For the first 20 years of our marriage, my husband was kind, compassionate, competent, and responsible. Even though his memory loss is mild, his ability to reason, his judgment, and his capacity for empathy have deteriorated. With me he is argumentative, uncooperative, irresponsible, and secretive. Yet with other relatives and friends, he is friendly, kind, and helpful. He literally behaves like a different person with me. He seems to want me to act more like a mother and take care of him, yet he is independent and relatively competent with others. Have any of you seen these kind of changes between how your spouse behaves outside the home and how he acts with you?
Yes. No other person could now see the changes in my husband. You really have to be with a person on a day to day basis to see the changes. So many people on this board have reported that they can't even get a doctor to "get it." It is frustrating to say the least. I am dreading the annual visit from my husband's brother & his wife. I told them about his problems, but I am sure they will think I am the crazy one for making up stuff about him, because he will seem fine.
Lilly, do you have a diagnosis, or are you just feeling your way around?
Lilly, I think this sort of personality issues is quite common. was with my DH as well. very obnoxious and snooty towards me at times, and just as sweet as pie to anyone else except his son. he ranted on him with exception and they didnt get to see one another for a yr due to aggression towards each other. son didnt get the AD either and so they had horrible dragouts and knockdown fistfights. i was devastated but thought it best to separate them as son wouldnt consent to aggression therapy. now they are ok again as DH is quite docile. the lack of empathy was totally noticeable on my part as well. just know its not uncommon at all-Divvi
I do not believe I have seen you here before. If you have been here, and I missed welcoming you to my website, let me do so now.
I have written countless blogs on the subject you are questioning. What you are describing is my life from before the diagnosis to now. Please log onto the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and scroll through the previous blog section - The Welcome Blog discusses personality changes, as do all of these in varying degrees - # 23, 29, 37, 203, 209, 221, 222, 227, 231, and especially 261 and 262. The earlier ones may take a long time to load - it's a technical problem I am slowly correcting on all of the previous blogs - please be patient and give them time.
I and some other couples were the focus of an CNN article in February 08. Here is the link - http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/02/11/alzheimers.love/index.html The picture in the article is NOT of my husband and me - you have to read the caption under the picture to realize it is of another couple.
Also, you could try a search at the top of the message boards for "anger", "temper tantrums", " insults and taunting". Believe me, you are NOT alone in this.
He can be in the middle of a tantrum, insulting me, carrying on like a maniac, the phone can ring, and I hear his tone change immediately, to a jolly, "Fine, and how are you doing?" to the person on the phone.
We are going to a covered dish at church tonite, and everyone will say to me, Dick is just great tonite, as if I make this stuff up. he has a DX though, so I know it's not me, but he's just great with other people. Jokes around, happy to see them, happy to be there. Funny, but as soon as we get home, he will be so exhausted. it's tiring keeping up that facade. Thank goodness he's mostly pleasant with me, except when i'm driving, which I obviously must do nowadays, but I must be the worst driver in the world.
Thank you all for your comments. It is good to know that I am not the one who is imagining things. I have tried to figure it out. If it were brain damage, he couldn't perform so well when he wanted to. He is being treated for a bipolar disorder, but the medicine has stopped the really extreme mood swings. A psychiatrist who saw my husband said that the part of his brain that controls emotions and inhibits behavior was damaged (perhaps frontal-temporal lobe). So maybe he is uninhibited at home, while there is a remnant of control in public. I do think that keeping up the facade is exhausting to my husband and he just regresses without inhibitions at home where he feels safe to do so. These are some of my speculations. Lilli
Lilly, as others have said it is not unusual that your husband behaves differently with you than others. My DH has FTD (58 yo) and was only aggressive towards me, no one else. I say I am the person he loves to hate. He is in denial that he has a dementing illness and I think it is more difficult to pretend he doesn't have it when he's with me because I have to do all the stuff he used to be able to do (pay bills, etc). FTD impacts judgement and impulse control and eventually those patients cannot control their impulses and behaviors with out medication. That's where we are now.
In reading your description of your husband, I immediately wondered what Kitty did -- has your husband had a thorough neuropsych workup and been diagnosed with AD? Granted that every AD patient is different ... but some of your husband's symptoms sound more like frontotemporal dementia (FTD) than AD.
My husband has severe short-term memory loss. He often does function better in public than at home, but he is sweeter and more affectionate and considerate with me than with anyone else, and relies on me to help him. He has been tested out the wazoos for an AD longitudinal study and a clinical trial, on top of the tests for the original diagnosis, and he does fit a "classic" AD profile pretty well (if there is any such thing.)
You have totally described my husband also. He doesn't have any problem except for balance...what I describe to him is MY problem, not his! He never recalls being nasty..".no, I would never say that or act like that..it is YOU that has the problem." I'm also about to explode as he is going thru this right now, and I just want to escape! Merry Christmas.
I am really grateful for all the input I received. I looked up frontal temporal lobe dementia and most it didn't fit. So I looked up damage to the frontal lobe and saw that the symptoms that are so strange to me are normal for vascular damage to the frontal lobe. What was most interesting is that I learned that "perception regarding risk taking and rule abiding are impaired" whereas IQ is not reduced. So my very bright husband has been getting into trouble like "fixing" his daughter's electrical system, which caused a fire, driving our tractor lawnmower out to a dock on the river, where a passing boat could have knocked him into the river with the lawnmower on top of him. One day I awoke to find my husband's hand wrapped in a bandage with a plastic bag over it. He could not stop it from bleeding after he cut his finger with a scapel and just went to bed. He rebels against doctor's orders and I have to fight to get him to an emergency room when his life is in danger. He was never rebellious or risk-taking before. His problems are more vascular rather than Alzheimer's.
Lilly - You might be living with a lot of what is mentioned in this article - http://geriatrics.modernmedicine.com/geriatrics/data/articlestandard/geriatrics/332006/366189/article.pdf
DH hates to go to the doctor. So, I tell him I need to see the doctor and want him to come with me for moral support. So far, that works. Good luck, Lilly. I'm so sorry you are going thru this at this time.
Catherine, Thank you so much for suggesting the article. In fact my husband's neurologist did say that my husband suffered from subcortical ischemia and a psychiatrist suggested brain damage had made him insensitive to danger. This is the safety issue I face and I have learned from trial and error that I can set limits in a forceful way when my husband's life is in danger and he now cooperates with me. This combined with the appropriate medications has worked so far.
Friday night DH and I dined at a local restaurant which we frequent. The manager stopped by our table to say hello and chat.
Manager: Oh! You got out without the kids. How nice!
DH: Yeah, we were locked out of the house, so we decided to come here and have a nice dinner.
Since this was not remotely true, I thought DH must be joking, but he gave no indication that he was. He stated it matter-of-factly, without the hint of a smile, etc.
The manager clearly thought he was serious, as she proceeded to relate her own stories of being locked out. DH continued the conversation, without ever correcting her assumption, and clarifying that he had been joking. I kept waiting for him to smile and confess, “We didn’t get locked out. I was only joking.” But he didn’t.
As we left the restaurant, the manager called after us: I hope you get back in your house!
DH replied: Me too!
It was so odd.
Then tonight DH and I saw the movie “Hereafter.” (If you haven’t gone – warning – DON’T). The movie promoted the view that everyone goes to heaven and all is wonderful there. Which bought up the inevitable question – how could Hitler go to heaven? I pointed out that people love to point to Hitler, but they rarely acknowledge that those atrocities were carried out, not just by Hitler, but by all the men working for him, and the men working for those men, all the way down to the line soldier, and all the civilian men & woman who stood silent and watched.
DH replies, “Yeah. Hitler never actually personally witnessed the horrible stuff at the camps. That was the people who ran the camps.”
I replied, “Well Hitler certainly gave the orders.” Then I thought a moment and asked DH where he got the idea that Hitler never witnessed any atrocities. Did he know that for a fact or did he just pull that out of his rear? He told me he just pulled it out of his rear. And chuclked.
Wow! My DH and I have always detested the know-it-all personality types – the folks who always talk a big talk, as if they know everything, when, in fact, half the time they are just making it up as they go along. And now he has become that person.
In many ways, the man I share my life with is no longer my husband. I know that and I am slowly coming to accept it. I have learned to accept when he is uncommunicative, or mean tempered, or forgetful, or confused. But to morph into a bull-sh*tter when that is something he has never been able to tolerate in other people….that’s downright scary.
Mary, did he seemed surprised when you got back to the house and weren't locked out? My question is really -- do you think he believed it himself? Probably he did, and if so he's not a b* but was suffering from an AD delusion.
It was the persoanlity changes that spurred me to start this website. I was so shocked and overwhelmed, not to mention - feeling guilty, because I did not like the person he had turned into. I had no one to talk to about it. No one in my support group ever talked about it. There was nothing in the media about it. It was a big, dark secret, held only by spouses of Alzheimer patients. I was absolutely devastated and didn't think I could live with his changes and my guilt.
Now, whenever I speak to people about Alzheimer's Disease, I always emphasize that personality change is often the first sign. No one ever thinks of dementia when this happens. They go to marriage counseling, which obviously doesn't work, because the person has dementia. Many couples end up divorced before they realize that it is Alzheimer's Disease.
You are so right - the man you share your life with is no longer the husband you fell in love with. That, to me, is the worse part of this disease.
The years before my DH dx he had become an angry, bitter man towards me. I no longer wanted to be around him. After the dx he has mellowed. Don't know how long it will last, but do enjoy being around him again. Only now he is just a shell of what he once was. No more long talks or wanting to do things with me. But not angry towards me any more. I think a lot of the anger came from not knowing what was happening to him. And I was the only one he could let it out on.
I am so glad that I found this thread. I am dealing with my DH having a lot of personality changes. My apartment manager has given me the telephone number to the aging and adult abuse place. What prompted her to do that is she has dealt with people with dementia before and I told her some of the things that he has done. There are three different things he has done in the last 6 months that is of concern, he told me that his feelings for me have changed and when I asked him how they have changed he didn't know and then a month or so after that he told me that he has a temper and I asked him how he knows that and he told me about something that happened to him when he was 10 that made him mad. His teacher locked him in his classroom closet. Then a few weeks ago he told me that I am fat. He has always been passive aggressive but now he is becomeing more active aggressive.
When he is with other people he is very nice, he has a sense of humor and they just think he is great and there is nothing wrong with him and then when he gets home he treats me like crap. I am tired of dealing with it and I will not put myself in physical danger again for anyone, already did that, been there done that, with my first husband and it will NOT happen again. What should I do?
I wrote reams on this in 08. Personality changes and verbal abuse - We had a lot of discussions on just how much a spouse had to put up with in the name of Alzheimer's Disease. We take verbal abuse and insults that we would NEVER put up with if it was not blamed on Alzheimer's Disease. I have pulled up the blogs on this for you. I hope they will be of some help to you:
joang, Thanks for posting your earlier blogs. I could so relate to all of them. My DH will go from verbally abusing me to crying & saying he is sorry. It IS so difficult to just “forget” what has just been said & say that it’s ok & everything is alright. Today has been a difficult day & I am exhausted. Problem is, when we go to bed early, he wakes up early. I am a morning person, but I can’t remember the last time I have been able to sit by myself & enjoy my first cup of coffee.
I have a friend whose husband has AD. He has gotten worse at the verbal abuse and anger. I have told her to let the doctor know so he can get some medication to help with it. She recently moved and got new doctors. I told her to make sure he/she is someone with dementia experience. Today she told the doctor of how he was treating her (good with others, mean to her). The doctor told him to be nice to his wife! Guess he is not experienced with dementia.
I took DH to a neurologist who supposedly had experience treating dementia patients. He told DH the same thing - to be nice to your wonderful wife. Oh and he advised we should have a code word either one of us would say if the other was getting angry. Like DH could remember the word and when to use it. Charletons!
Hi welcome if you are a new member. Everything you wrote mirrors my hb. He to is very secretive and I can't trust him especially when he's writing on his computer. When I leave the house is when he makes all his phone calls to whom ever. I can't stand this. I'm always having to watch my back. This isn't living.