When the marriage was not good.
I am embarrassed about my title, but it is my truth and I have to find out if I am alone in my situation. In my family it has always been that when we get old, the veil of self-delusion about our lives lifts, and we are faced with our truths. My husband of 38 years has been the absolute love of my life, I have remained IN LOVE with him all these years, even now. But last year I was slammed with the reality that I had married a figment of my imagination. My husband has what some call "Factor X", a level of natural charm and charisma so powerful that few can escape its influence. The marriage has been exciting- and emotionally empty. We travelled the world, started businesses, and he was incapable of ANY emotional connection. Before we met, I had a measure of fame due to my art and a full life. I now see that love was a one-way street. A very lonely painful life for me. He was diagnosed 5 years ago with Alzheimer's and is at Stage 6.5. We just started Home Hospice and fortunately he is still fairly cognizant but needs help with everything. He is very healthy physically. As a result of this marriage, of loving and not being loved back, I feel invisible. i have not stopped loving him. We never had children or friends because we were always working, so I am facing this journey, and its consequences alone. My question is, am I alone in this situation of a complex, unhappy marriage? If you share this experience, can you tell me how you regained your life? Or didn't? Thank you.
Comments
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your breaking my heart. Last nite I sat down with DW and tried to explain to her what’s going on. She’s stage 3 but really not bad other than short term memory and confused a lot.has anosognosia. It was tuff conversation but I feel in a week I’ll have to do again
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Dogsaremylife, I think you will see in reading here that you are not alone. I hope some respond. I'm not quite in the same place, though I do wonder at times.
I know that in my marriage that I've always wondered if my DW is in love with me like I am with her. Her family has always taken up so much of her time and I know I was not often the top priority for her. If her family asked her to do anything, she would drop me like a hot potato to satisfy them. Yet, I still somehow know she's the love of my life and I've put up with being second fiddle to a large, domineering family that she is bonded with in a really weird and excessive way. It was hard enough to face while she was cognizant, but now with Stage 4, I'm finding myself really questioning that love. But, I also do know she loves me back and has a set of behaviors built from early, ugly childhood wounding.
I don't think it's unusual for many of us to wonder now, as we put our lives on hold and pour out a remarkable amount of love and energy toward our SOs, about how balanced our marriages/partnerships have really been.
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I'm similar to you husband in as far as emotional connections and intimacy with my DW of 27 years. She loved me through all of it even though I was too busy doing my own thing. She never gave me a reason to divorce and even though I care very much for her, we always lacked that soulmate type of connection.
Now she is very deep into Alz and I've regretted almost every day that I wasn't there for her emotionally or spiritually. I guess now I'm trying to make up for it and to be honest for the first few years of the disease she was very easy for me to get along with. She's a beautiful woman inside and out and I see that more so now but it's too late.
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@Dogsaremylife a while ago there were quite a few of us on the chats who fell into the same category as you, most of them have lost their spouses over the past 1-2 years, but believe me you are not alone. I too have been married 38 years, DH has mixed dementia FTD and ALZ. He was never abusive or mean, just selfish and cold. All decisions made in our marriage were so that he got what he wanted and so that he was happy. I didn't realize until later years when the kids were out of the house how much I resented that. Now I work from home so that I can continue to care for him, and I continue with a mixed bag of emotions about having to do it. To put it bluntly, I just feel like nothing was ever about what I wanted or needed, and now I feel forced to continue that sentiment as I care for him. I always tell people my biggest fear is that there will be nothing left of "ME" when this caretaking journey is over. What can my life look like in the future? I hope I survive to find out.
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I can't believe that you are echoing my feelings exactly. I am so sorry that another person feels the way I do. My husband was never capable of deep emotion and I think it's in his DNA. His mother was the same way. I needed so much in terms of love when I met him but I was so stunned by his charm that I ignored all the red flags. I know that I chose him because I was taught all my life that I was a "Beggar at Life's Banquet" as my brutal, cold mother used to tell me. I thought I had overcome all her and her violent husband's conditioning, and for a period in my 20's and 30's I did, but obviously that core need for genuine love, and the belief that I didn't deserve it, had lived on in me. My husband was as cold as they come and slept on the sofa for the last 2 decades of our marriage because his mother did that. So as I faced all this recently I was overcome with anger, fear, grief, etc. at all that I had missed in life in a marriage. But now, as he descends into a mirror image of his mother, I have found that "I" am coming back a little bit. I feel self-protective and somewhat removed from the situation. I still love my husband and have realized that in a way it is a gift to know that you have experienced the ability to GIVE great love to someone, even if it is not returned. Just know that you have a sister in this experience and I hope your future brings you a measure of joy and peace.
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The difference between you and my husband is that YOU have found the ability and awareness to see what your wife wanted and needed, and you are giving it to her now. My husband, even if he never got Alzheimer's, would never have come to that place. His whole life was defined by living for himself. He has children he has not seen in 40 years, nor do they want to see him. He was not deliberately being cold and distant, he just is that way. At first I thought the lack of emotion or caring was because he had done 4 tours of combat duty in Vietnam and spent 20 years in the Marine Corps, and maybe he was emotionally broken, but others told me he has been this way from childhood. I truly believe, even in her Alzheimer's, your wife feels what you are giving her now. Those things transcend cognizance. You are a good man.
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Oh my God, all of this plus kids. I am so sorry you're in this position and so grateful that I'm not the only one. My husband and I finally had an honest conversation about how our marriage had gone -- just in time for the Alzheimers to kick in and now it's all coming back. The flashes of irritability and lashing out for no reason. Great, I really want to go through this shit again - not!
Plus Ive got the one kid who is completely oblivious to his behavior, and the other kid who is mad as a hornet about it. They are in their 20s and have zero life experience to process any of this.
is it too horrible to say that honestly Im glad he has early onset because its over faster? Probably, but Im saying it anyway.
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It is only natural to wish this would all be over. I am sure we are not the only ones to sometimes have that thought. I know that if I were in my husband's condition I would want to go as fast as possible. But consistent with his personality, he has said in the past that he would be just fine laying in a bed with people waiting on him, "feeding him pablum" (his words). The single biggest factor in allowing the huge emotional void in my married life is that my husband endured 7 years of combat in Vietnam. He was a hero and endured the unendurable. Early on I had been with him during several horrific flashbacks and my respect and sorrow for what he went through is branded on my soul. He rose through the ranks and ended up working briefly with Reagan. But had I known the future emptiness I would have respected my own need to be loved and I would have walked away. Life is weird, isn't it? I am so happy you have children. What a blessing!
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Even now, the emotional damage done to me for the past 38 years is prevalent. So many people have told me it is time to place him, but like always, I put his needs first and feel that I can not do that because I would be abandoning him. I still feel the responsibility to do everything to make his life as good as possible, even at the expense of my own.
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Your post touched me deeply. I am so sorry that you are experiencing such pain after all of the support you have given. I have gone through the process of questioning my marriage decision, anger, resentment etc. I have come to the realization that to continue to review what is in the past makes me suffer. I have made it a survival tool to not look back to think of the good times or bad times. It is my self-protection and it is working for now. I suspect that after my DH is gone, I will probably have some problems, but my goal is to just get through this now. One more thing, we have to give grace to ourselves for we did the best we could at the time. Try to free yourself of this heavy burden. You have already shown how strong you are.
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I’m sure you’re not alone from those who have posted. Some of us also have parents or other loved ones with dementia or who are dementia caregivers whose behavior now is a repeat of difficult behaviors we witnessed in childhood. I’m sorry your situation has been hard. You’re definitely not alone in having a more complex, challenging situation.
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Similar situation. Showed up for birth of two sons and picked me up when discharged. DDIL helped me through hysterectomy and double mastectomy. Went to first chemo session (every three weeks for 15months) and asked if he had to take me each time. We were living in AZ when he retired from AF. I had a teaching position. He had a sales job requiring travel for 15 months; never earned a dime. Called me from NV that he had taken a job with a company that also had locations in AZ. Told me I could move up there with him. Financially more feasible to stay married. We lived parallel lives each doing our own thing. We had LTC insurance, and I placed him 9/1. I visit one a week. And now I have my life back.
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I can't tell you how much you all have helped me. After feeling like a "Stranger in a Stange Land" for so long it makes me feel, once again, like a part of the human race. I hope I can hang on to this feeling. It's been like an out-of-control roller coaster ride emotionally, slamming from viewing my husband with hidden anger, to feeling the depths of my love for him. When I was 25, I went out to lunch with a girlfriend at a Chinese restaurant. After a pleasant meal with fun conversation, I opened my fortune cookie. It said "He will love you as much as he can, but it will not be very much". I put that fortune in my purse and have kept it ever since. Thank you everyone.
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This is my first visit. The reason for this visit was to try to locate a discussion about this particular topic. Now I know I’m not alone. Will keep reading. Thank you all for talking about this. I have experienced so much guilt over it.7
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I'm so sorry to hear that you're in this situation. I've been with my husband for 45 years, and kept hoping things would get better, but now he has dementia, stage 5-6. I met him coming out of an abusive marriage, when I was at a very low point in my life. At first, he seemed like a supportive partner, and he has a certain kind of charismatic quality, but he had chronic mental health issues, had angry outbursts at work and lost jobs, and was hostile toward my family, including my son. He was only able to function in a very isolated and low stress environment, which I provided for him.
In some ways, I feel like the losses from dementia are not as painful as they are for people who had close and loving relationships. And because of his mental health issues, I was already the primary provider, did all the housework and lawn care, and took care of budgeting, repairs to home and car, etc. so I don't have to adjust to a new role in that regard. I look back and wonder what was wrong with me that I tolerated this kind of life. Most people don't know how it was because I maintained a facade. Now I'll make my way through this phase and hope that I might have some time to enjoy toward the end of my life.
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Mitsu-2, I am in pretty much an identical situation…except we married when I was 18 yrs old! Now as an old woman of 76, I ask the same question…what in the world was I thinking? I also wonder if there will be any life left for me to enjoy, but I think not…his father who has had dementia for years and is in a nursing home is having his 100th birthday next month, so I am guessing that I will go first.
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This is such a heart softening, soul cleansing, therapeutic post… back to life….. I’m so glad i stumbled on it. Sometimes it helps to keep reminding ourselves we are human and make life altering mistakes. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in the same boat. Married 16 years to a very selfish me only man and now he’s likely entering stage 6. That anger is overwhelming me and I know it, but can’t quite erase it. It’s the validation of this post, just knowing someone else is out there that brings me comfort and the will to go on💜
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Marriage is as complex and so are relationships. The fact that your LO stayed in the marriage says a lot. Not everyone is capable of "great love", whatever that means. I often think of the wife (Gilda??) in Fiddler on the Roof, when her husband asks her if she loves him. She goes through this long list of everything she does for him and in the end decides that doing all those things for him and the family is in fact love. After 66 years of marriage I can say that there were times when I was in love with DH but most of the time love has been in the daily decision to be his wife with all that entails. Do I wish it were more? Sure. My point is, that maybe your DH has loved you the best that he could. I hope that you can find comfort in that.
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Commonly Used Abbreviations
DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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