Rehashing the past

mvcashd

My husband has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is taking medication for it, ong with lots of other meds. Tonight he wanted to rehash my past dating and sexual encounters because he just "wants us to be honest." We have been married almost 40 years. He was recounting boyfriends I had before him and what he thought were sexual encounters with many of them . I didn't meet my husband until I was 30, and yes, I had a few relations before him. He has always been jealous of me when it comes to other men, even mutual friends. And he has always had a stronger sexual drive them I do. Tonight he recounted an "incident from my dating past" that never ever happened, involving me being abused by a man, and raped. I was dumbfounded! Of course I denied it and told him that such a thing never happened to me. He insists that I told him about it and would not believe my denial. I handled it very badly, arguing with him and telling him he was delusional. But now I'm really upset and a little scared. What do I do now? Will his delusions become dangerous for me?

M1

Welcome to the forum. Hypersexuality and disinhibition are not uncommon, and yes, it could become dangerous for you, this will not respond to reason as you discovered the hard way. You should probably discuss with his docs to see if medication might help. Good luck. Im sure others will chime in.

harshedbuzz

This type of sexual shenanigans was a big feature of dad's presentation. He was constantly talking about sex in the crudest manner possible. The irony of his accusations against my mom was that dad had been the unfaithful partner. I feel like these sorts of discussions with dad were the result of anxiety he felt on some level that he wasn't "desirable" and was at risk of abandonment.

I suspect some of the things he remembered were conflated memories-- where he recalled the gist of an event but backfilled gaps in the story with misinformation. Dad had the extracurricular activities, but somehow assigned them to mom.

Medication is the go-to for this behavior. FWIW, my dad was on androgen deprivation therapy with zero circulating testosterone and was still hyperfocused on sexual topics. The combination of a relatively high dose of an SSRI and an atypical anti-psychotic at a lower dose damped down this kind of talk. I geri-Psych is the best option for this kind of meds management.

Defending yourself is not generally a good option as you have pointed out. We found that I could manipulate my dad out of one of these moods by lavishing all manner of praise around his attributes as marital material. I would lavish praise on his looks, personality, earning power and tell him mom wouldn't be able to even look at another with him at home. He and I were never on the best of terms, so laying this flattery on was some real performative work. This didn't work when she did it, only when I or his brother did which was quite inconvenient as this tended to be a feature of sundowning which meant leaving dinner to shut him down.

If it hadn't worked, I would have called 911 for transport to the nearest hospital with a gerispysch unit in hopes of getting his agitation under control before returning home. I had 3 places in my phone and could call ahead for availability. This might be something for you to look into.

People here often suggest apologizing for things you are accused of doing. I'm not sure I would suggest that here but maybe it could work. My dad was fixated in money he lost day-trading early in the disease. We hadn't discovered this yet but dad would routinely accuse me of stealing $350K from him or selling his house on the golf course for $350K less than it was worth. I even made a video clip of him excoriating me to convince his geriatric psychiatrist to increase his Seroquel. One day I took the advice here to apologize for stealing and said I wouldn't do it again. To my utter amazement, he didn't really know what to say when I went "off script" and accepted it. He never brought it up again.

Good luck. This phase did pass for us but until it did it was just gnarly. You have my sympathy.

HB

mrahope

I'm just chiming in because something like this is happening to me. My DH, who has remained 100% uninterested in any sexual/romantic life between us for 15+ years is occasionally reproaching me for "not finding him attractive". It is so tough to hear this, since HE is the one who lost interest, not me. I just say "I'll think about it", and hope it passes. Sigh. This sucks.

PookieBlue

My DH used to accuse me of loving other men or them loving me. Since I had taken over responsibility for EVERYTHING, I was needing to hire mechanics, contractors, landscapers, etc quite often which would trigger his outbursts. Infidelity in our relationship had never occurred on either side. This concern lasted maybe a half a year and he would sulk for 30 to 60 minutes after each accusation. I found that if I just didn’t participate in the conversation and instead distract him, he would forget about it. When he stopped the outbursts on this topic, he started to focus unwarranted hatred on some friend or family member. This lasted about half a year also. Neither has been a problem for the past year. He is in a stage where he wants to hug me, often, and tell me he loves me. As the dementia has progressed I’ve learned how to adapt to the different changes.

saltom

When he was in MC my DH kept saying I did not want to bring him home because I was having parties and entertaining men. He insisted he had seen me with other men and was often quite graphic about my actions. I knew not to argue with him but found it hard to agree. I just said I didn't remember any parties and he was the only one for me and then changed the subject. This seemed to work most of the time.