If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

One of the hardest things for me to learn in this whole process was to lower my expectations, both of DH and especially of myself. While DH was at home, especially in his shadowing period, I got very little done. So my house was dirty; it's not like Martha Stewart was going to come visit. So he wanted exactly the same meals every. single. day. He wasn't going to starve to death. Even now, with DH in a facility for over a year, my expectations of myself are still low. If I have food in the refrigerator, clean clothes to wear, the bills are paid, and he is safe and reasonably well taken care of in the facility, I consider that a win.

It is overwhelming. DH is still somewhere shy of middle stage, but I have had to assume all responsibility for everything. He can still manage things for the most part, but then, there are the times when he cannot, so I just do it. He either doesn't want or cannot make purchasing decisions. I'm not sure that all my choices are right and I end up questioning myself. It isn't so much the actual work of running a household…finances, maintence, etc., it is the overwhelming burden of literally, everything being my responsibility that exhausts me.

I feel like my DH slipping down the hole fairly fast, thinking back to this time last year. I remember four years of a very angry and frustrated relationship as he began slipping into probably stage 2. Lack of empathy, angry outbursts that ended with him acting very out of character. I thought it was the drinking, accelerating. When I figured it out and realized he was not all right and got to a neuro for testing, it got a lot calmer. Now I do many things that would have resulted in a big blowout from one of us. I just agree, instead of correcting. I also started traveling with my sister occasionally. He won't go some places, and definitely not to see family. He seems to have gone downhill again lately, stage 3. I'll just have to keep trying to adapt to the new reality.