RichA
Well-known member
It's tough brother. All I can do is sympathise and keep telling our story. Every case is different, but hopefully there are bits that resonate with your situation. I have the benefit of hindsight - mum died nearly 3 years ago now.Rich it’s tough, she talks to him in an horrible manner. That don’t half set him off. FIL had a right go a month or so ago at his son in law, Effing and blinding in the street. Raising his fists. Me Bro in law was upset and Livid. 2 weeks ago in-laws had a meeting with a Shrink. Missis T who was there mentioned FILs temper. MIL played it down, Missis T mentioned the spat in the street. MIL said “ I don’t know why son in law was upset it was nothing”. missis T was seething. If bro in law finds out what she has said he will go ballistic.
I think she would be happy to see him in a home but she does not want to make that decision.
Nobody really understands how it is for the "surviving" partner until afterwards. On my weekly visits, dad used to escape for the day - still cycling in his mid-80s. I'd look after mum. She'd ask me whose son I was - she assumed I was some random family friend's son. She'd ask when her father was getting back. On advice from a friend, I learned to just "jolly her along", not bursting her bubble or upsetting her.
When dad got back it would continue, but when she suggested he was her father, his response would be, "Of course I'm not your father - he's been dead for 40 years." He would be impatient with her or just ignore her at times.
I'd ask him why he couldn't show a little more compassion and he said that in 60+ years of marriage he'd never lied to her - he wasn't going to start now.
When I stayed overnight, I'd witness the effects of her nightmares. Monsters attacking her. When she woke, she saw dad as one of the monsters. She hated him and was terrified of him. I can't imagine the toll that took. He later told me that it had been happening a couple of times a week for a couple of years.
After mum died, dad had a brain haemorrhage that resembled a stroke. MRI showed that it was actually an old, untreated injury that high blood pressure had caused to pop open. The doctor asked if dad had had a previous injury - "you must have known about it. It would have been a hell of a knock."
He admitted that a year or so earlier, mum had gone through a phase of attacking him. On one occasion she hit him over the head so hard with a saucepan that he was knocked out. He never told anyone. He was embarrassed and ashamed.
Then mum got more sick with other stuff. He was embarrassed and ashamed for not providing effective medical care.
Then mum went into hospital and, later, nursing care. He was embarrassed and ashamed for breaking their pact that neither would ever put the other into a home.
I guess I'm suggesting that while we're all focusing on the person with dementia, we lose sight of the fact that the partner is just as much of a victim of it - possibly even more so. But being of "that generation", they probably won't ask for or accept the help, out of shame and embarrassment.