I believe I've been underestimating his dementia and how much his interactive capacities are affected by it. I did some reading this eve on line about vascular dementia. I am finding that finding your partner with this disease just doesn't talk much to you is pretty common. It's also common, I'm reading, that the caregiving partner gets angry, feels rejected and considers things as deliberate and wilful that aren't. No one tells you this stuff. You have to keep researching and figure it out.

I'm reading that these brain changes can actually make him feel indifferent toward me. I've been crying, feeling sorrow that I can't expect his feelings for me to be all that strong. Some of what I've been demanding that he understand probably really is beyond him. The long silences, my reading tells me, is the dementia.

I guess I'm just going to be more and more alone while with him. He's here with me, but in a way he's not here. The things I just read explain that it isn't just his memory that's going. His capacities to feel and care are going also. I read that apathy is part of what happens. What he sees when he looks at me isn't what he used to see. Me being mad and frustrated with him is just further damaging the remnant of the bond between us. He literally is unable to keep in mind all I expect him to think about.

I think I'll be more understanding.

It scares me that this could happen to me someday. I'll be alone. The prospect of losing so much of your mind, while you are still alive, is horrifying.

I guess I'll try to be nicer, so that what's left of his love for me doesn't whither away faster than it has to. Neither his adult children, nor my family realize how much this is for me to cope with. I feel angry that they all don't care more. It's not there problem, so . . .