Robertson: Divorce Your Wife With Alzheimers

[meegbear]

Run time: 01:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qt_JCnRdCQ   Posted on YouTube: September 13, 2011 By YouTube Member: RWWBlog Views on YouTube: 96   Posted on DU: September 13, 2011 By DU Member: meegbear Views on DU: 3796

 
On the "700 Club" program today, Pat Robertson took on a question from a woman who was friends with a man whose wife is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and has begun to date another woman and wanted to know what to do.

Robertson's advice was to encourage the husband to divorce his wife with Alzheimer's because she was, for all intents and purposes, already dead. Co-host Terry Meeuwsen understandably wondered if that would not violate the "til death do you part" provision of the wedding vow, which Robertson just pretty much dismissed, saying "he certainly wouldn't put a guilt trip" on anyone who decided that divorce was the answer.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertsons-marital-advice-divorce-your-wife-alzheimers

Mighty Christian of him.

[enough]

1. Having taken care of my elderly parents through years of Alzheimer's, I have to agree

with Robertson that nobody should be put through a guilt trip for finding another loved one while taking care of a spouse in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. Robertson happens to believe that you should divorce if you are planning to take another partner. I don't personally feel that way. But he specifically says that you must continue to take care of the Alzheimer's victim.

Until you have lived closely with the reality of Alzheimer's Disease, you really can't understand how it changes everything you think you know about human life and relationships.

This does not mean that you can abandon the Alzheimer's victim. You absolutely cannot. Nobody is more dependent upon loving care than an Alzheimer's victim. You have an absolute responsibility to that person. But the caregiver also deserves compassion. Otherwise the caregiver's life is ruined too. And I mean ruined. It happens often.

I think we're barking up the wrong tree here to accuse Robertson of being unChristian in this case.

[Warpy]

3. There's a difference between finding loving support

outside the marriage and abandoning one's marriage partner completely to the care of strangers out of convenience, which is what Robertson is suggesting.

The only reason for divorce in such cases has to be financial, so that the healthy spouse isn't forced to lose everything to spend down to Medicaid levels to keep the ill spouse in a nursing home during the final stages of any final illness, Alzheimer's being just one of them.

Robertson is wrong here. He's so terrified of adultery that he's willing to condone the divorce and abandonment of the "til death do you part" spouse. He's wrong because Christian morality doesn't condone either of those.

[jberryhill]

6. "to the care of strangers"

Truly an odd position for Robertson, since the evangelical view tends to be that marital unfaithfulness is the only grounds for divorce.

I was taken with your use of the phrase above relating to "strangers", though. An Alzheimer's patient in the care of family is in the care of strangers, to the patient, eventually.

[Warpy]

11. Yes, but family members who are involved enough

to keep up visits to the nursing home will ensure much better care from those paid strangers. It's just human nature, when everyone else has written a person off, the staff just does the necessary care and that's it.

However, the point is Robertson's ignorance of the religion he professes to represent. That's what is shameful. The stupid man needed to retire decades ago. One would wish this would be the thing to do it, but he's beyond shame as long as the money from suckers rolls in.

[jberryhill]

13. Oh I know what you meant

I was just recalling having become a stranger myself.

[Warpy]

15. I never knew whether my mother recognized me at all

She was blind and deaf at the end and wandering around in the past.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

7. I agree! "Two wrongs don't make a right"

So much for protecting the sanctity of marriage...

Pat Robertson: hypocrite? I think so...

[Warpy]

10. He's certainly ignorant of the words of Christ

and of most of the other things to be found in that book he's pummeling at the pulpit.

[formercia]

22. He's ignorant of the words of Christ because he isn't a Minister

Robertson is a Lawyer. If he had been to a recognized Divinity School, he might not be spewing his claptrap.

[fmlymninral]

5. I agree

I work with Seniors all the time, Alzheimer is a terrible disease that effects both individuals. What Pat was saying is that if you are going to break your marriage vows then you should divorce. Until you have been through or seen an individual who has Alzheimer's you can not imagine the toll it takes on the loved ones. He did say the husband should make sure that she is well cared for and he wouldn't divorce but it would better to divorce than to commit adultery.

[kstewart33]

14. I agree completely.

No one with Alzheimer's would want their spouse's life to be ruined as their caretaker.

You love someone and your life approaches the end, you want your spouse to be guilt-free and happy.

But the spouse should not abandon the victim who needs good care more than ever.

[richmwill]

2. No Pat, YOU'RE "gone"...

If he's not suffering from Alzheimer's himself, and hasn't been for years, I would be very surprised.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. I'll bet his fans watching at home who are in the EARLY stages of Alz. enjoyed hearing that.

edit to include: :sarcasm:

[demwing]

8. I never thought I'd say so, but I agree with Pat Robertson

Alzheimer's is a kind of death. Do the right thing, make sure your spouse is cared for, and end the marriage. The last thing you should do is cheat on your disabled spouse.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. "The last thing you should do is cheat on your disabled spouse"...

no, you shouldn't- that is what they make internet porn for. Take care of you biological need, then tend to your sick spouse.

[demwing]

19. We're going to disagree

I had to stop seeing my father, whom has Alzheimer's. He is not my father anymore, he's a stranger to me, and I am a total stranger to him. I understand the emotion. I can't take care of him, he needs professional care.

Marriage is not indentured servitude. Human relationships are not a ball and chain. Tie someone to a spouse that does not recognize them, and you are strangling the survivor.

[Crowman1979]

9. You can't trust the morals of a man who banged prostitutes in South Korea while other officers in...

...his unit were dying in battle.

[russspeakeasy]

12. He is slime...rich slime, but still slime.

:evilfrown:

[Divine Discontent]

18. Eek! He reminds me of what W will be like when he's older. And you can bet if the caller had said it

was a woman who was having an affair with another man, and her husband was dying of Alz, Pat would have said how a woman is supposed to submit to their man and be there for him in his time of sickness, just like the bible says...

that guy is a horrible excuse for a "loving" Christian. He's a fraud imo.


http://www.zazzle.com/republicans_2012_keeping_millions_out_of_work_bumper_sticker-128002960205017719

[seabeyond]

16. sounds reasonable to me. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

20. This woman is "already dead"

. . . but Terri Schiavo's life, such as it was, had to be saved from her husband who wanted to pull the plug.

Will somebody please reconcile this?

[elehhhhna]

21. if he was asked about the wife divorcing an alzheimers HUSBAND,

would he answer differently?

[digidigido]

23. He has a point, and look at Sandra Day O'Connor

If she had followed that advice the world would be a better place

[Hissyspit]

24. The real scandal here is that Robertson should be allowed to give advice on anything to anyone.

[TwilightGardener]

25. Sick shit, right there. Marriage means you suffer together, endure sadness

and illness together, your fates are tied together, there is no escaping the sadness of a spouse's decline in health and mind by fleeing into someone else's arms--at least, no morally justifiable way.