We’ve talked about love during caregiving, but I have not been forthright about sex. We don’t talk about that in polite society as my mother would assert.
A visiting carer who came by to see Burt was not so circumspect. She suggested I should connect with someone in circumstances like my own. “It’s not cheating,” she assured me; “don’t think of it as cheating.”
To be honest, sex with anyone, even with my beloved whose confusion made sex impossible, would have been a ridiculous distraction. It would have proven a diversion. My focus was needed elsewhere. Caregiving takes a lot of concentrated energy.
Burt, like many suffering from dementia, did have bouts with hypersexuality; these were a muddle.
Eventually, he calmed down until talk of sexual contact was a kind of conversational gambit.
I would say, “if I took you up on those suggestions, you’d run for the hills” and he would smile. We were on the other side of this behavioral issue.
Sex, like so much else we’d lost to dementia, was no longer among the common shorthands of our marriage. It was another loss I mourned.
Between the ED not uncommon in dementia patients, the lack of filters, and the discombobulation of the hows of love making, you might feel a nice cuddle is all the intimacy you’ll have. That and the love in your heart for the spouse you’re losing.
There remained a lot of affection between us. I hugged him often, even over the bedrails, we kissed regularly, and held hands as much as possible. The last few days, I let go of the touching as well, but before that PDA was definitely our style. It had always been our style, just ask the driver who yelled at us get a room many years ago when he went by on 11th Avenue.
There will always be memories.
this is our life 