Finally, the doctor's office called and told me when to take my husband back for his neuropsych testing. It is actually this Friday. The test takes a few hours to finish. He will be rather tired after it is done. We then have his first appointment later that same day with a new therapist, who feels competent to work with us with this dementia problem. I think I should take my husband out to dinner at the end of the day and be extra nice to him.
I came home for the weekend to check on him. The first evening was awful. I almost went back to where I have been living. He went to bed early and upset but agreed to finish our conversation the next day.
The evening started with me trying for the umpteenth time to explain to him why my grown daughters did not want him trying to kiss them on the mouth. They simply do not like it. They try to be very kind to him and just turn and give him their cheek. But they are uncomfortable, so they tell me about it. I try to talk to him about it. He first gets upset and denies that he tries to kiss them on the mouth. Then when I finally convince him that he really is doing this, he then gets upset that it shouldn't bother them. What's wrong with a little peck on the mouth? Well, maybe nothing for some people. But since my daughters do not like their step-dad kissing them on the mouth, then he simply shouldn't do it. Then he gets angry that they don't tell him themselves. I try to explain that they are uncomfortable and don't want to hurt his feelings. Plus, since I have such terrible luck explaining it to him and he gets upset, why would they want to tell him? It really is my job. He is my husband, and he is not their father.
So we go round and round and get nowhere. We are simply on an unpleasant merry-go-round. When he starts to get upset with my daughters, then I really start to come unglued. We are talking about my sweet wonderful daughters who have been wonderful to him and supportive of both of us. We are not talking about my two daughters who have been rude and obnoxious. So he needs to back off of the sweet ones if he wants them to be around at all. Of course when he is upset, he yells at me, "Well, I just won't be around your kids at all. I'll NEVER get near them again." I then tell him that we have had this same conversation many times and he always ends up saying this same thing and then never remembers. He of course denies it.
What is really strange is that my husband doesn't have a clue why I won't let him give me kisses on the mouth either, at least wet mushy ones. You need to understand; my husband lost interest in me romantically years ago. He made it very clear that he did not find me attractive. He was not incapable, just NOT interested. There has been no physical affection between us for years by his choice, not mine. I gave up hoping for a normal relationship about 5 years ago. I don't cry about it anymore. Our relationship went from a husband/wife relationship to a sister/brother relationship until it became more like a mother/son relationship. What normal woman wants to make out with her son? Not me! Wet kisses are ancient history for us. So out of the blue on New Year's Eve he lunges at me planting wet kisses on my mouth. I was unprepared and turned and gave him my cheek. At that he said, "I want some lippy lippy." I simply replied, "Well, I don't want any lippy lippy." I really didn't want to hurt his feelings, but lippy lippy just isn't going to happen. When he complained the other night about me not even letting him kiss me, I tried to explain. "For years now you have been unkind about any affection toward me. You have stated clearly that you are not attracted to me. So I adjusted. I am here because I care about you and you need me to take care of you, and I need you because I am financially more stable with you." What a yucky way for a marriage to be. But that's the way it is.
You must understand that we had been married only 4 months when we got 3 of my grandchildren to raise. We raised them for 7 years. They went back to their mother when my daughter (their mother) made horrible false accusations about us. The children are no longer here. I cried for months after they left. They had become my life. The last 2 - 3 years they were here, my husband's behavior rivaled the children's behavior. That was hard. So now for some reason, he wants to start kissing. Well, I don't. Plus I was upset that he even thought he had the right to be angry with me for not wanting to make out with him when he was the one that made it very clear in the first place, that he was not attracted to me. Something to add, I am an attractive woman. I am tall, slender, dark hair (when I keep it colored), healthy, pretty eyes, healthy skin, and a friendly nature (at least I used to be friendly before all of this started). I unfortunately had to make it painfully clear that while yes I am his wife, I will be here for him as a friend, partner, eventually his caregiver but not his lover. Even thinking about being romantic with him feels incestuous and creepy. Putting all of this aside, I admit I miss romance. I miss being held and touched by a man. I would love to be in love again and make passionate love with a doting husband. But I don't think that is in the cards for me, and I'm definitely not getting any younger.
The next issue we argued about was probably unnecessary on my part. Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut. But I keep thinking if I point things out to him that he will be alarmed at his own forgetfulness. That he will tell the doctor that he is worried, not just me telling her. It doesn't seem to work that way though. So what happened next?
Well, it is very cold outside. When it is this cold and we do not put a heater under each side of this big old house, we wake up to frozen pipes, no water. The morning I was coming home, he called and told me the pipes on one side of the house had frozen. He had bought another little heater to put under the house. We only had one under there because a squirrel or some critter and chewed through the cord of one of the old ones.
When I got home, the water was still not working in half of the house. So I went researching. I found one heater working under one wing of the house. I then went down into our old yucky cellar (the kind that has an outside entrance with one of those old fashioned lift up doors) to check the other heater. Well I found the heater. It was not working. It was turned on. The cord was plugged into an extension cord. The problem was that the extension cord was not plugged into the outlet. The outlet was high on a wall across this small old cellar. So the extension cord ran along the floor, then was draped up and around a pipe a few times and then just hung. It wasn't plugged in. I plugged it in and the heater ran just fine.
When I told my husband that he had forgotten to plug the cord in, he would not believe me. He had plugged it in. I insisted he had not. There we were again on our unpleasant merry-go-round. He then insisted someone must have unplugged it. This was really getting frustrating. The cellar door had frozen shut and I had difficulty even prying it open. Who would have gone down in that damp ugly cellar and unplugged the heater? I asked him half heartedly if he wanted me to ask our renters if anyone of them had done that. He actually said “Yes.” So I asked one of them. Of course he had not gone down there. I asked my husband if he wanted me to ask the other men when they got home. He finally said, "No, a squirrel probably did it."
I believe my husband’s distinct memory of wrapping the extension cord around the pipe and plugging it in is real. I just think the memory is from last year not 2 days ago. He thinks I'm ridiculous, and I think he simply doesn't remember.
Tonight he did eventually show the scared side of himself. He was talking about a family reunion coming up next summer clear across the country. He wants to go to it but doesn't want to go alone. My husband spent years traveling around the world in his job. I mean literally; he flew around the world many times. Now he is afraid to go by himself to a family reunion? He was finally able to be honest with me about his concerns, so I told him that if we could manage it financially, I would definitely go with him, even though that was not our original plan.
He also admitted that this year-long class he is taking for work has him concerned. I asked him how he was really doing. I have read that people with Alzheimer's or dementia have a hard time learning anything knew. So I have been puzzled at how he could be doing well on tests. Then he explained.
At the beginning of the class months ago, they gave out the final exam. All tests are open book and can be done whenever one feels like taking them. At the end of the year-long class, everyone gets a certificate of completion. The only hitch is, the certificate only allows the person to sit for the National Certification Exam. My husband does not think he could pass the exam. I doubt he will even attempt to take it. But I am still really glad that he is even taking the class. It is good for him, even if he isn't really retaining any of the information. A year from now will be very telling.
What a weekend and what a long post.
Emma James
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