My mom has dementia. She and my dad are 88 and had been living together until a few weeks ago. Mom was placed in memory care because he could not take it anymore. He visits her daily. She begs him to take her home when he leaves. She cries. They live in the same building. She is jealous and thinks he doesn’t love her anymore, she think is he is interested in other women, thinks he flirts with the LON’s that come to dish our pills. I know my dad will ask me for my advice and I don’t know what to tell him. She suffers from Sundowners but he forgets this and visits her late in the day, when she is at her worst. How do we help my dad through this. They’ve been together for 70 years and have never been apart. This may kill my dad.
Neither is your father a Saint, without limitations in his powers to change reality. Your father has done all he can, and done it out of love. Your father continues to do all he can and that is out of love. Your father is a loving man with limitations. Were he a Saint we would fill him full of arrows, kill him, then pray to him for eternity to fix everything.
Men's minds tend to work along the track of "Something is wrong; I will fix it" and especially for their families. This is grievous pain for your Dad. He has not only the living loss of the woman of his life, but daily must see her grief. And must feel his own. There WILL be grief here, even IF there is perfect understanding, and perfect understanding doesn't happen. There is no way to run from this grief. I am so very sorry. There is quite honestly nothing to be said or done but to say how very sad a thing it is for anyone to have to go through this. Not everything can be fixed. It is almost impossible to grasp that this is so, even as we live it.
If her dementia is very far progressed nothing will help. If it is not he may be able to talk with her on visits of LONG AGO memories, which last the longest, of when they were young, of the children, of trips or gardens or meals or just anything. Often nothing works, and if that is the case, it just is. But sometimes old photos will.
I am so very very sorry. This is so heartbreaking.
Grief comes from seeing his wife of 70 yrs decline the way she is. One only experiences grief at the anticipated loss of a LO. Dad's heart is broken and sadly there's no meds for that or for the guilt.
Mom's suspicion of his flirting is typical behavior. Dad should visit in the late morning when mom is at her best. If he can have lunch with her that might help also.
Grief, guilt, sadness.
It is hard to see LOVED ONES wither away. THIS Dementia/ALZ really sucks.
As Nancy Reagan said, It is the longest goodbye. :(
With dementia everything can happen and it would be even worse than replacing her.
As MAYDAY has already said, your father should visit your mother in the morning, when she is okey
Moreover, maybe it is rather tough, but he should place himself, his children on the first place and think, how it would be for him and for them living with your mother when she is ill?
I thought it was good advice too and decided it should be read again.
When you talk with dad, remind him that mom's brain is injured and she is unaware that her thought processes are confused. Remind him that she is getting better care in her memory care unit because she needs a "many person care" approach which is not possible at home. That her jealousy is saying "I love you deeply."
Maybe being in Memory Care, she would be better to live with.
If your Dad still loves her then he'll always have the guilt.
Now, I'm going through it again - I've experienced it about 3 or 4 times since my mom drastically declined in mid-April after nearly dying from severe dehydration and COVID.
In my case, I may not have had a chance to read all previous posts on any thread I decide to comment on but, when I do I have made it a point to include the screen name of the person or persons who said it first to give them the credit and I'm usually just echoing or agreeing with what they said. But as a caregiver myself, I may not always see word for word what others say prior to my commenting. I do the best I can and that's all any of us can do. Hopefully, we are all like-minded in the sense that we are offering help, suggestions, understanding and words of encouragement to those who are asking for advice. You carry on!
I remember I went to a convention that we were working. An item that we hand made, was absolutely copied, down to the little bumps in the handle. I looked at the person in booth, and I said thank you. They could not come up with something better.. They truly, physically tried and stole our idea. But the quality certainly was not up to our standards. I had a woman come to our shop and said her piece broke. I looked at the pathetic copy, and apologized, it was not our product.. And turned her away..
Sometimes I do see where bloggers will "parrot" perhaps in different words, but the same gesture or meaning. I think it is okay..
As I said in another post.. absorb what you like, and discard the rest.
Anyway, I will not comment on this subject - it's done - GN