My mom is in the moderate stage of Alzheimer’s disease. My stepfather has hired a caregiver that my mother has become jealous of.

My mother was convinced that once she passed, dad was going to marry "Honey," their cleaning lady / companion to mom. Instead, a few months later, dad stood in the place of Honey's deceased father as "honorary father" at her wedding.

When I care for a partnered female dementia client. I befriend her. I ask her about her life tell her about mine and spend minimal time with the spouse. When one became jealous I took her hands made eye contact and told her she was my friend and that I loved her and I would never do that to my friends. Never came up again.

It happened to me when I first got started in the field. I was taking care of a stroke victim who had mild cognitive decline. It was her son's nitwit girlfriend who got jealous. I pitched in and cleaned the kitchen including sweeping and mopping the floor. The both of them were heavy drinkers and the son got tore up drunk that night that resulted in a knock down drag out fight with the girlfriend. The girlfriend accused the man of looking at me and broke all the dishes in the kitchen. The next day I arrived for my shift, I called the office and told them what happened and that I was not staying. I took care of my client and left shortly thereafter. I told the couple you guys trashed your place you clean it up. I'll see you tomorrow.

I had a female client recently who kept cancelling her shifts because her husband would come out of his shell and start laughing and talking with me. She would tell him to stop talking and leave out the house.

Women are very territorial over their homes. So, I would tread lightly around these green eyed monsters.

Hello freqflyer, thanks for responding to my question. No, my step-dad didn’t go through an agency. A friend of his spouse had used this caregiver for a few weeks before her husband passed and the spouse had recommended this caregiver. They have another caregiver that fills in on her off days who is much younger (mid-20’s) than the major caregiver and Mom doesn’t have a problem with her. It sounds like this is something that is not going to get better over time. Not sure if step-dad is willing to try someone new.

GiGigrl, same thing happened with my Mom. The first day the caregiver was there, the caregiver prepared dinner for my parents. My Mom grabbed the plate from Dad, and threw everything on the plate into the trash. No other women was going to cook for her husband !!


My Mom was offended, like she felt people were thinking she could no longer care for her house (honestly, she couldn't at 97 years old) or care for her husband. My parents were still somewhat sharp for their age, but they had slowed down quite a bit which happens when one ages. But jealously didn't slow down, it only got worse.


Did your step-dad use an Agency to find a caregiver? Some Agencies will send out a different person each day, then your folks could choose which person worked out the best for them, then would be scheduled full-time. My Dad had two caregivers that helped him for close to a year. Both had a sense of humor that Dad liked, and who would laugh at his Dad jokes.