Hello, I am so sorry that no one saw this post yesterday. My husband has been in a home for just over two weeks and I don’t think I am coping well at all. I cannot settle to anything when I am at home, so I go to visit him, but it is not how I imagine it will be. I think we will sit and chat, but the husband ‘in my head’ is not the one in the home.
It is absolutely horrible, but what you are experiencing is perfectly understandable and normal. As far as anything can be normal in our lives. In your case, it sounds as if there is an enormous amount of guilt too, and I feel that as well. I feel almost physically sick when I come across one of his possessions and think, he will never use that again, and it’s my fault. So I am talking to myself, as much as to you. Our husbands have had to move, because of dementia, not because of some failing on our part.
There comes a time when a team of professionals can provide better care than one person, however loving that person is. When we made our marriage vows, we promised to care, in sickness and in health. And it is an enormous act of love to seek the very best care we can for our husbands and to acknowledge that we cannot provide it. We have put their interests before our own, in that we are going through terrible pain, in order that they might have good care.
And do other people understand? For the most part, the answer is no. Until someone has gone through this, they have no idea. Most people still think that dementia is a sweet little old lady forgetting things. Many of our former friends, will not even visit my husband.
I have lost a husband to cancer, five years after diagnosis and I looked after him until the last three weeks of his life, when he went into a hospice, because they could provide better care than I could. I am finding this experience harder.
The beauty of Talking Point is that someone has been here before us, and does know how it feels, so the support is here.
You can always share with us how you are feeling. There is no need to be brave here.