We can’t judge dementia divorcees

In yesterday’s Femail, a lawyer wrote of the increase in what she calls the ‘dementia divorce’. apparently, increasing numbers of spousal carers are desperate to escape their marriage, no longer able to cope.

One imagines a good care home would solve more problems than a bad divorce, but who can know the horror that goes on behind closed doors? dementia can make formerly loving people unrecognisable: helplessly vacant, angry, violent, over-sexed, confused or frightened. their life as they knew it is over — and, often, as their spouse, so is yours.

reading MailOnline comments on the article opened a heart-breaking window to this silent suffering. the grandfather who called the police at 2am to tell them his grandson was trying to kill him. the 98-year-old woman who looked frail, but needed four people to restrain her. the 82-year-old who’s been caring for her 94-year-old husband who, for 15 years, has had dementia that’s turned him into a critical, unkind, demanding agoraphobic.

there’s the exhausted wife who took a year to regain her health after her husband died. the grandmother who is aggressive and endlessly repeats herself, making life a torture for her husband.

and another husband, who’s had dementia for more than a decade, takes five showers a night, knocks on neighbours’ doors at 3am and leaves the gas on and taps running. His wife has constant panic attacks, high blood pressure and depression.

some readers were shocked by the idea of leaving their suffering partner. One wrote: ‘I took my vows seriously and will love and care for her to my last breath.’

another had a different view: ‘dementia destroys everything. your finances, your dreams, your marriage, your sense of self; everything is subsumed by the soul-crushing grind of being a care-giver to the empty shell of your spouse.’

the important lesson is that it is impossible for any of us to judge unless we have suffered ourselves. and that we must all try to help those who are going through this torment.