I've often wondered the same - would I be able to endure more if I'd been with my husband 30+ years, if we had children, grandchildren, more shared memories? I don't know, but I do feel that I was free a relatively short period of time ago and I long for those days.
I met OH 9 years ago. We had an on-off relationship for 2 years, mainly due to his mood swings, depression and tendency to go off and sleep with other women. But things settled, we committed to each other and moved in together 7 years ago. We married 4 years ago and within 6 months of the marriage the dementia started to rear its ugly head. The last 3 and a half years have been horrible. He was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's a year ago. We're both now 61. Neither of us have children and 6 years ago we moved 300 miles across the country, so we have few friends or other support nearby.
Having read what I've just written, I would say that a short relationship does create specific difficulties when dealing with dementia and for me it's not enough to keep me in this caring role. I do not recognise the man I live with. He's not my husband. But how can I leave? I've had a carer's assessment and was told by Social Services that they can't offer any help for my husband because I do everything for him. They will only step in if I leave. But they are going to send me a payment of £400, which I'm supposed to use to do things which I can't do because of my caring role. I suggested that I could use it to buy myself a one-way airline ticket and the social worker seemed to think that was a good idea.
The truth is, I'm stuck. I don't want to spend every day caring for the man who used to be my husband. We have no shared memories and no future. I feel like I'm just waiting for the disease to progress to a stage when he will need full time care, but that could be a very long time and I don't want to go down with the ship. Since the diagnosis, various professionals - GP, consultant psychiatrist, CPNs have routinely asked my husband if he ever has any thoughts of harming himself or others. He always cheerfully replies "no". He's happy and content and I do everything for him. Why don't the professionals ask me the same question?
My husband didn't ask for this horrible disease and it's not his fault, but it doesn't seem right that we both lose our lives in the process.