Every Sunday morning DH is focused on going to Church. He greets people in our small Country Church (40) and hands out gum, and later takes up the collection, and then we come back home because his back is hurting him so much.
He has started thinking we need to leave the house at 9 instead of 9:30. This morning he was very insistent, and I gave in but stopped for the newspaper on the way. He berated me all the way there about how I had stole his guns, made him quit driving, stole his identy and was a mean woman, and now I was making us late for Church, etc. I said not a word. When we got there, of course the lot was vacant, so I parked and he went up to the door and couldn't get in so he came back out and got back in the car. I continued reading my paper and ignored him. He sat there for a few minuted then reached in his bag and gave me a pack of gum. Not another contrary word the rest of the day.
Next week they are starting a half hour early so we will need to go early and the following week I suppose he will want to leave at 8:30. I have heard others talking about the AD spouse getting ready too early and wanting to leave.
Oh Imohr, I know the patience, patience, patience it takes. How many times you have to bite your tongue. I'm afraid to start a discussion on anything...So I remain silent. I think I need to be a deaf mute. My heart goes out to you. Tonight my husband screamed at me over nothing, a dinner plate, I sucked it in. I told him I had looked forward to a romantic evening with him, but each day he screams, and it is not possible. His reaction - I never scream at you. :-( We were watching the news, and he kept going on & on & I couldn't hear the news. I asked him politely if we could please not discuss politics & he refused. I finally just said "shut up." Shut up was not allowed in my house growing up, & I have stooped to that.
lmohr, I know he's driving you nuts, but giving you the pack of gum as a peace offering was cute...
The concept of "time" starts to lose its meaning for AD patients, and that symptom started for my husband quite some time ago. We go for a walk most days, around 5:00pm because my husband isn't supposed to get much sun due to his skin cancer, plus it's been very hot recently. He'll start asking me if it's time to go around 1:30, and sometimes he'll be sitting on the couch with his dark glasses on by 3:30.
And taking out the trash, that's one of "his" chores. The garbage cans aren't supposed to be out on the street before 5:00pm the night before pickup. He'll start fussing about whether it's time around 8:00am. (Well, at least he remembers. I typically don't, and we'd have overflowing garbage cans in no time at all!)
My DH often puts on a suit and then gets mad at me when I tell him that a suit is not needed on that particular day (no church, wedding, funeral, etc.). Sometimes, he changes into the clothing that I suggest. I'm tired of fighting about that issue - - at least he's covering himself and isn't wearing multiple layers of clothes.
I lost it last week when I realized that he had dumped the loose household trash into the grass/leaf container --again. He puts the cans out on the street on the wrong days,too. I've told him many times that I would take out the trash, but he wants to "help".
Imohr, I can relate to DH getting ready early. When I made air reservations to go to Texas to visit our daughter in late October, he asked, are our clothes ready, when should we pack. If he gets ready to early for church or some other event, he keeps changing his shoes and socks. He really only wears one pair of shoes, the ones most comfortable. He enjoys going places but tires easily and needs to come home. Later, he may not remember the outing at all. Maryd
Mine is focussed on food. It takes several hours to come down to breakfast some days, so then that runs into lunch; he takes a nap or whatever (at my insistence), comes down, has a snack and sits at the table waiting for dinner. Two hours till dinner, I tell him. That's ok, he'll wait. He usually gets up to go to the bathroom, the powder room off the hall by the kitchen. Just now I heard him cussing cussing cussing CUSSING. Why? The light wasn't on in the hall. The switch was by his hand but he had to turn it ON. Maybe I have been spoiling him too much!
Something my H will have his hand right beside the milk, or pills or whatever and cannot seem to focus on the item so maybe that was the problem with your H. and the light switch. It is just a constant upset of some thing or another. How in the world can any of this help stress. Boggles my mind.
lmohr, it isn't the AD spouse's behavior that "helps stress", it's coming up with creative ways to mitigate the behavior that helps to reduce the harmful effects of the stress it causes.
Gotta say, though, that I have yet to find a way to deal with the trash going in the wrong containers. My husband manages to find very creative ways to out-flank me. (Maybe that's HIS way of de-stressing???) Sooner or later, the trash collector is going to holler about what "we" seem to think is or is not recyclable.