@heartsore that guilt will be well known on here, so you are not alone with it. Everything in us feels that we should be enough. We should be able to care for our loved one ourselves until their death. I, too, had to read back over my (many, many!) posts on this forum during the time I was caring full time for my husband, after he had moved to full time care. Because, once the immediate experience has passed and the person settles in the Nursing Home, we start to think "Oh, maybe I was exaggerating in my mind how tough things were. Maybe it wasn't really so bad. Maybe I could cope if I brought him home..." I found reading back over my threads & posts was a good reminder to me of exactly why my husband needed full time care.
The thing is, you see, when a loved one (and maybe especially a spouse/partner) needs full time care, we tend to feel that we should do it ourselves. However, our "job" as their now carer and advocate as well as their partner, is to ensure that they receive the best possible care. And, sadly, very often that means
not trying to do it all ourselves. We can't provide the level of 24 hour care that a fully staffed and equipped Nursing Home can.
One of the things that I could immediately see my husband benefit from was the stimulation of other people around him and the security of there always being staff around to help him . While he was still mobile, he would spend time walking around the nursing home, and would enjoy smiling at other residents, making the odd remark to them, enjoy the exercise, etc. He enjoyed the variety of people around him. It gave him something to engage with. I couldn't do that at home, where there was just the two of us, and he didn't have scope for walking, because of steps and other obstacles. Yet, even while I could see the enormous benefit to him, I still felt terribly guilty about it. I had to come on here now and then and remind myself of how bad things had been at home, and how much more thorough the care he was receiving now was.