Hello, @milomiles I commend you for the courage of your post!

As caregivers we always know more about what our loved one is going through in changes than we like to admit, I think. At least that was true with my wife and me. Driving was a tough one, but I also know it was crucial for my wife to stop long before she thought she should. There are too many dangers on the road to have impaired drivers out there. I also had to take over all finances in order to protect what we had left. Again, it was too important to allow her to continue with that work for the family. Thankfully we also did all of our end-of-life planning early, which turned out to be critical as she suddenly was not competent to sign those kinds of legal documents.

All I can say about the future is it is not promised to anyone, nor are we guaranteed our early dreams of how it "should" be. We can only celebrate that we have the future we do. While terribly hard to embrace, I believe it is important to celebrate what we have day by day.

As far as talking about my wife's condition, it was her desire to not share any of the specifics of her journey beyond immediate family and just two friends. Others find it therapeutic to publish their journey and/or share it widely. That was just not her style. Because of how my wife's mental capacities deteriorated, most of our friends ghosted on us, so that took care of itself. I do believe as a caregiver it is far too debilitating and exhausting to try and cover up the shortcomings of our loved one. To us, honesty was the best policy, especially as the demands of caregiving escalated more and more and demanded all of my available energy an time. Caregiving becomes all consuming and trying to pretend reality isn't real just adds to the exhaustion of caregivers. I also made sure we gave HIPPA approval to my wife's doctors t to share directly with our adult children. This helped me not have to be the constant communications hub and they were sure to get exactly the same information I was getting from the doctors.

Thank you for posting and please feel free to ask any questions or remind me if I missed things from your post.

I wish you Strength, Courage, & Peace