Why Is It So Hard For People To Accept My Situation?

Honestly pondering why people don’t get lonely me wanting love

I’m in a weird place in life.

My husband of 17 years was diagnosed about five years ago, at age 47, with early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s a “family thing” and we’ve watched uncles, great uncles, second cousins, grandparents, and his mom deteriorate and die.

As well as my spouse, who is now more like a toddler boasting an acquired brain injury, I have a hormonal 13-year-old and an oaf of a forgetful 15-year-old.

I’m not claiming my life is worse than anyone else’s reality. I’m blessed with a career that I adore, surrounded by friends who listen to my whines, and I have a mom who brings us home-cooked meals once a week.

Nonetheless being a caregiver and having to run a home on my own as a single mom sucks.

Combatting Lonely

I am lonely. I miss conversation and intimacy.

I decided I am not going down with the ship. Almost 40% of caregivers who die before the person for whom they are looking after. I am determined I won’t be one of them and so I made a decision unpopular and misunderstood by many.

I decided to find a lover. I was aiming for a friend and long-term confidante who’d give me laughs and orgasms. My initial search expedited me through many duds before the diamond showed up. After almost a year with this very understanding partner, I find myself in the dating game again. I’d prefer to avoid Ashley Madison as I don’t want to be with anyone who is married (I’m not judging in any way — just being selfish as I want them all to myself) nor am I solely seeking a one-night stand.

However, traditional dating sites pose a problem. I am upfront and honest about having a spouse — even if that husband is more like a brain-dead circus seal who can’t perform any tricks. Men on traditional sites such as match.com don’t seem open-minded enough to consider my situation.

Why am I getting nada?

I click and I message. And only a couple have commented – only to withdraw their conversation after referring back to my profile. So what exactly are the reasons people avoid dating a caregiver? What don’t they get about my situation?

Here are a few questions I’ve had previous to match.com. Are the Wanna-be-dating folks over 45 thinking these same things? Or why does no one want to get to know me?

Do you sleep in the same bed?

We live in a very tiny house without room for anyone to sleep anywhere else. We don’t even have space for a couch. So, yes, every night we crawl under the same covers. And yet, like I have done with my siblings and friends at sleepovers, not even the bare skin on our toes touches.

He has taken to changing clothes in the bathroom and he freaks out if I enter our room when he has anything less than six layers draped over his frame.

There has been nothing sexual or intimate between us for two years. We are roommates – my roomie who can’t do much more than breathe and fart.

Isn’t it funny to discuss the same things over and over and over again?

Try it. Ask a friend to barrage you with repeated questions and to respond to any of yours with absolutely absurd answers. For example, let them inform you that they don’t need to get vaccinated because they can simply breathe in fumes from those who have been needled. Now do this every day all day for almost 5 years and tell me how you feel.

I miss a conversation that doesn’t have the same phrase about the weather repeated twelve times in less than five minutes. I want to discuss politics, books, what’s happening in the world, our children’s successes, problem solve parenting issues or even dream out loud of future trips and plans. None of this can occur any longer.

Isn’t it just like living with a really lazy husband?

My husband was really lazy before. The inability to do something is not the same as choosing not to do it. Every task involves many more steps, reminders, and the necessity of someone at his elbow the entire time, talking him through it.

The monumental difference in our relationship has little to do with his inability to empty the dishwasher or wash his hands after he takes a dump – the latter which is then spread across his fingertips. It has to do with “mutuality” – something that Dementia has decimated.

“Think of mutuality as being on the same page as your spouse in terms of love, trust, benefit, and support. You don’t have to agree on everything, but you must understand how each other perceive things.” Liz Pekler

When one person in a relationship is cognitively impaired and declining there is no longer mutuality. I am not a wife but a nurse. He is no longer capable of being a functioning adult let alone a husband.

I want the mutuality of respect, trust, support, and love with another person.

And yet society continues clinging to status quo expectations regarding what marriage means. Signing off “until death do us part” somehow bamboozles me into remaining in a bitter, empty, lonely existence.

Why don’t you just leave him?

The aforementioned commitment is important to me. But, in my estimation, sticking around doesn’t entail losing my sanity. I can keep my marital vows and care for him as well as feeding my own needs, including being with someone else. Besides, if his siblings won’t admit anything is wrong and take him for coffee to give me a break, why would they ever agree to take charge of his well-being 24/7?

Why do you need sex?

I ask you: Why do you NOT need or want it? Why do people need oxygen, water, shelter, or affection? I will not apologize or feel shame for my high sex drive.

Why can’t you just buck up and make it through?

This has a really complicated answer that could make for an entire hospital bed-sized book. It might be better explained in some of my other articles, such as this one or this piece about the idiocy of this disease.

I can buck up. I will make it through. Partially because my self-care involves the relationship of which you don’t approve.

Other reasons?

What other reasons am I missing? Because I honestly would like to know why no one is hearting me on the traditional websites. While Ashley Madison’s bombardment offered choices-a-plenty, I’m swimming solo in a very large lake that no one wants to join me in.

You don’t want to come in for a dip, dear sir? It’s a terribly weird place but together we sure could have a blast.

© Jennifer J. McDougall 2021