How to forgive yourself for losing it with your spouse with dementia?

I’m very sorry for your loss. It was great your husband could be home and that you were able to care for him-such a blessing! We are only human and sometimes we do lose our temper or not have enough patience in a situation. Your husband knows you loved him, and likely forgot how upset you became a time or two. As I Christian,I believe our LO go back to full light in a place of pure love. He probably longs to hug you and tell you it’s ok, he didn’t hold it against you, and to let it go. You did the best you could each day with grace and love in your heart. Your husband knows that- you need to accept that. Ask God to lift that heaviness from your heart- he can! Anger and regret are hungry beasts; refuse to feed them. Time helps, too. Hugs to you-

You are a miracle to keep your husband at home. You have nothing to forgive yourself about, you need what needed to be done to help yourself and him. you are wonderful to keep him at home but you needed help and I can't understand you not getting a aide to help you.
The future is you live your life now, enjoy your relatives, grandkids and get out and see the world.
My husband has Lewy Body Dementia and he is getting non verbal but has signs of jerking things out of my hand, telling me he knows how to treat his diabetes and he is not walking because of fluid in his feet. He did it to himself. Instead of fighting with him I let him do it, he was mr know it all.
Now he says Why did I do it.
I am paying people to help me , I get out of the house and volunteer 3 half a day a week. It really does wander for my self esteem. Try it

Two thoughts:
You are human
Would your husband have gotten better care anywhere else? The answer is no.
You did the best you could out of love!
Now, it's time to take care of yourself and enjoy the good memories with your husband.
Take care.

This is a poem dedicated to the families that lost love one, like my wife of 54 year of wonderful years of marriage...
and families that had their love ones become infect with covid 19 by the reckless action of their state governors by putting positive hospital patients into nurse homes and assisted living when these facilities had no PPE and nurse aid quitting. This is also for medical hospital staff, that when people infected from their homes were sent to these hospital their staff would write off these poor people knowing that when taken into nursing homes that the residence of these homes had underline condition they still wrote these poor senior off. This is a very solemn day for me it is my wife's birthday and I'm grieving for her and the over 60,000 that died because of our govement leaders.
PLEASE READ THIS POEM 
Love is not something you see.
It's meaning everything to me
It's needing to have you in my life,
So much that I made you my wife.
Love is not something you hear.
It's always wanting to have you near.
It's needing to feel your lips each day
So much that no words could ever say.
Love is not something you taste.
It's never letting it go to waste.
It's needing to see you even when we fight,
So much or I'll miss you day and night.
Love is not something you touch.
It's knowing that you mean so much.
It's needing your skin when I'm in bed,
So much that you make me lose my head.
Love is not something you smell.
It's something that you're proud to tell.
It's needing to always make you smile,
So much that you make my life worth wild
Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/a-sense-of-lov see less

You are being too hard on yourself. There is nothing to "forgive." It is very "human" to express anger or frustration at an unfair or stressful life situation.

You should be congratulated for managing to keep him at home at the end of his life and caring for him like you did.

You kept your husband home that whole time. The love and sacrifice totally outweighs the times you were less than perfect. Look at the whole picture, pat yourself on the shoulder and do affirmations every day about how you gave your loved one the best possible life that no one else would have come close to doing. Nobody would have kept it together under those circumstances and most would have given up. You never gave up even when it got really bad. I commend you! You should be proud and feel good about the unconditional ❤ you exhibited.

In my caregivers support group just yesterday, I heard this quote.
"Guilt is a gift we give ourselves."
No one gives you guilt. If you feel you have given it to yourself, just say, "No, thank you" and move on.

If there is anyone that has not “lost it” while caregiving I would be the first to suggest sainthood. I lost it on occasion. I would apologize to my Husband and hope that somewhere in his mind he knew that I truly was sorry.
Your experience with your husband being difficult to turn brought a smile to my face. My Husband had very long arms. The first time the CNA and I tried to turn him in bed he reached down and grabbed the bed frame and would not let go, in effect we were trying to turn him as well as the bed! We gave him something to hold and I started explaining to him what I or we were doing before we started anything and that seemed to relax him.
There are always challenges and ways around them.
You have nothing to feel guilty about. Use what you learned, share the tips that helped you get through some difficult times, so that you help someone else.

emma,

I meant to start my post below with condolences.

I am so sorry for the loss of your husband.

It’s awful to watch a spouse decline and then lose them.

I am sure that you miss him very much.

I don’t know anyone on this earth that hasn’t lost their temper at one time or another.

I remember crying in my therapist’s office one day about losing my temper and thinking that I was the most awful person in the world.

Do you know what his response was? “I am a therapist and I lose my temper. I apologize and move forward by realizing that I am an imperfect human being and forgiving myself.”

I truly grew to respect my therapist more and more because I never felt judged by him at all.

Get rid of the trial and jury. Stop punishing yourself with a harsh sentence. Instead, educate yourself on human behavior.

Please stop judging yourself. Please forgive yourself.

I bet if you made a list of all the wonderful things that you did for your husband verses the few times that you were human and lost your temper, you would be pleased with your behavior.

Your husband is at peace now. He would want nothing more than for you to have joy in your heart and to be at peace.

Put your mind at ease. He knew that you loved him.

In time, you will start to remember better times.

I know that you aren’t able to forget the challenging times. That’s impossible to do but cherish the good times.

Take care.

What human has ever been completely perfect? Has ever acted totally without fault? Especially under stressful and trying situations such as full time care giving for a loved one suffering from mind-bending dementia.

You're expecting perfection from yourself and now doling out punishment to yourself for not being perfect. And you're doing this one year later. Will you be doing it next year, and how about 5 years from now, and a decade from now?

Don't expect perfection from yourself when you don't expect it from others. Unless you are a saint, and even then, it's illogical.

If you're unable to forgive yourself for an imagined 'sin', please seek therapy to get past it so you can live what's left of your life in peace and tranquility. That's what your husband would WANT you to do, after the huge sacrifice you made for him for all those years of caregiving.

Best of luck

Dear Emma, many times we look back at our behavior towards our LO, and suffer from regret and guilt. I won't say that those are normal emotions, but they're certainly not uncommon, nor are they helpful. Most of our behavior (the caregiver's) is a knee jerk reaction to our LO's behavior and vice versa. Certainly we get angry when they don't respond to a request or when they become belligerent. Blame it on the human condition. Mother Teresa you were not nor were you expected to be. The death of a spouse is one of the major stressors of our life. Overcoming the grief of your loss is a long road, and adding guilt to it makes it much worse. So he's gone now and what can you do? You can apologize to him for any behavior you regret. Is he buried near by? Go there, speak to him. After three yrs I still visit my wife's grave and speak to her and talk about our family and occasionally say I'm sorry if I've hurt her in anyway. It's very therapeutic, I leave with a smile. I say there are 3 Gs that are common emotions at the loss of a spouse- grief, guilt and gratitude. Concentrate on gratitude. There's an excellent book that can help you, “Getting to the Other Side of Grief, Overcoming the Loss of a Spouse”, by Susan Smeenge and Robert DeVries. Find it in your library or order it from Amazon.

I am so sorry that you are still carrying around this unnecessary guilt, after almost a year. We are all human, and those of us that have been caregivers for any length of time, if we're honest, can say that we, at different times in our journey lost our patience with our LO, and perhaps said or did things we later regretted. That's actually very normal, believe it or not.
I know that there were times when I would lose my patience with my husband and holler at him, and later have to go back and apologize to him. Because he had vascular dementia, sometimes he would remember, and sometimes he would not, but I always remembered, so it made me feel better to apologize whether or not he did.
My husband will be dead 6 months in a few days, and initially I was like you and felt guilty about my lack of patience with him, but then I had to remind myself, that I did the very best I could for the man I loved, and despite everything he knew that I did as well. He got his wish to die at home, and as hard as that was to witness, I am so grateful that I was able to honor his last wish.
Our husbands are now looking down on us and are so very grateful for the great care that we gave them, despite our shortcomings, so please don't waste another minute feeling bad. He wouldn't want you to. Instead try and focus on the many great times you had together. God bless you my sister in grief.

You’ve been through a living nightmare. I recommend the groups of GriefShare, they’re available many places to help you walk through all that happened. You did your best in impossible circumstances and I hope you’ll be able to move forward in peace, knowing you’re only human