Who has stolen my husband?

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
My husband is totally obsessed with himself. The only time he speaks to me is if he wants to talk about something relating to him.
He constantly says I need to talk to you. It is always about his tablets, his bowels, his hospital related details, of which there are a number. So many things, but all about him, never me or our life and home.
He goes over the same thing over and over. I look at him to see if he is joking, but he isn’t, he just repeats what must come into his mind.
He can’t sort anything out, or think things through anymore.
He looks at the calendar on his iPad literally dozens of times a day.
He has totally lost interest in any conversation with me. He can host on the phone to his brother or if we get a visitor. I try to introduce topics but he isn’t interested, or is it that he can’t think it through?
He finds fault with everything I do. Everything is my fault. I mean everything. I constantly have to bite my tongue as I want to stand up for myself, but it leads to an argument and then he gets nasty. If I try to verbally defend myself he gets very aggressive.
His health is a mess.
But our marriage is very one sided. I’m just a servant in this house. The thought that this life could go on for years fills me with sadness and fear.
I know I’m a strong woman emotionally. Not so much physically these days.
I don’t think I can live this life for both of us, or is it that I don’t want to? But what choice do I have? I know it is too soon to consider care.
I’m terrified of something happening to me. What would happen to my husband?

I know I keep repeating myself on TP, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed.
Another waffling post, apologies to anyone reading this...
Love B xx
 

AliceA

Registered User
May 27, 2016
2,911
0
Not at all. This is what we are all here for B.
Sounds as if you are trying too hard, I know it is not easy but just let go a little. Do your best and try not to worry about the rest. I am sure it is beyond his comprehensio, the diary is like an anchor with mine too. It is looked at often, it makes sense of a fragile world.
My bedtime now, try and sleep, I will check in in the morning. I had to be up at the crack of dawn today,

God bless, X
 

Guzelle

Registered User
Aug 27, 2016
426
0
Sheffield
I understand what you are going through, I feel like a servant and a punch bag. He gets agitated loses everything and blames me. He says he needs a room with a lock on so I can’t move his things around!

When he is in a bad mood he slams doors shouts at me and the cats. Pushes me.

He is now taking an extra dose of risperidone and is calmer and better tempered at the moment. Not sure how long it will last. He is still losing things and looking for things he can’t remember what they are he is looking for when I ask him!
 

AliceA

Registered User
May 27, 2016
2,911
0
I am so sorry for you too Guzelle, I dare not say anything is missing otherwise the whole place is searched. Any sense of loss emphasises all other non material losses that are hovering in the the background.
When you say punch bag I hope it is not physical, not that verbal is easy.
So many people need a scapegoat when things are not right and they so often choose someone who will not leave come what may.
Not that it is any consolation when it happens.
We are always 'losing things' they get put away in unlikely places because we have moved a lot and over many years and furniture has been used in different ways over the years.
So sometimes I have to rack my brain to double check. Frustrating when I go to grab a tool in a hurry and it has been moved.
i hope you have a smoother day.
Sometimes we waste so much energy trying to keep things as they were.
Sometimes we just have to let go a bit, I find when I do it is easier.
 

Banabarama

Registered User
Dec 28, 2018
62
0
Sussex
Good morning SadStaffs.

Just read your post from last evening and thought I could have written it myself - apart from one or two small details as your husband clearly has more physical health problems and mine can’t operate the iPad at all despite hours of tuition (or maybe I’m just a bad teacher!). But I know how being the imagined cause of all someone’s woes is soul destroying. And the constant self obsession is frustrating, especially when it can be switched off for a visitor but when the visitor goes its even worse and the information gleaned from the visitor gets totally jumbled up and then relayed in a surreal personal drama, often with me as the villain. When I am told later that he “doesn’t seem too bad” it somehow makes me feel very lonely.

Let’s hope the day dawns a little brighter for us all. I’m indulging in a lie in (one good thing is that OH has never got up early - long may that continue. I am not working today but his carer will still come just after 9, as she does each week day for one hour. I recommend that. It’s been a lifesaver for me.
 

Grahamstown

Registered User
Jan 12, 2018
1,746
0
84
East of England
I too worry about what would happen to him if anything happened to me or if I need treatment myself so I have started planning, have made contact with our local Carers at Home agency and visited two care homes. We visited the one near us together last November and he liked it and I told him that it would only be in emergency and he did seem to understand but he is much worse now so I went alone yesterday to another one and I know that he would not have liked that. It doesn’t really cater for respite care which is what I would need in the short term. They keep in touch with me by email which is helpful. I have told my children and I hope that gives them some peace of mind because they are the ones who will have to carry it out. I have tried not to think ahead but in this case it has given me peace of mind. At least there is a plan of some sort.
 

Guzelle

Registered User
Aug 27, 2016
426
0
Sheffield
I do worry about me being ill or an operation who would look after him. He will have to go into a care home as I do not want our daughter to look after him.

My OH cannot use a mobile phone or an iPad. He can’t use the landline either. He is still active and likes to go out for walks.

Vascular dementia seems to be the one that makes them aggressive and agitated which my OH has.

We need roof repairs doing on the house and haven’t managed yet to get a builder to turn up. He has forgotten all about it now and when I mentioned it he said he would do it himself. He didn’t want an electrician last year and he was fusing the lights every time he went in the loft, he was going to re-wire the loft himself he said. He isn’t an electrician. I finally got an electrician and there was a live wire left over from the old shower we had taken out and he was fiddling with it.
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,447
0
Kent
I have started planning, have made contact with our local Carers at Home agency and visited two care homes.

This is so sensible. When I asked what would happen if I became ill and provision hadn`t been planned, I was told my husband would be placed wherever there was an available bed.

My other worry was if I should be too ill to get help and my husband would not have been able to. This was when I decided to get a care line fitted.

Thank goodness it was never used but it was always a bit of security just in case.
 

canary

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
25,018
0
South coast
My husband is totally obsessed with himself. The only time he speaks to me is if he wants to talk about something relating to him.
He constantly says I need to talk to you. It is always about his tablets, his bowels, his hospital related details, of which there are a number. So many things, but all about him, never me or our life and home.
He goes over the same thing over and over. I look at him to see if he is joking, but he isn’t, he just repeats what must come into his mind.
He can’t sort anything out, or think things through anymore.
He looks at the calendar on his iPad literally dozens of times a day.
He has totally lost interest in any conversation with me. He can host on the phone to his brother or if we get a visitor. I try to introduce topics but he isn’t interested, or is it that he can’t think it through?
He finds fault with everything I do. Everything is my fault. I mean everything. I constantly have to bite my tongue as I want to stand up for myself, but it leads to an argument and then he gets nasty. If I try to verbally defend myself he gets very aggressive.
His health is a mess.
But our marriage is very one sided. I’m just a servant in this house. The thought that this life could go on for years fills me with sadness and fear.
I know I’m a strong woman emotionally. Not so much physically these days.
I don’t think I can live this life for both of us, or is it that I don’t want to? But what choice do I have? I know it is too soon to consider care.
I’m terrified of something happening to me. What would happen to my husband?

I know I keep repeating myself on TP, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed.
Another waffling post, apologies to anyone reading this...
Love B xx
I could have written this post myself.
OH has totally lost empathy and his world has narrowed right down so that now all he can see and think about is himself.
I no longer try and have any conversation with him as it used anger him because he thought I was trying to tell him what to think. You are right - he can no longer think things through.These days, in fact, he often doesnt even tell me about things as I am, apparently, an expert in telepathy :rolleyes: I now only talk to him if there is something I need to tell him and there are hours of silence. We are living a parallel existence, although I often feel that I am living his life as well as mine. Its a lonely old life, Isnt it?

I have found that giving up any expectation of empathy, regard for me or conversation is the way to go. I pretend that I am a professional carer, or his mother, or whatever else is necessary and try and keep my inner life going
 

kindred

Registered User
Apr 8, 2018
2,937
0
My husband is totally obsessed with himself. The only time he speaks to me is if he wants to talk about something relating to him.
He constantly says I need to talk to you. It is always about his tablets, his bowels, his hospital related details, of which there are a number. So many things, but all about him, never me or our life and home.
He goes over the same thing over and over. I look at him to see if he is joking, but he isn’t, he just repeats what must come into his mind.
He can’t sort anything out, or think things through anymore.
He looks at the calendar on his iPad literally dozens of times a day.
He has totally lost interest in any conversation with me. He can host on the phone to his brother or if we get a visitor. I try to introduce topics but he isn’t interested, or is it that he can’t think it through?
He finds fault with everything I do. Everything is my fault. I mean everything. I constantly have to bite my tongue as I want to stand up for myself, but it leads to an argument and then he gets nasty. If I try to verbally defend myself he gets very aggressive.
His health is a mess.
But our marriage is very one sided. I’m just a servant in this house. The thought that this life could go on for years fills me with sadness and fear.
I know I’m a strong woman emotionally. Not so much physically these days.
I don’t think I can live this life for both of us, or is it that I don’t want to? But what choice do I have? I know it is too soon to consider care.
I’m terrified of something happening to me. What would happen to my husband?

I know I keep repeating myself on TP, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed.
Another waffling post, apologies to anyone reading this...
Love B xx
Darling, of course you feel overwhelmed. ThankGod for TP. As you know, I felt like a prisoner and a slave to the appalling demands of dementia. I was getting through by writing I must endure 100 times each day, but that's hardly mentally healthy is it. We are the custodians of people who are losing their minds, people who back in the day would have been in one of the big institutions, now closed. Obviously, they are able to live a better life outside the institutions but our lives are the price paid for this. With you all the way, with love and best, Geraldinexxx
 

jenniferjean

Registered User
Apr 2, 2016
925
0
Basingstoke, Hampshire
We are the custodians of people who are losing their minds, people who back in the day would have been in one of the big institutions, now closed. Obviously, they are able to live a better life outside the institutions but our lives are the price paid for this.
That is so true, I'd never thought of it that way. But it is so true. They obviously are better off not being in those awful places, but as you say we are paying the price.
 

kindred

Registered User
Apr 8, 2018
2,937
0
That is so true, I'd never thought of it that way. But it is so true. They obviously are better off not being in those awful places, but as you say we are paying the price.
Thank
That is so true, I'd never thought of it that way. But it is so true. They obviously are better off not being in those awful places, but as you say we are paying the price.
Thank you. It is exactly what is happening. They closed the big institutions so that folk could be cared for in the community and that is what we are doing. In a way we are pioneers in this situation, was not so long ago the institutions closed. I think this kind of truth is too raw for most to face and certainly social workers with a financial agenda to keep us doing what we do, and others who take sentimental views of what they believe dementia comprises will never face it. It is actually quite a brutal situation, love or no love. So good to hear from you. Warmest, Kindred.
 

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
Not at all. This is what we are all here for B.
Sounds as if you are trying too hard, I know it is not easy but just let go a little. Do your best and try not to worry about the rest. I am sure it is beyond his comprehensio, the diary is like an anchor with mine too. It is looked at often, it makes sense of a fragile world.
My bedtime now, try and sleep, I will check in in the morning. I had to be up at the crack of dawn today,

God bless, X
Thank you Alice, always very welcome warm words of wisdom from you...
I hope you are ok?
It’s hard to change the habit of a lifetime. I have always been someone who has just got on and done whatever needs to be done. But now there are things I should do that I either don’t want to do, or don’t know where to start.
Off the top of my head the first of these is that I had to get something from the garage. This has always been my husbands domain. It is full of boys toys.... quality tools that he needed, couldn’t live without, but rarely if ever used!
It has been neglected for a year. I was horrified to find thick spider webs over everything. I’m terrified of spiders. We get some whoppers in the house. I mean whoppers. I just shut the garage up and will worry about it another day. The other, for some reason wallpaper is coming loose in loads of places, no idea why, but I need to get it stuck back down. Always husbands job. Guess where all the stuff is.... yes, the garage with the spiders! Agh!
In the scale of things I know these are trivial things, and I can and will sort them, eventually. And I should grow up about the spiders! But all the little things just build up until I feel I can’t breathe, and I start to panic, especially lying in bed when everything runs through my mind like an express train.
It’s always good to hear from you Alice, and thank you for listening.
Take care, with love, B xx
 

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
Good morning SadStaffs.

Just read your post from last evening and thought I could have written it myself - apart from one or two small details as your husband clearly has more physical health problems and mine can’t operate the iPad at all despite hours of tuition (or maybe I’m just a bad teacher!). But I know how being the imagined cause of all someone’s woes is soul destroying. And the constant self obsession is frustrating, especially when it can be switched off for a visitor but when the visitor goes its even worse and the information gleaned from the visitor gets totally jumbled up and then relayed in a surreal personal drama, often with me as the villain. When I am told later that he “doesn’t seem too bad” it somehow makes me feel very lonely.

Let’s hope the day dawns a little brighter for us all. I’m indulging in a lie in (one good thing is that OH has never got up early - long may that continue. I am not working today but his carer will still come just after 9, as she does each week day for one hour. I recommend that. It’s been a lifesaver for me.
Hi @Banabarama
It’s always surprising and somehow comforting when I read a post that relates to everything I’ve written. It’s such a lonely existence, but TP has taught me that I’m not alone, that my husbands actions are not unique, that there are many many others experiencing the same or similar.
Trying to teach your husband to use an iPad is probably frustrating for you. My husband can’t grasp things, he can’t think of two things at once, he does things like takes the empty mugs out, but he takes his, forgets mine and the tray, or takes mine and forgets to take his own. He never thinks to put them both on the tray. He just doesn’t see things like he used to.
I’m afraid I’m a miserable person these days. I don’t think my days will ever dawn a little brighter, not for the foreseeable future anyway. Perhaps one day I will be myself again, be the person I know and miss....
Love to you, B xx
 

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
I too worry about what would happen to him if anything happened to me or if I need treatment myself so I have started planning, have made contact with our local Carers at Home agency and visited two care homes. We visited the one near us together last November and he liked it and I told him that it would only be in emergency and he did seem to understand but he is much worse now so I went alone yesterday to another one and I know that he would not have liked that. It doesn’t really cater for respite care which is what I would need in the short term. They keep in touch with me by email which is helpful. I have told my children and I hope that gives them some peace of mind because they are the ones who will have to carry it out. I have tried not to think ahead but in this case it has given me peace of mind. At least there is a plan of some sort.
How logical and sensible. When I went into hospital end of November, my husband went into respite for two weeks. He has yet to forgive me. He keeps reminding me that I had him locked in an asylum! But if needs be then he would have to go in again. None of us knows what the future holds, none of us are getting any younger. We are all so vulnerable, regardless of how capable we are.
I think having found a care home that keeps in touch with you is an excellent idea. I got into a real panic fearing I wouldn’t find anywhere. We were self funding, down to my own stupidity I should add. But it was tough trying to find somewhere that suited our needs.
I thought I would hate him going into respite. And I did cry after I left him in the home. But I now know that we Carers need respite to keep us going. We are wearing ourselves out and few care as long as we don’t cause any problems.
Please take care of yourself, love B xx
 

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
I do worry about me being ill or an operation who would look after him. He will have to go into a care home as I do not want our daughter to look after him.

My OH cannot use a mobile phone or an iPad. He can’t use the landline either. He is still active and likes to go out for walks.

Vascular dementia seems to be the one that makes them aggressive and agitated which my OH has.

We need roof repairs doing on the house and haven’t managed yet to get a builder to turn up. He has forgotten all about it now and when I mentioned it he said he would do it himself. He didn’t want an electrician last year and he was fusing the lights every time he went in the loft, he was going to re-wire the loft himself he said. He isn’t an electrician. I finally got an electrician and there was a live wire left over from the old shower we had taken out and he was fiddling with it.
It does sound as though our experiences are similar. Always a surprise, a nice surprise, that I’m not all alone with this.
My husband isn’t very active, his mobility is very poor, and I worry about him falling. So we don’t go out very much, and have to be aware of his incontinence needs.
But he can use his iPad, well.... he can read the BBC News App, check the weather, check his calendar. He struggled but managed to vote on Strictly! But he can’t add anything, I do that for him. Up until last February he was using very technical programmes on his Mac computer. Since February I have just kept it up to date, opened and deleted emails, etc. It’s such a waste. He has always wanted the best, so he has this big Mac computer that he hasn’t been able to work out for almost a year.
How worrying for you that he still wants to do electrical things. I do hope you manage to find a builder you can trust as soon as possible. One less thing to worry about.
Please take care, lovely to talk to you, love B xx
 

Grahamstown

Registered User
Jan 12, 2018
1,746
0
84
East of England
I think I have been encouraged to think about it by reading people’s experience on TP and to try and make a plan @Sad Staffs and I had a lump in my throat leaving the one we visited together. So I felt very much how bad it must have been for you. I just couldn’t imagine leaving him there even though there are times when I would dearly like to have a break. We too have to self fund because we are not eligible for social services care. He is 80 and I am this year so one must be realistic. The care home I visited yesterday is building a purpose built unit for early onset dementia. This shows that there must be a need, so sad.
 

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
I could have written this post myself.
OH has totally lost empathy and his world has narrowed right down so that now all he can see and think about is himself.
I no longer try and have any conversation with him as it used anger him because he thought I was trying to tell him what to think. You are right - he can no longer think things through.These days, in fact, he often doesnt even tell me about things as I am, apparently, an expert in telepathy :rolleyes: I now only talk to him if there is something I need to tell him and there are hours of silence. We are living a parallel existence, although I often feel that I am living his life as well as mine. Its a lonely old life, Isnt it?

I have found that giving up any expectation of empathy, regard for me or conversation is the way to go. I pretend that I am a professional carer, or his mother, or whatever else is necessary and try and keep my inner life going
Hi @canary
So much of what you write hits a chord with me.
Your comment about telepathy made me smile. All our life together I have said to my husband I’m not a mind reader, you have to tell me or give me a clue. I’ve always been expected to know what he is thinking. Now it’s role reversal!
I am learning not to raise topics or issues. I never get an answer anyway. We have a beautiful blackbird that always sits in a bush, seemingly watching me. I can’t mention it, I’ve tried but he isn’t interested, and trying to explain where my blackbird is gets fraught. He just says I don’t care. We don’t converse anymore, don’t discuss, or chat. I feel so unloved and uncared for by the man who has always idolised me. But he has gone, don’t know where, wish I did.
I’ve just paid the deposit and finalised the plans with a company refurbishing the bathroom. He wouldn’t come with me, just not interested. Is this a ruse that if anything doesn’t suit or goes wrong, then it’s all my fault?
I definitely feel I’m living his life for him, because he isn’t interested, so one of us needs to.
But we don’t have hours of silence because he can’t keep quiet as he is totally obsessed with himself, so all our talk is about him. It’s constant and obsessive.
So far there has never been any sign that he doesn’t know me or others. For me I think that will be the big turning point, the point of no return.
I’ve no idea when that will happen. It’s a terrifying future.
Love B xx
 

Sad Staffs

Registered User
Jun 26, 2018
696
0
I think I have been encouraged to think about it by reading people’s experience on TP and to try and make a plan @Sad Staffs and I had a lump in my throat leaving the one we visited together. So I felt very much how bad it must have been for you. I just couldn’t imagine leaving him there even though there are times when I would dearly like to have a break. We too have to self fund because we are not eligible for social services care. He is 80 and I am this year so one must be realistic. The care home I visited yesterday is building a purpose built unit for early onset dementia. This shows that there must be a need, so sad.
It was really awful leaving my husband at the home. He looked so out of place. I drove away almost hysterical, parking in Sainsbury’s car park sobbing.
I’m so pleased you have found this care home with a purpose built unit for early onset. It’s good you have found somewhere you think your husband could be settled in.
It’s so traumatic, our lives.... no one I know understands what our lives are really like now. I doubt they ever will. We see so few people these days, go out only when necessary. But then who wants to go out in this weather!
I spent the morning hobbling around clearing the snow off the car and the drive.
I love my neighbours... who had been out before me and precisely cleared up to our boundary. However, his wife thought it fit to walk all over our drive making the snow pack and become ice. So tough to shift. No consideration, but it won’t be long until they want me to care for their cat! Pay back perhaps?
Please take care of yourself, love B xx
 

Guzelle

Registered User
Aug 27, 2016
426
0
Sheffield
Hi @Sad Staffs , what thoughtless neighbours you have, and you say you look after their cat! My neighbors aren’t much better either apart from my neighbor across the road who feeds my cats and I water her plants when she is away. She suffers from ME so I do her a bit of shopping when she’s not well.. Dementia affects people so differently as you say you husband can use technology and mine struggles with the TV remote. Can’t use technology at all. He is happy at present on the higher dose of risperidone but memory and confusion is worse but I can live with that.