No idea where I stand...

Laurie1282 · August 2021

My husband was diagnosed with Alz 8 months ago and is probably moving into stage 4 now. We have always had separate money, etc. for our personal things and a joint account for our home expenses. He asked me in January to take over the "our" account and take care of our mutual bills and expenses and I have been doing that since then.

Recently he has made comments about his Medicare supplement insurance and prescription plans--being surprised that he still owed for some med bills and meds and not recognizing mail that he got from that company. I have offered to go over his insurance paperwork for him, and while he seemed to welcome my help, he never seems to find the papers or has some other excuse. I finally called the guy (apart from my DH's knowledge) who sold him the policies to ask for copies for myself. I do have medical and financial POA but they haven't been put into effect yet.

Fast forward to today when the insurance guy calls my husband's phone instead of mine and asks to talk to me about setting up an appointment to get the paperwork! Big backfire!! Hubby is beyond livid and I feel like a pile of poop, even though I thought I was doing a helpful thing.

I feel like I am in no man's land in terms of what my role is as his wife anymore. When I have taken on and arranged for things like refinancing our mortgage, getting a new furnace and other things, he seems grateful. But other things like this set him off in a big way. I know it is probably just the disease, but I just don't know where I stand anymore. I suppose he feels the same type of frustration too. I feel so guilty when I wish he would just progress to where he won't care anymore what decisions I make.

I guess I just needed to vent and hope that someone who has dealt with this can give me some advice and or encouragement. I've seen so much support shared as I've been following this board and need some for me now. Thank you.

aod326 · August 2021

Hi Laurie. You're right in that it's easier once the PWD gets to the stage where they really don't know what's happening. I sympathize with you. Once, I had called and left a message for his neurologist, saying that I needed them to call him and remind him he couldn't drive anymore. She called back when we were in the car, on speaker. At one point she said "I have a note here that your wife doesn't want you to drive." Grrr!!!!

One thing I found sometimes helped, sounds awful and maybe is awful. I would pretend that he had told me to do something and act surprised that he'd forgotten. (Because that was also happening.) In your situation, I might have said "But you told me to get an appointment for the paperwork. I'm sorry you forgot." He might still be mad, but, in his mind it may sort of shift it away from being something you did without asking.

M1 · August 2021

Laurie, I'm very much in the same boat, with a stage 4/5 partner who used to be fiercely independent and competent and deeply resents losing those capacities. I find more and more I have to just do things without discussion and/or behind her back, and if she calls me on something, I feign ignorance or tell her she forgot. There's no playbook here. For instance, although I now do nearly all billpaying online, I haven't been able to disappear her checkbook yet, but when she writes exorbitant checks to animal charities several times a month I will offer to mail them for her, then tear them up. And she never misses it because she can't read her bank statements any more. A year ago I would have felt terribly guilty about this, but no longer. Hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to actually get the checkbook away from her, but I haven't figured out a way to do that yet that she wouldn't see through. There are lots of other examples I could give, but it's all a seat of the pants kind of thing.

Cynbar · September 2021

Laurie, it doesn't make any sense and it's not going to make any sense. That's just the way dementia works ---- his brain isn't working right any more, you can't reason with him and you're going to be caught off guard many times on this journey. My DH was the same way --- sometimes he welcomed my help, sometimes he'd threaten divorce if I continued to butt in. It was so frustrating, but it did pass and then he didn't care at all what I did. M1 is right, every incident is different and you have to think on the fly. I usually apologized if he was mad, said I'd never do it again, or said it was someone else's misunderstanding. Eventually, he would calm down. But there was no consistency on what would set him off, and that was exhausting. Once I accepted the idea that nothing was going to be consistent, it did get a little easier.