Straw that broke this camel’s back!

Honestly, I would strongly recommend leaving the relationship. With no legal standing, you will have all the responsibility and none of the control needed to be the responsible party. An impossible situation.

I’m in agreement with Joe C and other previous posters. This disease is a long and difficult journey. Even with the right tools / POAs, it will a challenge. Things could quickly progress to a point where you will be more and more consumed by his care, and more and more exhausted. You could find yourself entrapped in a caregiving role, and could end up resenting your BF.

Believe me, it is no fun watching your friends move about freely, able to be spontaneous, have adventures, travel and enjoy life, while you are stuck at home with your PWD. I’m married and my DH is a pleasant guy, he has no behavioral issues and is relatively easy to care for. I have all the POAs plus enough $ to smooth the path, but I will admit to sometimes feeling angry and resentful watching my hard-earned retirement, and my remaining healthy “able to get up and go” days, steadily drain away.

Consider this, even if you walked away from being his primary caregiver, (and the burden of responsibilities that entails), you could still visit your BF and be a caring and supportive companion.

I agree that he sounds well beyond MCI, somewhere in the early moderate stages. As he progresses he will need more care and supervision, perhaps he does already. The laundry situation could just as easily been a stove situation where he left the stove on and walked away or left the house, forgetting that it was on. He has no control over these situations. You can no longer teach him how to wait for a full load to do the wash. He is incapable of re-learning these things. His reasoner is broken and while things may seem to get better sometimes in the very short term, they will progress. You must have legal and financial responsibility to make decisions that he will no longer be able to make. His care will take over your life. You can see that from reading the posts here. If you’re working, you will have to find care for him during the day. If you are retired and caring for him yourself during the day you will likely need some amount of respite care which can be very expensive. You must have control of his finances and POA to arrange for this.

Ideally, you would be able to sit down with his family and work something out. I’m so sorry you have to make these choices, but I do think you need to make them now.

Jarmac,

You are in a hard situation. I totally get it. Your worries are not trivial. My husband has MCI, and behaves in a similar manner. With him, it's the dishes. He insists on loading it, and will cram what should be two loads into one, tossing dishes randomly on the racks instead of stacking them in a way that will get them clean. Honestly, it's one area I've learned to let go, even though it makes more work for me.

My husband, too, will look all over the house for me. If he's outside and I'm not right there, visible, when he comes back in, he'll walk all over the house, calling out until he finds me. If he's doing some task, he'll either seek me out to help him or will stop me when I walk by, saying, "Got a minute?" He's become very needy and co-dependent. Even though we're married and both live here, like you, I spend a lot of time hiding out. I'm working on creating a "safe space" where I can retreat, but it's difficult with all the interruptions.

Although there is no physical labor such as changing undergarments or helping the loved one shower, there is still a lot of work in the form of cleaning up messes caused by a loved one's inability to organize or finish tasks. In my house, I clean up everything from crumbs to clutter left in my husband's wake. The mental fatigue from listening to the same stories, having everything critiqued and analyzed, and having to remember everything for both of us, is real. It sounds like you are experiencing "fight or flight" on a regular basis.

I hope you are able to successfully reach out to your BF's family. My husband has shown signs of impairment for years, and a recent medical trauma caused a further decline. This led to finally getting the MCI diagnosis, but I really believe there is something more going on. My "cautionary tale" for you is that an illness can cause a decline that can't be bounced back from. Often our loved ones are farther along than we can see, and trauma can bring on a decline that creates more challenges.

Please read the book "The 36 Hour Day" and learn about the 7 stages of Alzheimer's-Dementia so you know what the near future holds. Sorry to say the future is bleak. Based on your comments he may have already progressed beyond MCI. He could soon have hallucinations & delusions and require medication. He may become agitated & aggressive and cause you harm. He could leave the house and not know how to get back. He will forget where the bathroom is and begin incontinence. He may stop communicating & sit and watch TV all day but not remember how to work the remote or know what day/time it is. He will be up during the night and you won't get any sleep unless you have help. He now can no longer drive or be left alone. Period. He probably wouldn't know what to do if a fire broke out. He may cause the fire. He won't be able to use the phone. This is a heartbreaking & terrifying disease and without his family helping and you having legal authority, I would end the relationship.