Today's Blog is about walling off your emotions to avoid conflict, and ending up in more conflict anyway. I invite you to read it and voice your opinions here.
I don't think you have walled off your emotions, rather, I see you and us redirecting our emotional liives into productive avenues. We do this as we realize that our lives are fprever changed and we can no longer depend upon our spouse for emotional comfort or understanding.
For a long time I tried to relate to my husband as he had been and constantly mourned his behavior that was unpredictable. He, as I had always known him, was disappearing and i tried to hold onto the man I knew and loved. My emotions were always volatile and I was miserable.
I finally had to accept that my lover is gone (at least for now) and I must find s life apart from him. I still am sad but find that I cope better with my "beloved stranger." I cannot be the one who shields him from the ramifications of his memory loss, and can only try to help him function as optimally as possible.
You are agonizing over circumstances that are not under your control, once I realized that fact, I then began to accept my new life and try to find satisfaction in a life apart from my love.
Joan, I recognize what you're describing only too well. I know I'm cold...or at least I feel like I must be cold, emotionally. I don't know how to get back in, or reconnect with him in a way that doesn't tear me to shreds (like I'm not torn to shreds this morning anyway!) Sometimes I'm going about my trying-to-be-cheerful-and-chipper business, giving him his pills, washing the stupid dishes again, and I catch his eye and see that lost, perplexed soul wondering where his wife who used to be close to him went. And he has no way, really, of comprehending that even if I could broadcast those old signals, his receiver is broken. I hate hate hate the feeling of being emotionally distant and shut off, but the only alternative--when the gates briefly open--is exposure to that horrible, heart-wrenching, despair of remembering what we've lost.
To be fair, I'm not always feeling that cold, and sometimes we do seem to find a level at which we can communicate fondly and pleasantly. There just are those moments.
Carewife is right. And sometimes I can do that stuff. Sometimes I stink at it because I'm not a very nurturing type of person.
Joang, your blog sounds very familiar to me as I have traveled this same road with my wife M.
I have finally realized that the woman that I married in 1966 died several years ago. What remains today is just a shadow.
I wrote a draft of her obituary and edit it from time to time. That was heartbreaking writing.
She sits in her favorite chair and looks at pictures in her wildflower and gardening books, as she no longer knows most of the words. She naps a lot during the day. She takes her daily aricept/namenda/paxil/seroquel/serefolin/calcium pills OK. I am thankful she is peaceful as the medications control her aggression and hostility.
I don't know how I will jump start my life when this is over. A good place to begin would be getting more involved with my son's family and the three grandchildren.
Interesting, C, about you writing the obit. We are not nearly so far along, and still have some meaning in our relationship, but I've been working on a project of compiling photographs that show Jeff as he was, in the life we had--with the kids, at our wedding, looking healthy and interacting. I know that what I'm doing is preparing for a funeral, which could be very far away, but just as this disease requires an agonizingly stretched out goodbye from us, so I might as well work on these things in advance.
Joan, It is like you wrote what I feel most of the time. I try to keep busy and I have distant myself from him to the point of trying to stop the hurt. But I feel so bad when he says "what is wrong, why are you not talking, why can't we be like we were, and I won't talk anymore because I know I aggravate you". But everything I say gets twisted into an argument and me wanting to yell stop, just stop but I can't. I love him still, but him, not him that .........says and does everything different or does not do it at all. But all and all, I have to know if it was me, He would be tolerately me. What a horrible disease. God, we pray for this AD cure to come faster than fast or We need you to step in and take over where we can't. Thanks for sharing, PAT
Joan, My husband is also addicted to TV and also misses me if I busy myself with other activities in the house. The compromise that I make now is to find activities I can do in the same room while he watches TV. He doesn't really want to interact with me. He just wants me in the same room with him.
So I've taken up knitting and crocheting to round out my reading habit. If there happens to be a program that we both like - great. Otherwise, I try to figure out the most difficult craft patterns and make things for hospital patients. It keeps me occupied and my hubby thinks we're doing something together.