"Then it happened. My wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and we were devastated by thoughts and fears of what might be ahead.... I finally began to appreciate this unconditionally loving person I'd lived with for all these years in ways undreamed of. We found more intimacy than we'd known by sitting close and talking about our day, by holding hands as we took our walks, walks that became increasingly slow. Caretaking for my wife has allowed me to see and experience the depth of her caring and kindness and humility in allowing me to care for her. I have discovered, too late in some ways, the marvelous intimacy of simply giving to the other without measuring or thinking of what may be in it for self...."
The advice that's hard to follow is — big surprise — you're supposed to talk to each other.
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3 comments:
Solution: when your wife develops Alzheimer's, constantly remind her that she really LOVES sex.
My wife and I passed our 61st wedding anniversary this month. I'd argue that the best long marriages are true partnerships. Sex has or at least had something to do with it--but mutual respect between equals has more to offer over the long run.
I'm watching a version of this play out right now as I help out with a man in hospice care: a wife tending to her husband in the most intimate ways possible, having to care for him as if he's physically not much more than a newborn, but still making sure that when (for instance) she's putting Vaseline on his dry lips, she tells him she's doing it to keep them kissable, and then kissing him with as much tenderness as she showed him early in their marriage. I am moved many times a day by this couple's continuing love and commitment to one another in the most extreme circumstances - not just by the many loving services this wife is providing, but also by the way the husband gives her whatever he's got at the moment: his smile, a look straight into her eyes, a whisper of her name. I love my husband and he loves me, but I don't know what we would be for one another in the same situation.
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