others pressed.
They seemed incredibly happy together, and about a year later, he proposed. A few months later they married. Less than a month after that they were out celebrating Sarah’s pregnancy, a giant SUV ran a stop sign while speeding, and Sarah was so injured she wound up in a coma, but still pregnant, until after their child was born.
She stayed in a coma for a few months after the birth, coming out of it permanently different. They didn’t really go out to events anymore. She was mostly in a wheelchair and didn’t talk. I kept up via social media until I stopped seeing posts from him. He mostly had posted about the challenges of raising their kid alone while also taking care of her, with an occasional news story about the accident/fallout from it.
About 6 months after I’d last seen something, I sought out his socials for an update, to find he’d scrubbed it of Sarah. He’d made new posts the algorithm didn’t show me - his and Sarah’s kid, with a new woman. Sarah’s socials had one update, posted by her mother. She now lived with her mom, and was okay. They were just taking things day by day. That was 7ish years ago?
I guess I don’t condemn someone in their early 20’s for bailing, I suppose, but that situation makes me sad because of how terrible it is for all parties.
Oh I'm sorry. Taking care of someone for the rest of their lives, not being able to, not having the means to and all the while suffering for it is something you think is a walk in the fucking park?
I think the key word here is "suffer". Americans worship suffering. It gives them a hard on. So when someone wants to end the suffering, that's an insult. Typical ugly American mentality, devoid of any understanding for human nature and full of piss and vinegar. Also, it's unrealistic and kind of naive, because I bet this happens more often than you think - but it's hard to actually figure out. Why? Let me count the ways.
You have a judicial system committing mass judicial murder on a weekly basis "because you can't afford the fight the case", a for profit health sector that would pull plugs in concert if an insurance company told them to, doctors and surgeons dodging malpractice suits on a cross-state basis like it's a sport and you're probably happy knowing he'll be sent to a for profit prison system that makes profits in the billions, where he'll become a slave for the state to "pay back his debt to society".
But sure, means and needs were not the issue. He should have pulled himself up by his bootstraps and gotten that 4th job.
No, I wasn't referring to her. FFS. Like I understand why you would say that, because him considering his own suffering is just too selfish to be taken into consideration when asking why he did it, and us considering it as a part of his decision making process or that laws and systemic issues line this shit up like bowling pins? Noo! That's not allowed when considering motive... he's just EVIL which is a scientific term and influenced by SATAN because he DIDNT VOTE REPUBLICAN and probably LIVED AMONGST IMMIGRANTS /s
Like seriously, Americans are fucking stupid sometimes.
Nah, usually the "wants to end the suffering" is referring to a suffering person dying or being killed, especially when an extremely sick person died in the event being described. Sometimes it's used to reference just drugging yourself up beyond safe limits to remove chronic pain, generally also a very sick person. It's pretty much never used to refer to killing someone else to free yourself from debilitating financial obligations. This isn't an American thing, this is a poor word choice thing.
He is evil. He may have been suffering as well due to the evil system we live in and wouldn't be in a humane system, but he could have just walked away or declared bankruptcy or divorced her or killed himself. All of those things are still harmful to her, but they're better than being murdered. Whatever his hurts were, she didn't deserve that. A bad circumstance doesn't mean you can murder an innocent person you vowed to love and support and not be a bad person.
Having lived in America for all my life, what I can say is that most Americans are way more reasonable, kind, logical, and empathetic than you. But that's really faint praise. You probably hate Americans so much because you see yourself in them so much.
This isn't limited to Americans or the US. The reason you are describing this in such tone is American exceptionalism, though, because I can just feel the indignation at this happening in the country you subconsciously expect to be exceptional.
We'll ignore the fact that America pays as much per capita towards Medicare and MedicAid as Canada pays for its admittedly flawed universal healthcare and instead focus on the question. You think it's better to spend more than the next 5(I think) countries on the military but also disagree with raising taxes even an iota to improve Healthcare coverage?
"Evil" is a social construct for people in the dark ages, because it holds as much merit as believing in fairies.
Again, you are really in denial of human nature, and as such don't know that the conditions I mentioned set the stage for this kind of thing to happen.
Do you know that you can be corrupted, that you can commit murder, if the conditions are right?
This man’s wife specifically asked him not to, because he also tried to kill her last year. I was expecting to have more sympathy for the man, but then I read the story. His kid brought him in to confess, which is an unbelievable position to put your kid in.
I do understand putting someone out of their misery, and I’m not unempathetic towards the grinding horror that is capitalism, but this is an awful thing for other reasons as well.
That's not really a thing in most of the US. Best you can generally get is a "Do Not Resuscitate" order which is used in the event you die on your own and tells them not to do CPR or use an AED or anything else to revive you.
My wife and I have discussed a few. For her, anything that's terminal or results in such a significant decrease in quality of life that continued living is some degree of torture more than 50% of the time.
My criteria are mostly the same, with added conditions for dementia, which seems to run in the family.
Bro... I just listed the reasons... like if you don't want to understand human nature, human psychology, sociology or why systemic issues are apart of creating the conditions that would allow this to happen, then that's your dumbass problem.
Like seriously. Read a fucking book - and not the Abrahamic ones. Those rot your brain.
I'm seriously ill. Nowhere near as ill as his wife was, but ill enough to not be working and to have gone to the Mayo Clinic. I'm fully aware of what a huge, overwhelming burden I've been to my family in terms of both finances and emotional toll.
Do I condone what this person did? Absolutely not. But dealing with a seriously ill person is a hell of a lot more than an inconvenience. I do everything I can to make my wife and daughter's lives as easy as possible despite my issues, but I can only do so much. There have been a lot of very difficult moments for all of us.
Especially weighed against the capabilities of the person being inconvenienced or overwhelmed. If they have a hard enough time taking care of themselves, adding another person could be a death sentence for both.