He texted last night telling me his mother has a tumor in her lung and was in the ER and now a hospital bed, given one month or less to live.

I was sleeping so I kept my replies short.

But this reminds me of the last time we separated, and when his father was ill, in and out of the hospital just before HE died.

This is yet another way for him to manipulate me into replying to him, and to gain my sympathy. And once again, I am in a bind because I have a good heart and have trouble NOT replying to these types of texts.

He started to tell me he is all alone with this, and is in a daze, not knowing what to do - all I wrote back was that I needed to sleep. I could not reply to that particular text with any amount of sympathy, so I cut off the conversation and went to bed.