Dating a new guy who’s mum has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness

[Dudeish1]

Hello,

I am hoping to get some advice from those who have been in a similar situation.

I have recently started dating a new guy for close to 2 months, our relationship is going well and we’re genuinely starting to fall for each other. He has been open about his mums illness as she has been diagnosed with cancer on more than one occasion during his life time and he spoke to me deeply about this. Over the past week, very sadly she has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and this of course has devastated him. I understand completely that all of his time and attention will be devoted to his mum and family and I want to be there for him as much as possible without
Being pushy.

The difficult thing is that our relationship is still very new. He has been in contact and confided in me since the diagnosis and I hVe made it clear that I will support him and do anything I can to help him through this. I understand how grief can effect people and that his world has been turned upside down, essentially and as selfish as this sounds, I’m really worried that our relationship is too new for him to pursue during this time. I accept that things will be on hold for the foreseeable and like I mentioned I want to be there as much as I can. I don’t want to be overbearing and I’m worried that if I give him too much distance he will think I don’t care, I’m struggling to find the best way to approach this and find practical ways to help him.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and if so what advice can you give?

Hi
When I meet my now husband his mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer too . Probably 6 months after meeting I think so known each other a little longer .
We lived in different country at time but v close flight so he was heading home at weekends . So our relationship was in a way put on hold but I did the same ad you are saying . I was there for him when he needed it abd gave him space too . My father died of cancer when I was v young so can some experience of it ,but in a very different way .
We would do simple things like have dinner at one of our houses or go for walks so no big date pressure
Eventually he moved back to help her before she died,this was hard but u
I went over most weekends which meant I got to get to know his mum etc. Plus I got to see how caring and loving he was to her .
It was tough after she died for a while but we just kept going in the same way but had to let him lead how things where for a while. ,then moved in together and then 6 years later had a kid and got married .so it can work !!!
I think you have the right idea ,if you keep the option of talking when ever he wants to open then that means allot as does hugs if he liked them . I tried not to be visibly too upset when he need time to himself,I know this is hard . Have a good friend you can talk to helps too.
Try not to put too much pressure on yourself either to get it right all the time. I def got it wrong a good few times!! But we talked it out .
Sadly we now in situation that his father is v ill too but will get through that too.
Hope it works out for you both

Not saying he is being dishonest with you but please be aware that it us common for certain sorts to tell you sob stories in the early days in order to get you to feel closer too them quicker. And also to give you cause to excuse behaviour that you shouldn't from them. So just be aware.

He may just be a normal bloke, going through a hard time. Or he may not be.

Make sure you are aware of love bombing and future faking behaviour as they are two other tactics, that the wrong sort use along side sob stories.

Know the signs of cluster b personalities such as narcissists, just incase.

Hi OP
I had a similar situation. I met my dp this time last year. In fact, we were supposed to meet this week a year ago, but he cancelled our first date because his dad went into hospital.

I am not going to lie, i wasnt sure he was being truthful for the first few weeks as he was essentially a stranger (OLD, speaking for 3 weeks before we met). Well. He wasnt lying. His poor DF died this March.
I never let on i didnt believe him, but i think he sensed it must sound a strange co-incidence as he kept shuffling our dates around to juggle hospital visits with family, and i did after a month or so get photos from the hospital of crap food or whatever.. .

It was and remains tough. There were certainly times i thought i would lose DP through the stress and then grief (My DP didnt expect his DF to die, he wouldnt accept it right until it happened), and would have understood if he had left me. I even opened the door for him to leave, a few times (Out of insecurity I guess) but we battled on.

Your instincts just to 'be there' are right, and if he likes you he will continue to see you.

If he likes you he will continue to show you and tell you. I was in knots, feeling selfish, worrying about losing this guy i really liked (And for the first 3-4 months my DP wasnt that stressed about his DF as he thought he was getting better, just the visiting hospital and caring for his mum to stress about). But even when his DF died he didnt stop telling me he loved me and how lucky he was to have such a loving and supportive gf. But i honestly was crapping myself for months.

Even now, it can be hard. Not everything is back to normal. (Sex drive, for example, is nil for him still) but there is affection, close-ness, loving words.

To be completely clear too, there has never been any abuse, bad behaviour towards me, cheating or really... anything. If he starts any of that, walk away.
Of course there were some highly apologetic date re-arrangements, but that was understandable.

Good luck op

3 months in to our relationship, my DH's dad had a brain aneurysm while they were on holiday abroad. He spent several months in hospital abroad and numerous times it looked like he wasn't going to make it as he had pneumonia repeatedly etc. Then came back to the UK for another several months in hospital and having rehab etc.
It was stressful of course but our relationship was going well so I just tried to be supportive. We probably moved faster than we otherwise would have in terms of spending most of our time together, staying over most nights etc. But it felt right and we talked about it, and when his dad was better we talked about whether we wanted to slow things down (we didn't lol!). Nearly 5 years on we're married and his dad is doing fine. I think something like that is a bit make or break for a new relationship but it isn't automatically a break :)

I was the other side of this - my Dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness and went on to die over the 6 months of a relationship I had in 2012.

Luckily, neither of us were looking for anything serious, and so he was a really wonderful distraction from the horror of caring for someone with a terminal illness (and my mother who had dementia). We had lots of fun times! But my head definitely wasn't in a space to devote any time or effort to a 'proper' relationship.

Then after Dad died, I was able to look at what I was doing, and at that point, I realised that this relationship wasn't going to go anywhere further (we were both emotionally unavailable at the time), and so I ended it - and he was the type of person who had no problem with that, because it had always only been a fling to us both.

My Dad went from diagnosis to death pretty quickly - for me that would also be a factor. Keeping things 'light' for 6 months is a different prospect to no commitment for years.