JOAN’S BLOG – MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2008- Building Walls Around Our Emotions Can Backfire.

Arrgghhh! Do you ever have days when you feel you can’t do anything right? I had one of those on Saturday, and I’m still reeling from it. I have done EVERYTHING the books, social workers, and support group friends have told me to do relative to my marriage. I have accepted (painfully and reluctantly with enough tears to fill an ocean) that our old relationship is gone and will never return; I have grieved over it; mourned it; and tried to move on. I have stopped trying to make my husband into the person he was and will never be again. I have stopped arguing when he isolates himself; I have stopped arguing over his television addiction; I have stopped trying to get him to sit on the patio with me, talk to me, socialize with me, if he would rather stare at the television. I have accepted his rigidity and inflexibility as part of his disease. Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?

Unfortunately, the result of that acceptance has been an isolation of my own. I have pulled away from him, physically and emotionally, finding solace in my own activities. I have shut off my emotions, because I cannot bear anymore of my own tears, nor can I bear days filled with endless arguing. What has this gotten me? A husband who comes to me hurt and despondent, and says,“We’re not the way we used to be. I miss the closeness. You don’t spend time with me anymore.”

Now, if you can explain the situation to an AD husband, who does not remember our discussions, cannot follow reasoning, and does not understand that HIS refusal to do anything with me drives us apart, you are dong better than I. If I try to break through his inflexibility, and force him to talk to me, he becomes angry. If I leave him alone, and let him zone out in front of the television, I am neglecting him. If I try to reason with him, he doesn’t “get it”, or worse, if he does “get it” at that moment, he forgets it later.

I end up wanting to bang my head against the wall , scream , cry, or all three. It is days like this that I want to yell from the rooftops – “Give me my life back! I want the life and husband I had before Alzheimer’s Disease snuck in and stole them away! That is just the way I feel sometimes. Don’t we all?

I’d like to hear from you on this topic. In the process of learning not to argue and learning not to try to reason with your spouse, have you closed off your emotions? Are you as confused and frustrated as I am?

Message Board Topic – Building Walls Around Your Emotions Can Backfire

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