I started dating while my husband, Robert, was in memory care. It surprised me how getting out into the world again positively impacted my relationship with him. I had been so frustrated with Robert for so long that I had forgotten what a kind, gentle, man he is. He became a toddler in adult form. Incessantly demanding, illogical. Let me explain.
From the beginning
Robert’s decline registered as a tick in my consciousness in 2015, but looking back, there were nearly imperceptible warning signs as early as 2012.
This is the way it goes with dementia. We don’t want to believe it, so we rationalize momentary blips or look for benign causes for our loved one’s changed behavior, or even weirder, we figure we simply misunderstood an interaction. I practiced all three of these denial tactics. Robert would eventually be diagnosed with in 2017.
A project together
In late 2012, after months of preparing comedy shorts for posting on YouTube, my (once upon a time) very funny husband asked if I could help him put together a website collecting his videos and books. Of course, I’d be happy to help. I enjoy creating websites though I’m no designer, I can ferret out a well-designed template to create a visually pleasing and quasi-professional site. We’d have fun!
Robert and I sat down one evening to discuss the pages his MuchBob.com site should have. I took the lead on the discussion. Robert nodded in agreement with my suggestions and said, “Yeah, that’s great.” A lot.
What do you mean you don’t know what I mean?
Our dialog seemed to be on track until I gave him this simple, innocuous directive.
“I’ll give you this list of the pages we’ve assembled, and you can start working on the content for each.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean?”
“I don’t understand what you mean by content?”
Uh oh.
“Well, we’ve discussed each of the pages for the website, but I don’t know what you want to put on each page. That’s the content. You can think of each page as a bucket. Now you have to fill the buckets.”
Robert’s eyes glazed over. He looked bewildered. I mean, like he really didn’t understand what I was talking about.
The big reveal
This should have been a belching black exhaust moment of clarity for me, hard to miss, impossible to ignore. But I rifled through my mental files of business training and found the applicable, foundational principle for effective communications. (I swear to you I did! I’m a mega-nerd that way.) “The meaning of the communication is the response you get.” So I hadn’t communicated clearly! If I had, Robert would have understood me!
This was nonsense, of course. Robert was losing his mind. Huge gaps in his mental processing had already appeared.
Over the next few days, I put together a series of templates to guide Robert through the development of the text, images, and videos he wanted to appear on each page of MuchBob.com.
But he didn’t do the work. I experienced his befuddlement as an affront. After all the time I put in, couldn’t he at least try to create the substance for the site?!
But he’s a super nice guy
Even as the months and years went on and Robert lost his ability to function as a competent adult, he was still conversant and amiable. People liked him and were happy to see him walking our dog in the neighborhood, sitting on the edge of the pool at the health club, or meandering up and down the aisles at the grocery store.
I experienced the dissonance of “happy Robert” in public and “incompetent Robert” and felt increasingly isolated. I was in a perpetual state of frustration, but couldn’t figure out how to explain this to anyone…or everyone. Robert was well-loved. Couldn’t people see that I was suffering?
No. No one could. And what were people supposed to do anyway? And what could they possibly say?
“Sharon, you know how much we love, Robert, right?”
“Yes. Thank you.” Smiles and hugs all around.
“Well, here’s the thing. He doesn’t make sense anymore. We think there is something wrong with him.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Yeah, that conversation never happened.
Anger is easy
I hardened in the anger I felt toward Robert. My lips were pursed in perpetual disapproval. I was a fireball of discontent; ready to spark and explode at any moment.
Fast-forward 10 years. It was in this unsettled mental state that I first dipped my toe into dating again.
My initial interactions with Will were revelatory. I could talk and he understood what I was saying! Unlike my communications with Robert, I didn’t have to translate my thoughts with all their meanderings and conditional phrases, to simpler, less complex ramblings that might never be understood. I could talk about ideas and expect an in-kind response. My thoughts landed. There was someone to receive them.
In this mean juxtaposition, I saw clearly how my relationship with Robert had deteriorated. I felt the gnawing ache of that distance. My hurt was plain and visceral.
I had shielded myself from the intense sadness of this loss with a relentless anger toward the person I loved most in the world. A therapist once opined that anger was sadness in disguise. Now I understood.
Returning to you
My epiphany carried me into my next visit with Robert. My cloak of self-protective insulation fell away. I saw my husband for the first time in years. Here was my dear, sweet husband, lost to us too early. Robert was faultless on this path. It took relating to another man to deliver me back to him.
One cog in the complex machinery of grief fell into place.