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BoodaGazelle Asked March 2020

FIL now says he doesn't want to be with MIL. Any advice?

This is more of our ongoing saga... very sad and devastating for wife and her sisters.


They are still working on getting him into a memory care facility. Things are moving, including getting him set up for Medicaid, but in the meantime, he still has some lucid moments. The other day, along with "why am I in here" and "I want to go home", he told my wife: I don't want to be with your mother anymore. Of course, she has been desperate for him to get out... no one has really told them that there is no going back to the both of them living alone at home.


They have been (seemingly happily) married for about 60 years. It is easy to guess that his outburst is due to the dementia, but it was still heartbreaking for my wife to hear him say this.


I did not say this before, but when he was in the Navy, he worked on a hospital ship with some mental cases... presumably things were not as "enlightened" then, and he has a deep fear of being "locked up" like that. This is making the whole process of getting him to a safe place that much more difficult.


Anyway, no real question here... although hearing others' experiences is always helpful.


Thanks,


 


Bood

Ahmijoy Mar 2020
Once I took my mother out to lunch. It was supposed to be a “fun” thing; a way to spend time with her.

She was obsessed with her first love, whom she’d been engaged to when she was 19. Her parents put a stop to the relationship when she threatened to elope. The man went over seas and she never saw him again. She talked constantly about this man and even swooned over a local baseball player who she said resembled this man. Her love was named “Stone”, and she pathetically referred to this man as “Stone Clone”.

While we were at lunch, I could tell she was not “mentally present”. She kept talking about this first love. At one point, she said she wished she’d married this man instead of my father. I adored my father. He was a saint for tolerating my mother.

Im not going to say it didn’t hurt. I was devastated and was tempted to walk out of the restaurant and leave her there. But, I eventually considered the source. I put the comment Iin the vault and moved on.

TNtechie Mar 2020
My great-aunt once shocked me with the story of how she came to be married to her husband. Aunt Rose was the very definition of a "sweet old lady" who almost always had a smile, played her pump organ and hosted Sunday dinner every week for her 4 children and their families. Not at all the type of person I imagined would leave her groom at the alter after the rehearsal dinner and elope with her first love.

Her mother planned a full after wedding reception for 300 (not easy to pull off in 1910 Boone NC) and had borrowed crystal and china from all her friends and family. She been baking and prepping all week. An older sister had made the wedding cakes. Rose had dated Dillard for a few months but decided to break it off because her parents didn't approve (his family was tenant farmers and not land owners) and eventually agreed to marry Robert. Dillard had never really given up on Rose and after the rehearsal dinner got her to come out on the porch so they could talk. Rose left with Dillard and traveled to Beech Mountain where they were married the same day she was suppose to marry Robert. Rose's father was said to be so mad at her actions he wore the floorboards down pacing on the front porch and wouldn't allow Aunt Rose to visit his house for over 4 years. As she finished her story, I sat in a rocking chair across from Aunt Rose and Uncle Dillard and watched Uncle Dillard pull Aunt Rose close for a kiss and with a big smile on his face told me "I got my girl!" They had been married 76 years at that time.

"I don't want to be with your mother anymore" can be taken several different ways. He may not want to be with her because he realizes he's not right and doesn't want her to be dragged down caring for him. He may imagine he is going to one of his horror lockups and doesn't want her to visit him there. Many men of his era take the responsibility to "take care of" and be a wife's "shield" very seriously. My grandfather faced his coming death with total calm and only one regret: that he would be leaving his wife of 67 years behind in failing health and would not be able to make sure she was cared for as he wished.

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BoodaGazelle Mar 2020
Thanks to all for your stories. After talking to my wife tonight, she believes, and I sort of agree, that her father has has some mental illness issues for a long time... ones that were probably at least partially covered up by the lithium he has been on. Still, it seems likely that (in hindsight) there were some pretty severe issues with him and his wife (MIL) all along. It is interesting because he has always had the ability to "gaslight" her.. so she would always say everything was fine.

But my wife also says, 98% of their childhood was very good... he did provide for them, and really raised them all well.

So it is simply a measure of both the complexity of people, and the sorrow of the body outliving your mind.
BBS2019 Mar 2020
When I heard "lithium," I knew he had Bipolar Disorder. That is not just "some mental illness issues," it's a major psychotic disorder caused by brain chemistry imbalances. Did he stop taking his medication? Is it being monitored for therapeutic levels? Aside from any dementia, if a bipolar patient stops taking lithium, the symptoms return and they aren't pretty. My niece was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder after exhibiting many of the classic symptoms and had to go to an inpatient psychiatric hospital. However, after reviewing medical charts for over 40 years, I know that Bipolar patients often stop their medication because it makes them feel "flat," and then problems ensue. His fear of being locked up may stem from an earlier hospitalization.

It's not your wife's or his wife's fault. He the plan of action you are taking.
Rocky1121 Mar 2020
First, make sure that your MIL is in a save environment! Second, do not take your FIL as being normal. With dementia, the person's personality changes. Take nothing he said at face value. Watch for abusive behavior and if present, separate the pair.
Third, try to separate our MIL and FIL with different activities. Your MIL will be safe and grateful!
Fourth, and this is most important, have patience with him. He's brain is not the same, as it once was. Do not let what he says, make you feel sad, hurt, guilty, angry, as he is not thinking properly.

It's very hard, but this is part of the process of dementia.

I wish you and yours, the best during this time!

Ghuhtamaki Mar 2020
You don’t have control over your FIL’s thoughts or spins. I’m sure your MIL is sad about his thoughts of her. I always find it useful to explain it this way. “It’s not your husband saying hurtful things to you. It’s DEMENTIA saying hurtful things to you.”
BoodaGazelle Mar 2020
I agree. I told my wife that eventually, they can simply excise this part of their father's memories, due as you suggest, to his dementia.
CTTN55 Mar 2020
Just don't let your wife in a moment of weakness agree to take your FIL in!

What's the plan for your MIL? Will she be living alone? What are her health issues (at, what, 80+ years old, there must be some)?
BoodaGazelle Mar 2020
Right now, the plan for MIL is that she will be able to live (even if only for a short while) with wife's sister (local).... Longer term, no one has had a minute to really deal with that. She has pretty severe memory loss herself. My wife says she literally cannot remember something from one minute before...
Countrymouse Mar 2020
Your poor wife. It is one of the burdens dementia drops on your foot - information about your parent's innermost thoughts (not to mention wild oats, possibly) that no child should ever have to hear.

You can't stick your fingers in your ears and go "la la la."

You can go into bright 'n' breezy mode and say "woah! - not the right person to talk to about this, Dad! Wait 'til Uncle Bob (or Rev Smith, or whoever) is here."

Assuming this is the *creation* of dementia and has no basis in reality is not quite safe, though. Of course we would like to think that our parents were model husbands and devoted wives and happy together.

They were also young people and consenting adults. They had their private lives. Who would want to hear the gory details? - but it is important for older people, with or without dementia, to be able to express themselves freely.

Moonlynx65 Mar 2020
There may be something under the statement. My father does not want to live with my mother anymore and I don't blame him. You see, mom has always been abusive but it has grown worse with time. She constantly accuses my father of having an affair. He is wheelchair bound and does not get out. Even when he was with her 24/7, she would still make these accusations. He is just tired of the constant mental and emotional abuse.
BoodaGazelle Mar 2020
I understand, and agree. It is hard to sort it out, after 60+ years of being seemingly-happily married. I proposed to my wife that it be attributed to his bipolar disorder and dementia. With the proviso that it is almost certain that he *will not* live with MIL again, as after some of the threats, he has lost that.
Taarna Mar 2020
Since he is on lithium, I strongly suspect that he is bipolar. His comments may be symptoms of feeling depressed or manic and not necessarily a reflection of their relationship. Please get VA assistance. There are VA residential facilities that he may qualify for.
BoodaGazelle Mar 2020
I believe that as he is a veteran, that VA is part of the equation as they look for a situation for him.
BeckyT Mar 2020
My extremely conservative, very introverted preacher of a Father told all of us at Easter dinner one year that “I am going to divorce your Mother because she won’t have sexual relations with me anymore.” My Mother was 88 at the time and my Father was 82. We were stunned into silence. I finally told him that, after 50 years I thought she deserved a break, he wasn’t amused. Absolutely Dementia, not my Father. Same thing here!

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