Mike’s story in today’s episode reminds me of the controversy faced by Dan Gasby, the husband of celebrity chef B. Smith. After B. was diagnosed in 2013 with early onset Alzheimer’s, Dan served as her caretaker. He also fell in love with another woman.
There’s a link in this 2020 obituary for B. that takes you to the Washington Post article describing the situation and some of the backlash Dan faced … though apparently, Dan and his girlfriend have broken up. Meantime, I posed the question about dating while married on my personal Facebook page. (I have a lot of longtime married friends). One woman told me: “I was just discussing this with my husband. We both feel the same way. It would feel like cheating. It would never occur to [either of us] to find someone else under those circumstances.”
Another wrote, “Until I walk in those shoes (God forbid) I will not judge. We can assume, hope or aspire but we will never truly know. Live and let live!” And from another longtime married woman: “There are so many what-ifs. If your spouse totally forgets you and it could be years … who knows. I shouldn’t judge someone in such a difficult decision. Should two lives be lost? As the spouse, I would still love and care and be involved in the care of my spouse.”
Transcript
MIKE
There are widowers, there are widows, there are people like in my situation where it’s horrible. It’s the worst kind of death because it’s a death, but it’s not.
LAURA STASSI
This is Dating While Gray: The Grown-Up’s Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships. I’m Laura Stassi. Today’s topic? No one dares think about. Until it happens to them. You might find it uncomfortable, but please stick with us. It’s important to discuss, as more and more of us may face this dilemma.
Romantic Love in Limbo. That’s next.
When I think of losing a partner, I recall a heartbreaking Modern Love Essay. It was called “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” It was written by a children’s book author in Chicago. She’d been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This writer’s essay was in the form of a dating site profile she wrote for her husband of 26 years. Ten days after the essay was published, she died at the age of 51.
So this, of course, is a very public example of a couple having the “what if” discussion. You know, what if something happens. I want you to find someone else. I love you so much, I want you to be happy without me.
Some couples have this talk as part of everyday conversation. I know this because I posed the question on my personal Facebook page. I have a lot of friends who have been married a long time. One woman’s comment: “Married 37 years. Yes, this has been discussed … probably more as we’ve gotten older. We’ve mentioned that it doesn’t have to mean marriage per se, but very important to stay connected and active, and to have a partner who one can truly share with.” End quote. Another woman said she and her husband of 40 years have quote, casually talked about it. I’ve encouraged him to remarry if I go first. End quote.
For some couples, the talk is sparked by a health crisis. Like Anthony. He’s 68 and lives in California. When Anthony was in college, he started dating the woman who became his wife. They had daughter and were married for more than 45 years. Around 2019, Anthony’s wife was diagnosed with cancer. It’s an all-too-common story with an unhappy ending. She had surgery, and chemo … they thought it was under control, but then it returned. Anthony’s wife died about a year ago.
ANTHONY
My last few years when I was her caretaker, she always said you’re social and you’re outgoing and here you are, you’re stuck here taking care of me. And my response was, well, the vows said sickness and in health, so here I am. And I’m happy to be here and don’t worry about the social stuff. It’s not important. And so, you know, I became a bit of a recluse myself.
But she and the daughter had discussions. They were worried about dad. What’s dad going to do after I’m gone? And so my daughter kind of kept an eye on me. And then when the time was right, after about month seven, I woke up one day and the flood of grief had receded long enough for me to realize, holy crap, I’m lonely. I’m terribly lonely. I’m painfully lonely. 6:25 then I started, my daughter and I started talking and I got on online dating.
LAURA STASSI
Okay, so hold on just a second. So your wife was talking to your daughter. Did your wife and you, did you ever have a conversation about after I’m gone, I want you to meet somebody, I want you to be happy or?
ANTHONY
She just kind of assumed and worried that after she was gone, she just expected me to find somebody else, because she knows that I don’t do by myself very well. so she had talked about it, but her main thrust was, don’t find some blonde 30 something that’s going to get inside your head and get all of our money. Our daughter gets all our money. So don’t find yourself one of these gold diggers.
LAURA STASSI
Let’s just for all the blondes out there, it could have been a brunette gold digger. It could have been a redhead gold digger.
ANTHONY
I agree, I concur, I concur, but I assured her that no flavor of gold digger was going to get in my head. I’m all about our daughter.
LAURA STASSI:
Dating isn’t necessarily coming easy to Anthony … but he’s tackling it, with support from his daughter. And, before she died, with permission from his wife.
But what happens when you haven’t talked about dating with your spouse … and, when he or she is no longer able to have that conversation. You promised to stick around for the better AND the worse, for health AND in sickness … Is there a way to honor those vows without losing your spirit, or your hopes for any kind of romantic future? That’s what’s confronting this man.
MIKE
My name is Mike and I am a business owner and I have been married now 48 years, 50 years I’ve been with my wife We met in college. I’m a year older, so I was already living in the dormitory where we were going to school. And both of us were in two different towers. She was in the female tower. I was in the male tower. And we used to do all these social things before the…before the school year to get started. And so we had this mass football game out on the quad. And the first way we met was we were playing flag football and I tackled her. That was, yeah.
LAURA STASSI
You’re just supposed to pull the flag, Mike. Come on now.
MIKE
You know, we laughed and it was funny and all this kind of stuff. we never really started dating always, probably a year and a half or two years later.
LAURA STASSI
Okay, well fun fact, when I was a freshman in college, I too played flag football and actually went out on a date or two with my coach.
MIKE: Yeah.
LAURA Okay, so you started dating, fell in love, got married.
MIKE It was great. Originally we lived in the northwest and we you know we just started our life together. We were both working and we were involved in our church and we had good friends. I guess it was 1999 we moved. moved to San Diego. She’s a tough lady, man. mean, she was the boss in charge. She was big executive for three different major lending institutions, was the Northwest director for, I guess it was B of A at the time. She was in charge. mean, it was great. But It’s not to say that everything was perfect. I mean, we started a business here locally in 2004.
While I started the business and was running the business, she had to go back in order for us to have a living and make money. So she went back to one of the lending institutions in San Diego for about two years. And then we said that was kind of enough.
LAURA STASSI You started the business and then she worked elsewhere to bring in money while you got the business going.
MIKE
Well, we both started it together, but within about four to six months, it was very clear that that it was going to take more of our saved resources to get the business going. So at that point, because she had had a really good job in San Diego and because they offered her a great salary to come back, it was like, okay, so we made the adjustments necessary. She went back there while I stayed here. She would fly back and forth every week. So on the weekends she would be here, during the week she would be back there. So it was tough.
LAURA STASSI But it sounds at the same time like a very vibrant relationship. You all were living and growing together and with the natural ups and downs that come with a marriage, but you were still a team, it sounds like, in every way. So you never had marital issues to the point where you were thinking of divorce.
MIKE No, no. mean, it was that’s and I guess that’s kind of what in some ways prompted my email to you is that I’m going, OK, I hear all these stories and that’s terrible. And I feel bad for those people. But that’s not my story. And I enjoy the show and I enjoy the conversations and the interviews and all that. It’s just that I can’t relate. I mean, I can relate in the sense of what their desires are, what their wants are, what their needs are, that I can relate to. But the context and how we get there, I just couldn’t relate to it.
LAURA STASSI
Mike is experiencing what’s called ambiguous loss. The pain and sadness are profound, even when there’s no physical death associated with those emotions. For Mike, this journey started in late 2018. That’s when his grown daughters mentioned they thought something wasn’t quite right with Mom, Mike’s wife Cheri. Mike hadn’t really noticed anything … but then started paying close attention. That led to medical appointments.
MIKE
So we started unraveling everything. Well, it wasn’t a food allergy. It wasn’t physical. She was in perfect physical condition. It wasn’t psychological that they did. And there’s nothing there, which left neurological. So we said, okay. So that was the last test and we went in to get this test and we just so happened that the person that we went to had knowledge and had background in this particular disease. It’s the same disease that Bruce Willis has.
LAURA STASSI
Ugh, heartbreaking. So was she aware that something was going on?
MIKE
Okay, so up until we started doing all the testing, it didn’t really seem like she was. But then when she would start going to the doctors and they’d ask her to do stuff and her testing, know, she would, like especially the neurological part, then she couldn’t do certain kinds of things. Then she began to be aware of what was going on. And so there was some, yeah, then there was an awareness to it.
LAURA STASSI
So she got an official diagnosis of this 2019. One that I’m sorry, I just, I don’t know if you could even begin to describe telling your kids, talking about it with each other.
MIKE Well, the beauty of our family is that we are all pretty connected and we talk a lot and we’re pretty tight family and we’re supportive of each other. So it’s not like, okay, I’ve got this really hard thing I got to go tell the kids. They were with us. When I took her in, it was all three of us with her. Towards the end of 19, early In 2020, we started realizing that, okay, there were some other things that she needed attention during the day, right? So we sold her car, you know, so she couldn’t drive, because she was driving out in the middle of nowhere and we’re going, okay, this is not good, not safe anymore. So we got her in home care. and then towards the end of 2020 we increased the number of hours per week.
LAURA STASSI And meanwhile, you’re trying to work and keep this business going while this is happening.
MIKE
Correct, right. I’m still doing, now I’m in basically doing everything again, right? I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep because I’d have to be really sleep really lightly because she would get up in the middle of the night and go do something and just that’s just this disease they just they get an idea let’s go do that well there’s no understanding of is that a smart thing to do is that a safe thing to do. And then the big issue happened. One of the things that happens with this disease is everything is oral. Right. So food just like goes in like crazy. Anything to eat, man. They’ll eat anything. It’s just it’s a weird kind of dynamic. Now, not everybody with FDD has this.
But that’s a pretty common characteristic, right? What I didn’t realize is that she was sneaking wine and she just wasn’t stopping. Normally she would have had a glass and that was it. Well, now she was just like, it, because it was this oral thing, I just need to keep doing this. So one afternoon, Sunday afternoon, she’s taking a bath, okay fine. So I went in to try to help her, because she was struggling to get out of the bath. I said, okay, well, let’s go help her get out of the bath. She slips and before I can grab her, she falls on her shoulder and literally shatters her humerus.
LAURA STASSI
Goodness.
MIKE
That event sent her down a rabbit hole. There was that sudden impact, whatever it was, made a massive change in her demeanor. She almost immediately lost about 90 % of her speech. mean, she’d already lost some, but all of a sudden it was like very, very little that was left. I was to the point where I just couldn’t keep doing everything. And it was one of the counselors that basically made a statement to me that has been my mantra the whole time. And they said, you can be one of two things. You can’t be in both. You can either be the caregiver or her husband, but you cannot be both.
LAURA STASSI
Okay, I think that’s so important. I appreciate hearing that because so many times we think, well, of course I need to be the caregiver because I am the spouse.
LAURA STASSI
Did you all ever have a conversation about what might happen next? Like a really heart to heart about what she wanted for herself.
MIKE
Yeah, you know, that’s such a good question. you know, I’m embarrassed to say we didn’t. That wasn’t a priority. It was get her healthy, get her into therapy, get the arm back to working again. All of these things, there was just everything all at once, right? And it probably was, I don’t know, four to six months after we had placed her in that community that it began to hit me. That’s when it hit me. went, geez. I hadn’t thought about this. And now we have this extended period of time for however long because that’s the thing. It’s a terminal disease, but they can’t tell you how long. Nobody knows.
LAURA STASSI
Cheri has a type of dementia known as FTD. Mike moved her to a care community in 2021. He visits frequently, though Cheri is unable to speak — and he doesn’t think she recognizes him or their daughters. Still, they play her music, maybe take her for a walk, or a drive. When Mike isn’t with Cheri, he has a busy life. Still, he’s lonely. And he’s uncertain if there’s anything he can do about it. We’ll hear more from Mike. Plus we’ll get some insights from a therapist. That’s after the break.
BREAK
LAURA STASSI
I’m Laura Stassi, and we’re back with this episode of Dating While Gray, called Romantic Love in Limbo. I decided to tackle the topic after hearing from Mike. He’s steadily, and surely, losing his wife to a form of dementia. I think understandably, he’s lonely for companionship.
MIKE
Yeah, I mean, as I tell people though, said, what are you supposed to do? I mean,
LAURA STASSI
Well, that, you know, what are you supposed to do? Because it sounds like you’ve talked about dating with your friends. You said that friends were suggesting you date.
MIKE
Yeah. It’s interesting, they came to me first. I didn’t go to them, they came to me, a lot of them. It’s because they’ve had family members or whatever who’ve had some sort of dementia. And so they’re telling me stories and I go, okay, that’s great. Every situation is different. The challenge is that I am. lonely and I do miss going home and having a conversation and having intellectual intimacy, having emotional, doing things in common, fixing dinner together,
LAURA STASSI
Companionship. Touch. Physical touch.
MIKE
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, just any of that that you would normally get with, well, not necessarily married, but any kind of personal intimate relationship, right? And so, I mean, I miss that. I mean, and it’s something that’s missing out of my life. Now, having said that, I am not isolated at all. I have multiple business groups, CEO groups I’m part of. I have other business groups that I get involved. That’s where I was today is actually at a business meeting this morning. So, I mean, I have interactions with my staff and I have interaction with these business groups and do other things. And I have a few friends that I will go to lunch with or go to dinner with or whatever. That’s all well and good.
It’s not the same thing. My daughter, my oldest daughter says, well, know, because I’ll say, you know, I’m just, I’m just feeling really lonely today, you know? And she goes, well, you need to get into a, you know, a men’s group or something. I’m going, okay, first of all, I’m already in, from that standpoint, I already have about 150 people that fit into that category already, okay?
You don’t get it. That’s not it. you know, of course she doesn’t. She’s got her own family. She’s got her husband. They do great. They have their small groups. do their… They get a full life. That’s great. I don’t.
LAURA STASSI
Let me ask you something, Mike, because you’ve been talking earlier about how everything you know, you’re a very close family. And I understand and appreciate that togetherness, but it sounds like you need permission from your kids to date. Okay, I’m not trying to push you with, yeah, you should get out there, buddy.
MIKE
That challenge is also a result of being a close family. On the one hand, yeah, we’re close, can talk about things and we do things and it’s all great. But it’s also they still have their mom in mind. They still have and it’s like, OK, well, that doesn’t jive. And you know, I get it. she and I were. have been, are, monogamous for 50 years. The problem is now what you see is a shell of that person, who the person was on the inside, in the brain, the personality and stuff. That’s gone.
I’m involved in a FDD support group. one of the term that is used very often is ambiguous loss. Yes, it’s a loss, but it’s an ambiguous loss because it’s not really a loss, but it is. It’s like, okay, what is it? I think that’s a great term, actually.
LAURA STASSI
Sure, but you said earlier the therapist, she said you could be her caretaker or her husband. You can’t be both. And they might lose you if you decided to take the caretaker role because of how exhausting and what a burden it would be. But I would submit that you could be lost as well, if you continue on this path, even though you’re not her primary caretaker anymore, but if you continue in the, I don’t know, traditional husband role, that could come at a personal cost.
MIKE
Yeah. I’ve given that a great deal of thought. I mean, it’s a harsh reality of where we are. I have friends that tell me why don’t you go out and do this and go do that and everything. You’ve got a thriving company. I’m going okay let me explain something to you. I don’t think you really understand the financial cost here. I said, I just want you to do something for me. Take your take-home pay — not your gross, take your take-home pay — and subtract eight grand a month out of that. That’s my world. So between time and money, mean, okay, well, so that’s another frustration. It’s like, okay, well, what do you do?
LAURA STASSI
Would you consider talking to a therapist about specifically about the dating issue? Because it feels, mean, even if you put very tight parameters around dating. You — what does dating mean? Is it okay to have a cup of coffee with somebody else who might be going through the same thing? Could you have dinner together? I mean, would you want to know ways to approach that with your kids? Or do you feel like that’s just not even a road you want to go down?
MIKE
I have gently broached, you know, circumstances and whatever with them. My oldest is probably the one that’s the most, I think, resistant. She’s 10 years older than her sister, so she’s been with her mom a lot longer. There’s a lot more invested there. I had a friend of mine say, well, if you’re going to date, she gave me all these dating sites that she goes to, and she goes, this is how you do it. And I’m going, okay. but here’s the problem, I’m not single and I’m not divorced. And she goes, well, just say you’re a widower, and then when you have the first conversation, tell them. I’m going, yeah, I’m not sure. That kind of sounds sketchy, you know? So I’m going, yeah, I’m going, mm, that’s kind of … I said thank you, you know, but I’m not sure that’s all that, you know?
LAURA STASSI
No, I don’t advocate for that either. I think it will take a special person to understand and to honor your relationship with your wife while building a gentle relationship with you.
MIKE
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that would be ideal, but I’m not sure how to even find that. That’s the challenge.
LAURA STASSI
So heartbreaking. I turned to Linda Hershman for insights. She’s a marriage and family therapist near Philadelphia.
LINDA HERSHMAN
That is such a tough one, and I agree. I think it’s going to become more and more common. Especially as we are living longer and longer lives. And there are more quote-unquote advances to keep people alive. In an ideal world, this would be something couples would have conversations about before it becomes an actual problem that one person has to deal with. What that might look like is — and it’s not a conversation, it’s ongoing conversations that, for example, if I’m diagnosed with a progressive neurological disorder, can I have a conversation with my husband about what I want for him. And at what point I might say yes, if I don’t remember you, you should be seeking company where you can find it. Still like you to come visit, just in case I have a moment of remembering. However, you know, I would like to be that bigger person. I would like to be able to offer that generosity. And when might this be triggered? You know, if I still am remembering my people and remembering most of my life story, probably not the time for him to start dating.
That’s a really hard conversation to have, and there are people who say you married me for life and now you just have to wait till I die. Some of it is personal beliefs, some of it is religious beliefs, some of it feels like moral or ethical. And I would not be telling anybody what they should do in situations like that, other than if you can start having those conversations and lay expectations, expectations and even, if need be, while you can still have those conversations with your children, that your father and I, or your mother and I, have talked about this and when I get to this point, they have my blessing to have companionship.
LAURA STASSI
I would also say, what is the definition of being a spouse? I mean, can you be a loving spouse and still want to pursue romantic companionship with someone else? I mean, I know it’s a horrible thing to even think about. But you’re right, I think if we could all have those conversations.
LINDA HERSHMAN
Well, and I would give that question back to you and ask you, is it possible to be a loving spouse by acknowledging the reality that if you can’t be present for your spouse, that you want them to have love, that you want them to be loved and, as I said, I’m not taking a position.
LAURA STASSI
Right.
LINDA HERSHMAN
It’s not for everybody. What I would suggest is, if you’re going to be confronting that, get good supports in place. Again, this is something to be working through with a therapist. Or maybe working through with a spiritual advisor or strong supports in your life who can be objective and have don’t have skin in the game. This is not the kind of thing that you want to go and ask all your friends. What do you think I should do? Because, guaranteed, if you ask 10 people, you’re going to get 11 opinions.
LAURA STASSI
And I’m thinking, maybe this is not something you talk about with your kids. I mean, maybe if you’re keeping this private, that doesn’t mean it’s a secret, but maybe this is something that they shouldn’t weigh in on at all.
LINDA HERSHMAN
Absolutely, and they have more skin in the game than anybody.
LAURA STASSI
You know, hearing from another listener reminds me that the “what if” conversation is important for couples regardless of their legal marital status.
This is what she wrote: “I was married 23 years, divorced, and then found the love of my life. I matched with him on a dating app and for me, it was love at first site. But after five years of committed bliss, he was diagnosed with a rare brain disease for which there is no cure or effective treatment. We divided our two jointly purchased homes, and now I’m in a sort of love limbo as his disease progresses. I have grown kids and grandkids that I want to spend time with, especially when I retire in a few years. So I’m lonely in a relationship I feel tied to. My partner is a wonderful person and until the disease manifested, we were cruising on love.”
OK, everyone. Let’s all give each other as much grace and understanding as we want for ourselves.
Finally, I’m ending this episode with a note about what you’ll hear next week in the Dating While Gray podcast queue. It’s an episode of To See Each Other, a show that complicates the narrative about small town Americans in our most misunderstood, and often abandoned, communities.
This season, host George Goehl travels to Lincoln County, Wisconsin to follow a small- town battle for the last remaining public nursing home in the community. George goes deep into questions of aging in America, public vs. private long-term care, and the nuts and bolts of good old-fashioned organizing. I’m honored that the folks of To See Each Other specifically asked for the Dating While Gray audience to hear the first episode of their new season. It’s a show that expands the concept of older people and our ability to keep on keeping on.
Thanks in advance for listening to it. And we’ll back the Thursday after next – November! — with new episodes of Dating While Gray.
END CREDITS
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I’m Laura Stassi. Thanks so much for listening.
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