JOAN’S BLOG – WED/THUR, SEPTEMBER 8/9, 2010 – WHAT IS LOVE?

This journey as an Alzheimer Spouse has been very difficult for me – more demanding, arduous, emotionally torturous, and exhausting than I ever imagined. The theft by Alzheimer’s Disease of the marriage and husband I had, has torn me to shreds psychologically, mentally, and physically. Adjusting to the continually altering personality and transformation of my lover, friend, partner, and support system, to cognitively impaired dependent youngster has been so destructive to my entire being that no one but another spouse experiencing the same horror could possibly relate. That is the reason you come here – to relate with one another, because no one else shares or understands your issues.

This brings me to the subject that has been gnawing away at my soul for 4 years. What is married love and how can it possibly stay the same if one partner changes completely? In the “Relationship Breakdown and Repair” section on the left side of the website I addressed this issue by writing:

“We all married our spouses for particular REASONS. We didn’t just spin a wheel with names on it and choose one. We chose them for their special characteristics that we loved. In that person we chose as a life partner, maybe we saw strength, humor, intelligence, warmth, and kindness. Maybe you liked the rebel, the outsider, the wild one. It doesn’t matter. You had reasons for your choice.
But what happens when the person you married no longer exhibits those characteristics?

At this point, I am not talking about the later stages of the disease when your spouse no longer recognizes you. I am talking about the earlier stages when they actually appear “normal” to the outside world, and can, with your notes, reminders, and guidance, still function. But they are slowly losing the characteristics you fell in love with. What happens when you look across the breakfast table at a stranger? You are no longer eating with your husband/wife, your partner, the person you chose because they were ambitious, intelligent, sexy, fun to be with, kind and supportive. In their place is a whiny, special needs child, who cannot function unless you write down what they need to do for the day in detail, one step at a time. If they were outgoing and friendly, maybe now they are withdrawn and quiet. Or if they were the strong, silent type, maybe now they are prone to unpredictable public outbursts. If they were loving and supportive, maybe now they appear distant and uncaring, wrapped up in their own obsessions. What good is conversation?  Tomorrow they will remember none of what you discussed today.

The person you fell in love with and married is disappearing. Ambition replaced by lethargy; humor replaced by anxiety and anger; intelligence replaced by cognition so slow and so impaired that they cannot follow a conversation; a memory so wrecked that they cannot remember what you said to them  five minutes ago.”

So now I ask the question – How can I love him the same? Many of you write on the message boards of how much you love your spouses, as if they were the same person as before Alzheimer’s Disease. If I am deeply in love, it is with the memory of who my husband was and all we shared together. I cannot love the person he has become the same as I loved the person he was. It took years, floods of tears, and a shattered heart, for me to accept that my Sid is never coming back. I will lovingly care for the man he is now in honor of the man he was, and the love and life we were blessed to share for so many decades. I will never knowingly let harm come to him, and I will fight for his right to be treated with dignity and respect forever. However, it is my belief (and I could be very wrong on this one- you will tell me, I am sure), all of us are in love with a memory. Maybe it is that memory that sustains us, and pulls us through this nightmare. I do not know. I do know that it is not possible to be in love the same after Alzheimer’s Disease has wreaked its havoc on us and our spouses.

MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC: What is Love?

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©Copyright 2010 Joan Gershman 
The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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