My father with advanced dementia forgets he divorced my mother (over 25 years ago) He is obsessed with getting his family back together. He calls her so frequently, she has blocked him. He doesn’t understand why. He calls me often too, to ask about her, and why he has to live alone, without his family. How do I explain this to him, so he can understand, without destroying his world?
I am so sorry. I don't know if helpful or not, but that's what she did.
Sometimes in advanced age, cognitively-intact people can obsess about 'making things right' or 'repairing relationships' before they die. Usually the people on the other side of those broken relationships have their own issues. Sometimes we can broker a conversation of mutual apology, sometimes not, but it's rare that a divorced spouse would want to 'come home' to live with the person again. And yet, so many elders imagine that this is what they want.
With dementia, the situation is different. There's still that late-in-life desire for making amends, but quite often their day-to-day (imagined) experience is back 40 years ago. Occasionally a long-divorced spouse is persuaded to come back for a visit, and the person with dementia doesn't recognize them - because this person looks 70 and the spouse they miss 'is' 30.
Even if you were able to make him understand that he was divorced, he would have trouble retaining that info ... and it doesn't solve the problem of wanting to rectify the situation.
Therapeutic fibs can help in the moment -- she went to the store, she's visiting her brother, she got a job on the other coast and won't be back til Christmas, or whatever.
But he probably also needs to move forward on whatever is underneath that desire for 'getting his family back together'. Can you -- or the facility chaplain, or a counselor -- help him express what he really wants? The underlying need could be forgiving himself for his part in the separation ... or it could be that he needs to forgive her for not being here with him now ... or it could be that he's lonely and misses the closeness he remembers (accurately or not). If the underlying need is not expressed, no amount of therapeutic fibbing will 'solve' the problem, even though it is enormously helpful in the moment. And even though I heartily agree that it's worth doing, over and over, in order to reduce anxiety and agitation.
If you can find the magic words to relieve the underlying need, this behavior can go away on its own.
It's a tough thing, even for folks who are cognitively present. Good luck!
My Mom divorced my Dad after 25 yrs of marriage then married my Stepdad.
One day when I visited her NH she was agitated. She asked where my Dad and Stepdad were. They were both deceased. I ask her what the problem was. She said somebody needed to come pick up her 3 little girls me being one of them and one of my sisters deceased. That the 3 little girls were driving her crazy.
I told her my Dad was mowing the lawn and Stepdad was at the grocery store.
I told her I would take her three little girls home with me. She was fine with that. She said she needed to take a nap. I left trying to figure out in what realm Mom thought she, Dad and Stepdad were caring for her three little girls. She thought she, Dad, and Stepdad all lived together. The divorce was messy and Dad hated Mom and Stepdad. I had to sit in my car and clear my head before I drove off.
Lies, fibs whatever you want to call them by this point just came natural and rolled out of my mouth without much thought.
Your Dads mind is in a time pre divorce.
The point being that even if he could understand what has happened, he would not be able to retain that information.
Obsessed with getting his family back together... Is there anything you can do or talk to him about on that subject? Who else is there apart from you and your mother? Are there other family members you could talk about and divert his attention that way?
It worked like a charm …. every time … it was a logical and sensible "answer to his questions" and he was satisfied with it. However, often he asked the same question in 10 or 15 minutes so I gave him the same answer and he was satisfied with it. They need to feel that they are doing well and that they are loved.
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