Defining my relationship with a dying man

Between all the hospital visits and interactions with doctors, nurses, and surgeons, I must have been asked who I am about half a hundred times. It’s not really my name they’re interested in, but my relationship to Evan. For the first time in a long while it’s got me thinking about it all. Who are we to each other?

Boyfriend. I usually just call Evan my boyfriend.

He is the person I’m in a relationship with. I don’t suppose we really date in the sense of romantic candlelit dinners and strolls arm-in-arm along river banks, but we talk all the time and hang out and go places together. Which, now I’m writing it down, I guess is what dating is after the first few formally defined meetings. We’re happy. Comfortable. And that’s what really matters.

I like the term boyfriend and I’d happily keep introducing myself as Evan’s girlfriend if not for our current situation. See, to a lot of people the term boyfriend implies some degree of casualness. A case of seeing how things go before discussing long-term plans and the future. Usually, I wouldn’t really care how other people perceive our relationship, but that has changed over the past few weeks.

Evan has been spending a lot of time in and out of hospital. He’s sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that means he’s probably not going to be around for very much longer. And even though it shouldn’t, it’s made me really care about how we define our relationship.

Our relationship isn’t casual. Evan is the person I want to marry, the person I want to have kids with, the person I want to grow old with. I want all the stupid, boring domestic everyday things I thought I’d hate when I was younger. I want to come home from work to him. I want to cook dinner and watch telly on the couch together. I want to drag him out to museums and art galleries and all the places he doesn’t really like but tolerates cause he loves me. I want him to take me down to the pub to watch the football and the cricket and F1 races and whatever other sport he gets into next. I think I’d even put up with golf.

We’ve talked about our future together. We’ve talked about getting engaged, what the wedding would be like, how we’d split the bills, where we want to live, how we’d manage the chores, I mean we might’ve even talked about parenting techniques. I’m all in on this relationship. Boyfriend doesn’t really cut it.

I’ve been a bit apprehensive about using the term partner. Evan and I have been together for a really long time, five years, eight months to be exact but for the last three years it’s been long distance. We don’t live together, and I suppose I’ve always thought that cohabiting was a prerequisite for calling someone a partner. But partner signifies the commitment better than boyfriend.

Rather selfishly, I want people to know just how serious our relationship is.

It’s supposed to be about Evan right now, not me. I feel awful moping around and feeling sorry for myself. I feel terrible about writing this and sending it out for random people browsing the internet to read. I still did it though. To some of you (assuming you’ve gotten this far), I must sound like a monster making this awful thing all about myself.

Yet still I want people to know that our relationship isn’t casual. I suppose I just want people to understand how much it all hurts. Cause it really fucking hurts. I’m not just losing a partner. I’m losing my best friend and I’m losing my future. Every single plan I had involved him. He is a constant in my hopes and dreams. And it’s all being ripped away, not because of a falling out or a realisation that it’s just not working out, but because of cancer.

The first time we thought about how to define our relationship was very different. It was Evan who asked if I wanted to officially be his girlfriend. He was so nervous, which was endearing but also a little dumb since we were in bed together at the time and I was hardly going to turn him down. It was sweet. He grinned. I've never seen him quite so giddy.

This is the second time I’ve thought about how to define our relationship. It won’t be a cherished memory like the first.

This time it all feels a bit selfish.