So let me set up the disclaimer here that might well render my opinions here completely uninformed and moot. I do not have a spouse with Alzheimer’s, nor have I. I have had a spouse (not my present one) with significant mental / emotional issues, but it’s definitely not the same thing. So, having said that …
Pat Robertson has come under a lot of fire, from a number of different directions over remarks he made on his 700 Club program. A married man whose wife has advanced Alzheimer’s is beginning to date other ladies, and concerned friend of the family wants some guidance from Pat as to what the right course of action is.
(More complete video here.)
Pat’s advice is that dude should get a divorce. Which, obviously, has set a number of eyebrows askance, mine included. He’s drawing criticism from advocates for sufferers from Alzheimer’s, as well as from a number of Christians commenters.
Now, in Pat Robertson’s defense (not words I often string together), there’s method to his madness. He clearly recognizes the difficulty of the situation for the man in question (it’s “a terribly hard thing” — though I wonder how he would feel were the gender roles reversed). He recognizes, if not from his own life then from stories he’s been told by others, how much advanced Alzheimer’s can change someone (“This is a kind of death … it’s like a walking death”). He’s not really advocating throwing the wife here off the back of the sleigh, sort of (“… make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her”). And he even confesses on a couple of occasions that this, unlike his many, many, many other moral judgments, may be beyond him (“This is an ethical question that’s beyond my ken”).
His focus, though, is on how the man in question can seek “companionship” without breaking the marriage vows (and, reading between the lines, committing adultery). As Robertson couches it (emphasis mine), “If he’s going to do something [i.e., date], he should divorce her and start all over again.”
Robertson’s clumsy approach is to get a divorce, justifying it as the partner that was married being, effectively, “dead.” That’s an interesting variant on Paul’s “it’s better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor 7:9), but I think is wrong-headed and the wrong way to approach it.
First off, it seems a glib, sloppy excuse-making of the kind that Robertson, and other conservative Christian pundits, would lambaste were it to come from a more liberal or less Religious Right figure. After all, on this basis, someone who was in an irreversible coma could be divorced on the same basis (and, as I noted earlier, Robertson was at the forefront in the “judicial murder” charges regarding Terri Schiavo who was far more “dead” than the wife in this case).
But it’s not just the hypocrisy here that bothers me. From a practical standpoint, this is simply unworkable. The woman involved is far more likely to be able to get custodial care and so forth if she remains married to the man (assuming their pooled resources are greater). Divorce her, and, what, she becomes a ward of the state, or the responsibility of her other kin? That’s not going to go well for her, nor is it a good act toward anyone else.
Unlike Pat, I’m not willing to let the husband here off the hook. That vow about “better and worse … in sickness and in health, until death do us part” doesn’t have an escape clause for Alzheimer’s, nor is “death” footnoted as “including permanent, tragic dementia.” It’s a commitment, mutually reached, mutually binding. If the husband chooses to terminate it, that’s between him and his wife and God (and, perhaps, the next person he marries or “commits” to), but giving him a pass isn’t the right approach.
I would say, if he’s dating others, seeking companionship (including, yes, sex), then fine, understandable, even arguably positive and healthy. It doesn’t remove from him the obligation to care for his wife, to treat her with humanity and compassion and dignity … but if it helps him through the day (or night), then I’d think it better and easier and less of a rules lawyering twist to forgive him adultery (with or without sex) than to okay his dumping his wife because she doesn’t recognize him any more.
There are no good answers here because it’s not a good situation. As noted above, I can’t pretend to know what the husband in this case is going through. But Robertson’s answer is far less than good, and is focused on the wrong thing. He’s willing to destroy a marriage in order to save it some technical denting, to protect the letter of the law rather than its spirit. I can’t think that’s would Jesus would do, nor is it a kindness to anyone involved, husband or wife.