This Double Life

CindyBum

It's been about a month since I got the official diagnosis of what I've been seeing for the last several years. What a shift in my mentality. I'm more patient with my DW. I'm more content in the decision to move up to her dream home in her dream part of the country, even as she's become more isolated in this super rural area and no longer able to drive.

But, I'm also watching myself go to places alone, meeting up with work friends, and not telling her so many things that I go do and think about and experience. After 20 years of this deep connection and partnership, I feel like I'm now living a partially single life (absent the "joys" of dating) while also still so committed and in love with her. How odd to be building a new life while I'm still firmly entrenched in my current life. Certainly nothing I ever thought about doing.

It's partially so freeing and fun to be with just me or some friends, while also so strange to come back home to a connection that is still there, but fraying. Not fraying because we'd choose it or that we'd want to be divorced or any of the normal fraying. Just fraying as she steps more and more into a different world.

And soon, I likely won't get to live this double life as she becomes unable to be alone at home. I can still feel comfortable leaving her alone for a night, but I know that will be coming to an end very soon. But for now, I'm going to try and enjoy as much as I can in this double life of mine.

trottingalong

it’s nice to hear you are in a good place. Some of what you said resonates with me. There are so many things I would love to tell my DH and yet I have to stop and think always before speaking. Something so innocuous can be a trigger for a discussion or rant I never wanted to have. I miss my best friend and partner.

Pat6177

I had the same reaction when we rec’d DH’s official diagnosis. I knew he had dementia but hearing the neuropsych say it caused the same kind of shift in my behavior. More patient and tolerant.

SSHarkey

Oh my yes! I’m loosing the one I share memories with! I think of him as my memory keeper. But no longer. All these 54+ years of life together slowly dissolving away. So many times I want to bounce off ideas and stop myself short. Too much information. Data overload.

mrahope

Oh, yes. Enjoy your time away while you can. I did that until a number of incidents caused me to have to stop. And I, too, miss bouncing ideas off my spouse. Now he couldn't understand a lot of them, and it's not worth the risk of triggering an outburst.

White Crane

I, too, am leading a double life. My DH has been in MC since January. He doesn't know that I have bought a smaller house and am in the process of having it painted and fixed up and am packing our things. He doesn't know and I can't tell him or talk to him about any decisions that have to be made. When I visit him, we hold hands a lot and look into each others eyes and say, "I love you." He asks me if I am still in the home and I tell him I am. We play rummy and I hold him and hug him because it feels so good to feel him hugging me back. Then I leave and go back into this other life where I am feeling overwhelmed with all the changes.