"In Sickness And In Health" Includes Mental Illness

I remember it like it was yesterday.
My Mom crying that we were trying to steal her dog.
The police officer telling her that it was time to go get "equalized" as they overpowered her and took her from my house.
When they handcuffed her before they put her into the back of the police cruiser.
Her face as they drove her away.
She looked like her whole world was being taken away from her.

This was the second time that we had to get a court order to get my Mom taken in to the hospital and the first time that I was there for it. This was following another incident where she had been mistaken for a crazy homeless person and had the police called on her.

As my Dad and I drove to the hospital to see her, we were both a mess. My Dad just kept saying how much he loved her and he would never leave her. I had my Mom's purse with me, which was more like a survival kit for a desert island. (One of the symptoms of hypothyroidism is paranoia, which is why no one had ever seen what was in her purse and also why it was so full of everything under the sun.)

When we got to the hospital and they let us in to see my Mom they had already been injecting the thyroid hormone into her through IV. We later found out that her TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels were so low that she could have died.

As I watched my Dad hold my Mom's hand next to the hospital bed I got a glimpse of how committed he is to her.

This is just one example of what my parents have been going through for the past nine years.


The Backstory
As I mentioned, my Mom has a condition called hypothyroidism, which is actually quite common. This means that her body does not produce enough TSH, which pretty much regulates everything in the body. This stems from the thyroid cancer she had when she was in her twenties. At that time, the treatment was to take out the thyroid gland and permanently put the patient on medication that gives the body the hormones it needs.

In other words, if my Mom does not take her medicine or takes too little, her whole system gets jacked up physically and mentally, because she has no thyroid gland at all.

For the bulk of the last nine years we believe my Mom has been under-dosing on her medicine which basically makes her mind and body go in slow motion. The physical affects are, she is tired and cold all the time. The mental affects are, she is hyper paranoid, not reasonable, generally not a responsible adult. The mental affects on the family are far more devastating than the physical affects.

Because of this, my parents have not had a "normal" marriage relationship for the past nine years. And my Dad has pretty much become a single parent of the children that are still at home. Needless to say, this has been very difficult for my family and especially my Dad.


Divorce and Mental Illness
Since all this has been going on, there have been multiple people who have asked why my Dad chooses to stay in the marriage despite my Mom's mental problems. Usually people don't say this to me directly. They might say it to my wife or someone else not quite as close to the situation. When I hear that people say this, it always throws me off a bit. In my mind, it doesn't make sense that someone would get a divorce because one partner is not well. Isn't that what marriage is all about? Staying together no matter what. Including sickness as well as health?

But the more I look into this topic of mental illness and divorce, the more I realize that I am in the minority. This article suggests that as many as 80% of divorces may be linked to some form of mental illness. I tend to believe this is quite accurate. Most of the time the issue is not thyroid problems, but often times when I hear about a divorce, one spouse was bi-polar, depressed, or had an eating disorder. The word "crazy" is quite commonly used to describe an ex-husband or wife.

The question I ask myself when I see all this is; since when is mental illness an excuse to get a divorce?

Don't get me wrong, we make plenty of other excuses when it comes to divorce. But for some reason it just seems to be more "okay" to get a divorce if your spouse is "crazy". It's as if we think it was a joke when we said "in sickness and in health".


My Take
Well I don't think it is a joke. In the real world after the honeymoon is over, things go wrong. Sometimes really wrong. And if you can't trust your spouse to stick with you through those tough times, then who can you trust?

When my parents said in "in sickness and in health" on their wedding day, I believe they meant it. The past nine years are proof of that. It hasn't been pretty and it hasn't been all that fun most of the time. But is that what God calls us to in marriage? To have fun and have a "normal, put-together life"?

Or is marriage about something more?

The Bible says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

If this is the case, then I don't think that fun, fulfillment, and happiness are the main purpose of marriage. When Jesus died on the cross to save us all from our sins, I don't imagine He was having much fun. It was probably quite miserable. But He did it anyway.

So when we make a promise to stay with someone even when it's hard, we should darn well do it!

My Mom may never be her normal self again, which will make the rest of my Dad's life very difficult. But I know that he is going to stay with her no matter what, because that's what he said he would do. That is what we are called to in a marriage. Even when mental illness is the issue.