Unhappy Anniversary

blacksparky

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. Last year DW jumped out of bed and gave me a big kiss and wished me a happy anniversary. This morning I told her happy anniversary and she had no reaction just continued to talk about something that made no sense. I guess this year is the beginning of unhappy anniversaries for me. Just another reminder that I am losing my dear wife day by day. 

charley0419

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/73224/unhappy-anniversary

I feel you pain. Keep the faith. This illness sucks and if your not living it no one understands

Arrowhead

My wife forgot we are married very early in her illness and hasn’t recognized our anniversary since 2018. This October will be our 49th.

charley0419

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/244995#Comment_244995

no one can till me this isn’t worse illness you can have.

White Crane

I'm so sorry and I understand. June 10th will be our 58th anniersary. I will take him a strawberry milkshake and a card but there will be no remembrance of it on his part. He will be surprised and then forget. It's sad and it hurts and yet we still love them so honor the day and try to remember the good times.

annie51

Our 38th anniversary came and went at the end of May and I didn’t say anything to DH. It felt better to just let it go rather than say something to him and get no reaction. I fondly remembered our wedding day in my mind and moved on. Many holidays and other special days are becoming like this. 😞

MontanagirlCA

I totally understand. It’s been years since my LO has remembered our anniversary, my birthday, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day etc. Those days don’t even seem important anymore. I don’t feel like a wife, I’m a roommate, caregiver. Our marriage has mostly not been happy. At first when I had my three children it was fun. He hardly ever helped me with them though. We aren’t really compatible. I should have realized this 40 plus years ago. I find myself looking at other couples who are happy and wishing that we had been like them. He just makes everything so much more difficult, I know it’s not his fault. We are moving again to be closer to our daughter, I just can’t do this alone anymore. He has a caregiver once a week and a friend he sees twice a week so these breaks really help. Sorry this is so depressing.

David1941

We had a big 60th anniversary last Fall. My DW, a retired psych nurse, said she wanted it to be wonderful because in the future she will no longer know what it is. We have pictures on wall - maybe to help us remember. Or no? To be seen.

BPS

I don't even mention anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, or any special day it only depresses me and seams to confuses her. I can relate to you MontanagirlCA our marriage was great for the first 22 years and not so great for the last 23 years. I often wonder if it is harder for those that had that two becomes one kind of relationship seeing their other half slipping away or for us that feel trapped and are here out of commitment or responsibility or whatever it is. I do still truly care but my feeling are not what they were or what I wish they were.

l7pla1w2

I do still truly care but my feeling are not what they were or what I wish they were.

I know exactly what you mean and feel the same way. I don't feel guilty about placing DW in MC, but those are the feelings that can induce guilt.

SDianeL

so sorry. We know how you feel. Cherish the memories. 💜

Dio

Perhaps, it's just a passing phase. She may surprise you next year, or the one after. Two years ago at the onset of this wretched journey, my husband said I was lying when I told him it was our anniversary. I even showed him our unity candle with our wedding invitation designed into it. He said it was fake. 😥 This year, we celebrated our 30th anniversary with much bittersweet memories. He doesn't remember our "dark" period, and there's no reason/need for him to remember. I told him to just remember all the happy good memories. (It's best that the carrier of all of our memories, good and bad, is with me, although I wish I could erase the bad.)

jsps139_

My DH hasn’t remembered any important days for years. Sometimes it doesn’t matter and other times it feels so so lonely. Yet we carry on.

Last night he asked me if I knew Peggy (that’s me). I said, “yeah.” He said, “I think she died.”…Talk about a punch in the gut. He not only doesn’t know who I am, but he thinks I’m dead.

tonyac2

Thursday was our 39th anniversary. It was just a reminder of one more thing this disease has taken from us. My DH used to love celebrating our anniversary, now, I don’t even know if he knows we’re married. I told my two sisters how I was struggling badly with the day, privately crying, and the one who lost her husband 25 yrs ago tells me how she wished she still had her husband so she could throw her arms around him and say she loves him on their anniversary. I thought, don’t you get it??? I lost my husband too, why can’t you see that? I hate dementia and the games it plays with my emotions. I’m not gonna mention holidays or special days anymore because their not. It was a painful day and for some reason it still hurts.

tboard

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/73224/unhappy-anniversary

I spent most of our 45th anniversary clearing brush with some neighbors. My DH had no idea and I didn't see the point of brining it up.

Arrowhead

Last Today was our 49th wedding anniversary and, like the past several years, she didn’t know it, even after I told her. When I first arrived at memory care she was happy to see me, wanting a hug and accepting a kiss. Then her anger issues kicked in for the rest of the visit. She’s in stage 7 and I don’t know if this will be our last anniversary or not.

Vitruvius

I might point out that, particularly for certain dementias like FTD, it's not just that your LO can't remember your anniversary or birthday, it's that the may have lost the understanding of "concept" words. In other words the mere idea of an anniversary or whatever holds no meaning. This is/was true for my DW with Semantic Dementia, and was explained to me by her neurologist. Not that this makes it any less painful but just even more explanation that it's "not their fault", it's the disease.

3'sacharm

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/256393#Comment_256393

Like you tonyac2, I was crying with my sister (who lost her husband 3 years ago) about my DH with AD. She basically said the same thing… she wished he was still here. Then added, my husband DIED, yours just forgets. Broke my heart in so many ways.