If you don’t think he actually misses his wife, you could still translate this to “I can’t really comprehend or describe the specifics of my own decline, but I can tell things were way better before she died, because that’s a timeline anchor point that’s still available to me.”

I have a friend who was very focused in the early stages on making it possible to stay in their home. Then they ended up spending a lot of time fixated on wanting to go home…to their childhood home, which had been gone for decades. Because it’s not really about a building.

When someone with dementia says something or fixates on something, you have to do some translation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, he wants his wife. I’m a widow, I get it. Check yourself.

+1. He spent decades with his wife, and now he has dementia and misses her. Sounds pretty normal to me. Weird flex on your part, op.

My FIL with dementia is like this too. He doesn’t remember how horrible he was to her.

They don't realize they were horrible. That's why they don't remember. Also if they realize that they were horrible, it would cause a lot of grief, so their brains sort of protect them from that realization, especially as they get older.

My sister forced my mom to confront some of her awful parenting in her 70s and honestly I wish she hadn't. My mom couldn't handle it and it just made it that much harder. At some point you have to accept a person did what they did and let it go because they are too old to be held accountable. Your FIL cannot make up for the way he treated his wife now. I'm okay with people deciding not to care for elderly people who were abusive to them or their loved ones, but I don't see the point in trying to punish them at this age. Either care for them and let it go, or let someone else care for them and move on with your life. You are not going to extract a satisfying penance from an elderly person with dementia. You just aren't.

Uh, no one is punishing him for anything. It's just surprising to hear what he said.
He also claims she died at the end of the staircase in their old home.
No, she died in a bedroom just a few feet away from his.
He also talks about how when his father died, he was a young boy.
I had to remind him that he already was married and had two kids who were beyond toddler age when his father died.

He missed his companion AND he's selfish AND he was mean to her when she was alive. Three things can be true, OP. Humans are complex creatures. If he has dementia, it's only going to get worse. Brace yourself.

Anonymous wrote:Super weird to be judging him and also gleefully reveling in his grief.

Who said I was reveling in his grief? Wow, there are some people here to jump to the worst conclusions.
I grieve my MIL too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, he wants his wife. I’m a widow, I get it. Check yourself.

+1. He spent decades with his wife, and now he has dementia and misses her. Sounds pretty normal to me. Weird flex on your part, op.

My FIL with dementia is like this too. He doesn’t remember how horrible he was to her.

They don't realize they were horrible. That's why they don't remember. Also if they realize that they were horrible, it would cause a lot of grief, so their brains sort of protect them from that realization, especially as they get older.

My sister forced my mom to confront some of her awful parenting in her 70s and honestly I wish she hadn't. My mom couldn't handle it and it just made it that much harder. At some point you have to accept a person did what they did and let it go because they are too old to be held accountable. Your FIL cannot make up for the way he treated his wife now. I'm okay with people deciding not to care for elderly people who were abusive to them or their loved ones, but I don't see the point in trying to punish them at this age. Either care for them and let it go, or let someone else care for them and move on with your life. You are not going to extract a satisfying penance from an elderly person with dementia. You just aren't.

Taking in law bashing to a new low. OP, you are beyond pathetic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, he wants his wife. I’m a widow, I get it. Check yourself.

+1. He spent decades with his wife, and now he has dementia and misses her. Sounds pretty normal to me. Weird flex on your part, op.

My FIL with dementia is like this too. He doesn’t remember how horrible he was to her.

Super weird to be judging him and also gleefully reveling in his grief.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dementia commonly makes people angry and hostile. You just can't take his comments without considering that. My grandfather adored my Dad but when his dementia got bad he was extremely resentful towards my Dad because he was the one who had to take away his car and put stops on his accounts (he was unsafe and was doing stuff like giving money to the IRA (granddad was Irish but had never shown any interest in the IRA before). Dementia is a cruel disease.

Actually, he's very pleasant and sweet in his dementia. He sure wasn't to his wife though.
When he didn't get his way, he would literally pout.

I mean it's not always a binary, and can be directed at particular people.

Anonymous wrote:Dementia commonly makes people angry and hostile. You just can't take his comments without considering that. My grandfather adored my Dad but when his dementia got bad he was extremely resentful towards my Dad because he was the one who had to take away his car and put stops on his accounts (he was unsafe and was doing stuff like giving money to the IRA (granddad was Irish but had never shown any interest in the IRA before). Dementia is a cruel disease.

Actually, he's very pleasant and sweet in his dementia. He sure wasn't to his wife though.
When he didn't get his way, he would literally pout.

Anonymous wrote:No, he wants his wife. I’m a widow, I get it. Check yourself.

+1. He spent decades with his wife, and now he has dementia and misses her. Sounds pretty normal to me. Weird flex on your part, op.

It is depressing but my observation is that it is usually easier if husbands die first because widows seem to do a better job of getting by without their husbands than the reverse. Even in the case of my MIL, who has struggled quite a bit on her own, she still does a good job maintaining friendships, staying busy, staying involved at church. She has grief, which is of course understandable, but she's not sitting around upset that her husband isn't around to look after her.

Most of the men I know who are 70+ and widowers are much more of a burden to their families and act more helpless and angry to be alone. They don't do a great job of maintaining social ties and their personalities calcify somewhat. They are also WAY more likely to somehow find girlfriends (often a decade or so younger) whereas only one of the older widows I know has a boyfriend and he is just a travel companion and sometimes date and doesn't do any caretaking -- the girlfriends always do caretaking.

Some of this is generational and hopefully future generations of men won't be like this, but a lot of the older boomers I know still have some retrograde ideas about gender and it becomes uncomfortably obvious if a wife passes before the husband because yes these men seem to have more expectations for being looked after than the women do.

Dementia commonly makes people angry and hostile. You just can't take his comments without considering that. My grandfather adored my Dad but when his dementia got bad he was extremely resentful towards my Dad because he was the one who had to take away his car and put stops on his accounts (he was unsafe and was doing stuff like giving money to the IRA (granddad was Irish but had never shown any interest in the IRA before). Dementia is a cruel disease.

No, he wants his wife. I’m a widow, I get it. Check yourself.

My MIL passed away over a year ago and FIL has been alone since then.
He has creeping dementia and someone looks after him daily for a portion of the day. Family nearby will take him out to meals on a daily basis.

Recently he was found crying and stated that if MIL was still there "everything would be different".
While it sounds sad, I also interpret it as a continuation of him always putting the responsibility on her. And whoa, was he mean to her when she was alive, snidely putting her down when he could.
Maybe I'm wrong but I find it galling.