The home is on lockdown because of Covid-19 and so we have not seen each other for 5 weeks now. They tell me that as a couple they are definitely a couple and always together. I am intellectually trying to understand, but I am heartbroken and angry and feel betrayed and my kids are devastated! Help
When I was working in a Memory Care home, we had a man who'd come see his wife every single day. She could not stand him..........she berated him, she said filthy, nasty, foul things to him the entire time he visited. Nobody could understand WHY he'd put himself through the torture chamber known as the daily visits to her. He did so because he knew in his heart that it was the disease throwing those ugly words at him, and not the woman he loved and who he'd married many years previously. The disease stripped her away from him, and it wasn't her fault. So he continued the visits day after day after day. This woman was also well known for taking off her blouse & bra & showing herself off to the men in the home. Plus, she was known for showing up in their rooms at night........her husband knew about her 'appetite' as well, and he just chalked it off to dementia too.
Explain to your children that Dad needs comfort; that he's getting comfort from a new friend at his Memory Care, but that it has nothing to do with THEM or with YOU, or with the love he feels for all of you. It's hard to wrap your minds around such facts, but if you want to allow yourselves (and him) to move forward with a good quality of life, it's necessary. If your children see & hear YOU accepting the situation, they may come around a bit more easily themselves.
I'm really sorry for everything you're all going through. Dementia and Alzheimers is such a dreadful disease, I know, my mother has dementia and lives in Memory Care herself. Sometimes I don't even know WHO she is, she's so foul and ugly. In fact, all she does is badmouth my father who she was married to for 68 years and who died 5 years ago June. While I don't like all the nonsense that comes out of her mouth, I chalk it off to her disease. Easy to say, harder to do, right?
Wishing you the best of luck coming to terms with all of this. It's a lot to process.
We must understand that at some point the patient doesn't have memories perhaps of being married, and are not with intent cheating on a spouse. but cannot register the significance of their behavior. Yes, it is sad for the spouse to be aware of such a situation that they and their kids are hurt.
I have had a big discussion with my DW and adult children saying when it is time for me to go in to LTC, put me in a facility 100 miles from where we live, so they don't feel like just dropping in everyday. I want them to get on with their lives. I refer to my adult children but I also have a 13 yr old daughter who has not been included yet in this discussion. I want for my DW of 24 yrs to go on and build a new life with another man if that is what she wants, or just feel free to date, and I don't want the kids giving her grief about it. My DW is 8yrs younger than me and she'll have many years ahead of her to enjoy.
About six weeks ago, I on my own chose to give up driving. Yes it has put an extra burden on the family, but I didn't feel safe on the road anymore. I've had the discussion about driving with my Neuro doctor who I've been a patient of since 2005 and every time I have an appointment I've brought the subject up and after she's examined me, we've talked and she's agreed that I could still drive. She told me I'm the first patient in 20 years to bring up the topic, and she believed I would be the first patient who would stop on their own. Tomorrow morning we have a Tele-Med appointment and I will tell her I've put the keys away. I haven't even had an inkling of wanting to drive.
I know I'm declining on a more downward trajectory. I've had a happy life with my DW and family. My hope with my postings over the last four years, as a patients perspective, will help other patients and their family in the way they deal with dementia.
Happy Easter to all.
The supervisor's behavior is reprehensible. I would document and report the supervisor's insensitivity to her agency and request that she not be your husband's care supervisor.
In my situation, mom and her friend were both widowed and everyone was ok with affectionate day time behavior like holding hands and an occasional kiss. Anything beyond that never had to be addressed. That was memory care. Now she is in skilled nursing and has another special friend who rolls up to her in his wheel chair, tells her he likes her, and depending on her mood, she will sometimes flirt back.
For spouses, I am sure this is heart breaking to observe or be told. It is, however, very common, so much so, that it appears that most facilities have a policy to inform.
Dementia, he is not the person you married. He may not even realize he is married. Or even had a "life" previously. His reality is the here and now and that reality changes constantly. She can easily form another attachment next week as could he. Or this could go on.
EVERYONE wants to be close to someone else. A hand to hold, someone that is a constant when things around you are confusing.
It is common in Memory Care for this to happen and the supervisor I think was letting you know so that it would not be a shock when you visited again.
The first time you plan on going to see your husband contact the Memory Care and ask that they keep "girl #2" occupied so you can have some time together. It will not change things but you will not have to deal with her at the moment. Later you can do that.
You have done noting "wrong" nor has he.
A "wrong" would be to do something intentionally that was to meant to hurt you or the kids.
Ask yourself this...if he did not have dementia, a broken brain would he ever have gone out and looked for a girlfriend? (some men your husbands age would still be out looking and finding..) If he would have then you can feel betrayed but if he never would have done so you don't have to feel like he has betrayed you.
It is possible that this "girl #2" has traits that you have and she reminds him of you and that makes him feel safe and somehow familiar.
Julie Christie's character says to her husband that the relationship she has with the man in care comforts her because "he doesn't expect anything from me." I thought that was particularly poignant. Our family celebrates like it's Christmas when our Alzheimer's patient has a clear moment. We call each other and say "She's still in there!" There is absolutely nothing wrong with that but Julie Christie's character's statement made me realize that we all bring almost a palpable hope that she will be "in" when we visit.
I hope you and your children are able to find comfort that your husband has found a way to feel a little more 'normal' and hopefully safer and attached in his new home. I'm certain that for you all it is one more hard loss in the line of hard losses we suffer when we love someone through this disease.
I can only imagine how hard that news was to receive. I want to encourage you to remember that this is not your husband betraying you, this is his brain betraying him and everyone that loves him. He can't help what his reality is. Alzheimer's and dementia puts the person in the far past and the right now, that's the extent of their reality.
My grandmother had a series of strokes that left her in full blown dementia over a weekend. She too found a companion in her facility. I was young at the time and I remember that she was happy to have him, it helped her feel more secure? Normal? Who knows what she was really going through, but she was laughing and giggling like a school girl and she was non-verbal before. I personally am happy that she was able to have some joy in the midst of this terrible disease. My granddad on the other hand was livid and very unkind in his refusal to see this as her disease and not her unfaithful heart and bad character. Never once paying attention to the fact that she had steadily regressed until we weren't in her memory. I remember as a 10 year old seeing her lose her life, every single day she was further from the present and I watched as people she loved were erased by that regression, so I encourage you and your children to remember him and not the diseased him, love him in the moment because he can still feel the right now and know if it is a happy moment or not. Don't let this ruin your beautiful memories and the reality of the life that created those memories.