Woman has no regrets after divorcing her husband while he was dying of cancer

A woman who divorced her husband while he was suffering from testicular cancer has revealed why she has no regrets.

Yana Fry, a life coach from St. Petersburg, Russia, who now lives in Singapore, got married when she was just 22 years old, and looking back, she wishes she hadn’t tied the knot before she was 30.

Her ex-husband, who was 15 years her senior, was diagnosed with testicular cancer three months into their marriage and she stayed with him for another five years.

Even before his diagnosis, Yana said her husband was always someone who was “drowning in self-pity” and after years of mental anguish, she called it quits, much to the contempt of her in-laws.

“I rushed into that marriage. I don’t think women should get married before the age of thirty. We have no idea who we are and what a good partner is for us,” explains the 40-year-old.

Yana met her husband about a year before they tied the knot, and although they had a good relationship, she believes it didn’t stand a chance after he became unwell due to the toll his illness took on both of them.

“People respond to critical illness in two ways, I’ve seen it time and time again,” she said.

“The first type was what my husband was unfortunately like – the people who drown in self-pity. The second type of people are those who care about everyone around them instead.”

Yana revealed that she married her ex-husband thinking the couple would be together for life, but her desire to have children became a problem when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

‘We had a great dating experience. I definitely thought, “I’m getting married for life and I want babies right away,” she said.

“Then my husband, who was 37, was diagnosed with testicular cancer when I was 22.

‘The chance that people die from testicular cancer is not as great as with other forms of cancer. Usually doctors tell you that unless there is a major exception, you will survive for quite a while.

“But I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to have children.”

Yana explained that while there is a lot of support available to people when they are diagnosed, this support doesn’t always extend to those around them.

‘We got married in Switzerland – my husband was Swiss – and then we moved to New York. He worked for a company that transferred him there,” she said.

“I was learning English at the time. I had no friends, no family. I was in total isolation with no support system.

“We couldn’t really think about our future. How can you plan for your future as a newlywed couple when you’re struggling with something like cancer?’

Yana said society was less aware of mental health at the time — so much so that even medical professionals never asked how she was doing.

‘I was in a state of shock. When I first heard the diagnosis, it took me six months to even utter the word cancer,” she said.

“We saw different kinds of doctors. No person has ever offered me help. They never asked, “Do you need a support system?” Are you part of a support group?

“I hoped for the best with my ex-husband’s cancer, but then years went by and I started to lose hope. It took five years with all the treatments and it started to change the dynamics within our relationship.

‘It wasn’t until that fifth year that I started thinking about leaving.

“But I felt like I couldn’t say anything. When someone dies next to you, you feel like you can’t talk about your own well-being because you compare it to their suffering.’

Yana said everything changed for her when one of her friends committed suicide and she attended their open-casket funeral, which brought home her own fragile mental state.

“It was my first funeral and it was very shocking. In my mind, suicide then became an option, even though I had never considered it before. I was in such bad shape,” she explained.

“It was very clear to me that if I didn’t save myself, I would probably die.”

So Yana made the decision to divorce her dying ex-husband, and it was understandably a difficult time for both of them.

“His main focus has become more and more about him. At the beginning of his treatment, he was still checking on me. The divorce made him feel even more sorry for himself,” she said.

“I can’t say he was hugely supportive, but it was understandable. What was even more difficult was the reaction of society, which I did not expect.

“People sent me horrible messages. I wouldn’t call it hate, but it came close. People were in pain and wanted to blame someone. His family was so disappointed.’

Her former in-laws were so disappointed that she says they did not inform Yana of his death two years later, even though he had remarried.

While Yana received widespread disapproval for leaving her ailing husband at the age of 27, she explained that she still accompanied him to his doctor appointments and supported him as much as possible after they broke up.

She then began the difficult process of working out a life and identity on her own as she had failed to carve out a solid career path for herself at that point in her life.

Yana described her existence as that of a ‘left-behind husband’, who eventually ended up in Singapore at the time of her divorce.

‘I did have a business degree from a university in St. Petersburg, but I wasn’t sure how translatable that was in developed countries. So I just decided to pursue another career, which I felt would have more meaning,” she said.

“I wanted to help other people process pain better.

“When I was suffering, a friend of mine who happened to be a coach spent many hours, days and weeks talking to me and helping me understand things.

“I don’t know where I would have been without those conversations. Because I saw so much value in coaching, I decided to become a coach myself to help other people.

‘Once I found inner peace, my work transformed from helping people process pain to helping people find their purpose in life. That’s what I’m doing now.’

Yana eventually found out about her ex-husband’s death on Facebook.

“There was a picture of him from a mutual friend and it said, ‘Rest in peace.’ My first reaction was, ‘You must be joking. Someone would have called me and told me.’ But nobody did.

“It took years of therapy to learn that I’m not a horrible person for making the decision I made.

“I was so happy and so excited that and so relieved that he remarried before the end. I really hope they had a good life together.’

Yana said that in the end she does not regret her decision to choose herself, she has now found a life that she likes to live.

She also found love again, after she also remarried.

“I am finally learning to love and accept myself as I am,” she said, revealing that she is now a stepmother to her second husband’s son and hopes to have children of her own.

Yana hopes that by sharing her experience, other people, especially women, will find the courage to do what is right for themselves, even at the cost of social disapproval.

“I feel like we, especially women, were just brought up with the mindset of serving others, but when you go against it, you learn a lot about resilience and self-awareness,” she said.

“You learn how not to succumb to the pressure of the world. Being so close to death also makes me appreciate life much more. When you understand how fragile life is, many conflicts just disappear.

“You treat every day like a bonus.”