I Don't Feel Bad About Making Sure I'm Financially Secure After My Terminally Ill Husband Dies

"We don't live in a perfect world. We live in a reality where people get sick and die unexpectedly, and we need to protect ourselves."

My third child and I had just come home from the hospital when my husband and I sat down with a bunch of forms from his new employer to talk about our benefits. Sitting across the table from each other, making minimal eye contact, we began to talk about life insurance.

Specifically, how much coverage we needed to get, and what we needed it to cover.

For many people, this can be awkward. It's not comfortable to sit around and discuss with somebody you love what's going to happen when they die, but to actually try and put a monetary value on their role in your life and your family? That's something particularly challenging.

And especially if one of you already has a terminal illness.

My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer eight years ago, and although his survival has surpassed the wildest expectations of any medical professional, we really have no idea how much longer he has. And that means that we need to have these uncomfortable conversations. We need to realistically look at what happens when—not if—he passes away.

Focusing on the practical side of things is vital. How much money does he make, annually? After the cost of end-of-life expenses and likely medical bills, how long will it take for me to find employment that covers our living expenses? Will I have to focus on selling our home and moving somewhere? If I don't, do we need to pay for more life insurance coverage, to allow me to stay in our current home? What about childcare expenses? What about the cost of potentially acquiring a new degree to help me meet the needs of my family alone?

We don't talk about how much money it will take for me to get over losing him. We know there is no amount of money that could possible help in that respect. We have to simply pretend it's a math question, no more.

Then we repeated the equation in case of my untimely death.

When you're married and made each other responsible for not only a portion of your well being and your children's, but also legally responsible for you in a variety of capacities, transparency is essential. You need to know what happens to your family if there's a disaster.

This applies to more than life insurance, of course. Do Not Resuscitate orders, living wills, guardianship for your children… None of these are conversations people want to have. It can feel like inviting bad luck to talk about these worst-case scenarios. It can feel like an emotional betrayal to discuss your life moving on without each other. It can trigger feelings of panic or terror or grief. But it needs to be done.

Just keep distancing the practical from the emotional, keep focusing on what you will need versus what you might want. Because in these worst-case scenarios, what you want is most likely the impossible, like finding a miracle cure or a time machine.

When the time comes that my husband is no longer with me, I know I will be devastated. But I also know that we will have arranged things so that one disaster won't precipitate another. We know that if we lose him, we won't lose everything.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need living wills, life insurance, power of attorney, emergency funds, or even health insurance. But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a reality where people get sick, injured, are victims of natural disasters, and die unexpectedly. To protect ourselves, we sometimes have to spend an hour not making eye contact over the dining room table.

Then we stand up, hug each other so tight we can't breathe, and go back to assume the best, knowing we're prepared for the worst.

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