This book is about understanding and responding to the choices to die made by persons to whom one is close. Unlike previous books and articles I have written about elective death, or choosing to die rather than continue living in a hopeless and pointlessly punishing manner, this book’s main focus is not the reasoning that must be done by individuals for their own choices to die to be rational, though such assessment does figure prominently in what follows. Rather, this book is about the reasoning that needs to be done by the spouses, partners, relatives, and close friends of those who choose to die and how they must adjust their own thinking, perspectives, and attitudes to cope with those choices.

People closely involved with those opting for elective death need to determine on the soundest bases possible if their spouses’, partners’, relatives’, and friends’ choices to die should be accepted and if enactment of those choices, whether by negative means such as forgoing medical treatment or by more proactive methods, should be facilitated or at least not impeded. The other side of the coin is that if their spouses’, partners’, relatives’, or friends’ elective-death choices are deemed to be unsoundly reasoned or unacceptably motivated, then there is need to determine whether enactment of the choices should only be discouraged or actively obstructed for the presumed good of those choosing to die.