My Ex is Sick, But We Need to Heal

Hi all,

New to this website/forum, so apologies if someone's talked about a similar subject. I'm going to assume no one has.

My girlfriend and I (both in our early 30s) broke up a few weeks ago. She initiated it. The steady accrual of small differences/frustrations came to a head when she discovered she needed to move, and she felt like I wasn't ever going to be her first priority... which is maybe true, as I work in a career path that's very challenging, which I'm very passionate about. The industry I work in only exists in two cities in America, and unfortunately the one she's moving to isn't one of them. It doesn't mean I don't/didn't love her -- I would've put my career on hold for this, etc. etc., but this is all kinda beside the point of this post. I guess the key takeaway is that the breakup is about amicable as they come, given all the heartbreak and sadness we're both feeling.

My ex has cancer. It's pretty bad. She's about to go through twelve weeks of treatment before she moves to another city to be closer to the research physician overseeing her treatment. She's had it for years and along with her mother, I'm one of two people in the world who know how to take care of her when she's sick.

I want to be able to be there for her over these next twelve weeks, because I know how awful they'll be for her and I also know that she's continually disappointed by how little her friends are there for her/show up/do things on her behalf when she's going through a round of treatment. But I also know we need to keep a certain healthy amount of distance if our relationship is going to heal and we're going to emerge friends, which is important to both of us. Does anybody have any thoughts about how to approach this balance? I know it's a tricky/complicated situation with no clear answers, but any thoughts you might have would be helpful.