The world is mourning the death of Shannen Doherty.
She was a woman who was passionate and unflinchingly honest. Before she passed away from cancer earlier this week, Doherty revealed that she discovered her husband was having an affair, while she was receiving treatment for the illness.
Mamamia wrote about Doherty's experience. Then came the influx of hundreds of messages from countless women who have endured the exact same thing— their partners cheating on them or leaving them when they were literally fighting for their lives.
Sarah wrote: "My husband left me during my cancer treatment too. Sadly it's not uncommon."
For Marissa, she dodged a bullet, saying: "Same happened to me! He was a total narcissist so when he wasn't the centre of attention anymore, he said he couldn't be part of all what was happening to me."
Another woman shared: "I knew cancer could be a death sentence, but what I never dreamed was that it would be my marriage that became terminal."
"Was I my best self? Definitely not. Was I at the lowest and loneliest point of my life? Yes, I was. It was around this time, my husband dropped the bombshell. He wanted a divorce. His reasons? I was too high maintenance."
Leinad added: "Same thing happened to my mother. While she battling cancer, my stepfather would create a scenario that would allow him to leave the house in a huff. I later discovered he was seeing a woman and once my mother was dead, his relationship with the other woman became official."
Vanessa Mendico also shared her experience.
In 2022, Vanessa was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer. She was just 28 years old.
Listen to The Quicky's episode on why men are more likely to cheat on their sick partners here. Post continues below.
"It was June 2022 and I was sitting in the hospital bed after a colonoscopy and everyone around me who had also undergone the same procedure throughout the day were being told they could go home. I was one of the last ones left, and I asked the nurse if I could leave too. They said, 'The doctor needs to speak to you,'" Vanessa tells Mamamia.
At this same moment, Vanessa's emergency contact — her boyfriend — had been contacted and told he ought to come into the medical facility as "your partner is going to need you".
"In the hospital my boyfriend and I walked through adjacent doors to get to the doctor's office and we came face to face. As soon as I saw his face, I knew things were bad."
Vanessa underwent cancer treatment until January 2023, and her loved ones were right by her side. But she says her boyfriend was nowhere near as supportive.
"We were early into the relationship. We had been official for a few months leading up to the diagnosis and had moved in together. But while I was going through treatment and had my chemo port in, I was still making dinners, doing the housework. I remember one night I was making a dessert with apples and I had even made the dinner beforehand. I asked if he could come and help me peel the apples. He replied that he was tired and why couldn't I do it," she reflects.
She remembers her boyfriend went to one chemo session with her, and that was after she asked him. The rest she attended alone.
Watch: In Her Shoes, Lea's cancer story. Post continues below.
Vanessa says she had given her boyfriend "plenty of outs" before the chemotherapy, telling him that if he felt overwhelmed about the situation and was unsure of their relationship, now was the time to end things romantically.
"I told him I could take it in the lead-up, but during the chemo I knew I wouldn't be strong enough to take a relationship ending. He swore things were good and that he wanted to stay. It was days after the diagnosis that he told me he loved me for the first time. I later learned that days after telling me he loved me, he then cheated on me."
"In July I picked him up from a random apartment after he'd had a big night out. And when I went up to the apartment, there was this girl there. He told me the girl was just a friend of someone he knew. From that point on, he was really distant. When you're going through treatment, you're not really focusing on the day-to-day things. I hadn't clocked that he was maybe cheating on me. I was so tired and sick from the chemo."
Vanessa believes her boyfriend was unfaithful on "plenty of occasions".
"Obviously in those months of chemo he was waiting for me not to be around at home so that he could do his thing with multiple different women. I think if I had cancer or not, he would have been unfaithful. But I think a lot of partners use that time away spent in hospital to do things they had already thought of doing. I know at least five friends who also had bowel cancer who got cheated on. That's just in my network alone."
After her boyfriend's behaviour towards her became more and more unsupportive and distant, Vanessa decided to do some digging. She reached out to various women via social media — including the woman she had met in that apartment back in July — and her fears were confirmed - he was cheating. On the cusp of her final day of chemo, she confronted him with what she had discovered.
She had the screenshots from her conversations with the other women. But he continued to deny. The relationship ended, and he maintains he didn't cheat on Vanessa.
Now Vanessa says her medical trauma is forever attached to the loss associated with her relationship ending. She says she "can't undo the two things", and her ability to trust is shaky.
"I was in my darkest moment, and yet I was by myself and my partner wasn't supportive. It does make you jaded. I'm currently dating someone but even then it's really hard. I need to re-learn how to let someone in."
According to research from Brown University, men are eight times more likely than women to leave a spouse with brain cancer. They are also six times more likely to leave a spouse with another form of cancer.
The rates of women doing the same to their partners is far, far lower.
One of the neurologists behind the research hypothesised that it comes down to a variety of reasons, one being that men find it harder to express emotion, and another that they struggle with being unable to 'fix' a predicament like cancer.
Elisabeth Shaw is the CEO of Relationships Australia and a practicing clinical and counselling psychologist.
Speaking with Mamamia's The Quicky, she says: "If we look at those gendered consequences, it's certainly true that men are not generally trained into being caregivers in the way that women are. A cancer diagnosis and very long-term treatment can mean that the problems that you were struggling with in the relationship beforehand will inevitably reappear."
For over a year now Vanessa has been told there's no evidence of cancer in her body. From the five-year mark she will then be able to say she's in remission if there continues to be no evidence of the disease.
She feels incredibly lucky to have her life, considering the odds she was facing. She also has a large amount of empathy for any cancer patient whose relationship is marred by infidelity.
"It's just such a selfish thing. Upon reflection, it would have been so much better for him to just say 'I can't deal with this, let's end things.' Gosh it would have hurt, but it would be better. I feel like he just wanted to have his cake and eat it," she reflects.
"He still expected so much, even while I was in the middle of treatment. He wanted a coffee on his bedside every morning, and if I didn't I'd be made to feel sh*t for it. It was like he thought I had a common cold, rather than cancer."
Vanessa also wants to give a shout out to the many supportive partners out there who have helped their loved one through a cancer journey.
To those who have been in a similar boat to her, she adds: "For people going through cancer, we aren't going to bring as much to the relationship as we usually would, we have enough on our plates."
"As Brené Brown says, it's a partnership — if one of you is faltering slightly, it's up to the other partner to lift them up. That's how relationships work, it ebbs and flows. Life's too short not to be loved or cared for."
For more from Vanessa Mendico, you can follow her Instagram, and hear more of her story via her podcast You Me Us.
Feature Image: Instagram.
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