Changing personalities
We spend a lot of time when living this dementia affected life talking about how our loved ones have changed, how they're no longer our soulmate or best friend and how we don't recognise this new person they've become but recently I've been considering the situation from a whole new angle. When you've lived with someone for years and years you each take on a role within the relationship. That role obviously develops but generally, if you're lucky, you carve out a personality for yourself which matches and compliments that of the other person and that's exactly what Ash and I did. Most people thought I made the decisions and he did as he was told but that really was only because, mostly, he didn't mind and he always wanted me to be happy so he was more than ready to agree to whatever harebrained scheme I came up with as long as it fulfilled those two criteria. Every so often I would suggest something he didn't like the sound of (the suggestion of a city break always did it unless it was London) and he'd just say 'no Jane I don't think so' and that would be it. This so rarely happened that there was no point in trying for a discussion to change his mind as it was obviously made up so the idea was put to one side until I could find someone else to go with me. Over the years then we grew up together, worked at our marriage, became parents and carved out a life we loved but then everything began to change. Gradually Ash became less laid back about life and more anxious; he made fewer decisions; he took a less active part in plans for the future and one day I looked and he'd disappeared, leaving in his place a stranger, someone I really didn't know and couldn't read. That was difficult enough but what was also hard was working out where my place was in this new relationship. I've joked a lot recently about the reinvention of me during lockdown but it hasn't been so much of a joke as a necessity and, with great timing, lockdown came just as I realised that fact. If Ash isn't there as my sidekick, to give me confidence and to support me in everything I want to do then who am I and what's to become of me? I always used to think I was an independent woman but have realised over the last two and a half years that my independence was only possible because he was at my side. The loss of him changed all that and I realised that I could either flounder without him or forge a whole new being. Luckily I've discovered within me a steel that I didn't know existed and a new me became the way forward but I'd really like to know what the old Ash would think of this new person who shares his life. I think he'd like her but I'm not sure what else he'd feel.
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Don't forget you can sign up to have this delivered straight into your inbox, just remember to click on the validation email (which may be in your junk mail/trash box). You can share specific posts with others by clicking on the 3 dots at the top right hand corner of the page, you can share the blog by copying and pasting the web address www.memoryfortwo.com or you can email me at memoryfortwo@gmail.com if you have anything you want to say privately. You can also now follow me on twitter, just search for Memory For Two, and you can find me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/Memory-for-Two-287197572048864.
Comments
As for the new him Carol I'm not sure I do love him dearly if I'm being honest. the difficulty is that I don't know him. On a good day I like him and luckily we now have more good days than bad so that helps but really not sure about the love aspect. All I know is that I'm with him through it all whatever happens.
Also out relationship changed me , we were 30 when we got married. We had been together for about 18 months. So I was very independent and quite practical, in fact I was the only one who could drive. It was not until I was expecting my first baby 2 years later that he learnt to drive.Over time I have changed and had become very dependant on him. But since his illness I am having to be strong again.
I had always thought that he would care for me in our old age, mainly because both my Mother and his Mother both had some type of old age Dementia . I don't know what the future holds all I know is at the moment I am there for him. X