I don’t want to be alone. Now what?

Dementia is a vicious disease. Robert’s decline is irreversible. All outcomes are terminal. He may linger for years, imprisoned by his illness. This is now the backdrop to my marriage.

I love Robert, but after 40 years, we have a legal union, but little else. We can no longer have a coherent, fluid conversation. All decisions about our lives fall to me. Robert has lost the ability to meet me halfway on anything. He shows he loves me when his face opens wide in greeting, but he no longer participates in our marriage. We are severed now. His disease has come between us.

Stuck in between

In many ways, spouses are as imprisoned as their loved ones with dementia. We are bound by love and duty to support our spouses to the end of their lives. But are we obligated to give up our entire lives for their care? I have planned for Robert’s care for the next ten years. Am I to exist in a holding pattern until he passes? Am I to exist solely as his provider?

When I decided to place Robert in a memory care facility, I chose my life over his ongoing care. I chose me.

But are there limits to that choice? Can I live a full-throated life, brimming with adventure, or am I bound to live within a narrowly circumscribed definition of propriety? What if a full life means being in a loving…