Forgotten love | Dementia Support Forum

Don’t be ashamed about your thoughts about your husband. They are pretty common ones, especially after years of caring and knowing that there’s no hope of recovery. And combine that with having no idea of how long the person will continue to hang on, it’s not an unreasonable thought either.

Personally, I have been caring for my husband for ten years, following three years of the destruction of our marriage and an initial diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and a cardiac arrest. I became a carer out of duty and after a while, I became very depressed, angry and resentful and blamed my husband for how I felt. One day, when he had been particularly horrible, I walked out and went for a drive and a long walk on the beach. The day was a bit drizzly and windy but I was happier there than at home. When I got home, my husband seemed a bit shocked that I had left him standing there in mid sentence.

From then on, I walked out every time he started getting nasty and things improved, though we did have a time when he wouldn’t talk to me for three weeks. One of the days when I walked out, I was passing a little shoe shop that sold very bright and stylish shoes. It was an expensive shop so I had only ever window shopped there but today they were having their first sale so I went in.

I had quite a moment of self determination in that little shoe shop. I realised that the only permission I needed to buy a pair of shoes was mine and mine alone so I came out with three pairs of shoes. And felt so good, not because I had bought the shoes but because I had started to wake up to who I am and that I could be really me again if I persisted.

I have always been able to leave my husband for times during the day so I did that. I went for walks on the beach, had a late breakfast at my favourite deli, met a friend for lunch and spent some money on things I liked. There’s another of my old threads somewhere with pictures of some of the wacky and wonderful shoes I bought. They seemed to be symbolic that I was finally walking in my very own shoes on my very own path.

Since then, I have bought some clothes bright enough to wear with the shoes and have ditched most of my black clothes. The older I get, the brighter I get. And I turn 80 next birthday.

I have been a volunteer with an environmental group, mostly active oldies and I never a miss our weekly get togethers. I also go to a gym every week, run by an exercise physiologist and I take the pup to a dog park a couple of times a week, where he goes nuts and I am outdoors and chatting with like minded people.

So that’s my story and now it’s time to start your way back too.