Having a Good Attitude, Even When Your Wife Has Alzheimer’s

by | Alzheimer's / Dementia, Communication, Quality of Life

It can be hard to stay positive when your loved one doesn’t recognize you.  

Imagine being married for more than 60 years and then having your spouse have to move away.
Imagine spending more than 60 years living with your loved one and then only being able to visit a few times a week.
Imagine your loved one forgetting your name and who you are and all of the things you did together.

John Barnes has had to live through these problems since his wife, Jane, moved to Memory Care because of Alzheimer’s in 2021. It hasn’t been an easy journey for John, but he has learned to keep a good attitude about things and appreciate the moments he can still spend with his wife.

John talks to his son, Mike Barnes, a co-founder of Parenting Aging Parents, about that good attitude and how a support group and finding special moments has helped him through the process.

Read the full transcript

Transcript of Interview: “Having a Good Attitude, Even When Your Wife Has Alzheimer’s”

Mike Barnes: We’re going to talk a little bit about, I guess you could say, dealing with the grieving process but having the right attitude. I have to brag on this man—it’s my dad—because he definitely has the right attitude about handling things. It’s been more than three years now since Mom was moved into memory care.

John Barnes: Yes, and after, I guess at the time, it was 61 years of marriage, but now 64 years of marriage. You’re by yourself here.

Mike Barnes: Yeah, and you go visit her sometimes three times a week, sometimes two, sometimes four, depending on what’s going on, but usually it’s three times a week. The thing that I think my sister and I and everyone in the family are so proud of you about is that you’ve had such a great attitude. Because quite truthfully, my mom has stage six Alzheimer’s. I just went to visit her today. She didn’t recognize me. She couldn’t believe that I was her son because I’m too old—I’m older than her. But you’re able to laugh about so much stuff that she talks about and that she does. How are you able to do that? How are you able to have that type of attitude?

John Barnes: Well, through pictures. I always go see her, I always take all the pictures I have, which is probably 150 pictures. Sometimes we go through 50 or 60, and they’re printed pictures, not on your phone.

Mike Barnes: Oh, no, big pictures of our family.

John Barnes: That’s right, and she—you can see a glimmer in her eyes when she goes through them. She doesn’t know who they are, but I always tell her who they are and what their age is and everything else. That seems to help. It is tough, but it just seems to brighten up her day when she can see the pictures when Mike and Diane were little. She says, “Is that our two? Do we have more?” And I say, “No, no more, just the two, just the two.” So, the pictures really, really help.

Mike Barnes: I know it bothers a lot of people who have relatives with Alzheimer’s, especially when it’s a parent with any type of dementia, but especially with Alzheimer’s when they don’t recognize you anymore. You actually call me when you’ll go to visit her, and she’ll ask if you are her dad.

John Barnes: Yes.

Mike Barnes: And you’re able to smile about it and laugh about it. Again, how do you do that, Dad?

John Barnes: Well, I just know where she’s coming from, and I just prepare for whatever thing she throws out at me. I try to go back to her with a positive note, and so far, it seems to be working. We have great visits, you know? She always reminds me that we used to travel a lot. I say, “That’s right, we did,” and I start naming every place that we used to go. She says, “Wow, we’ve been around.” So anyway, that helps more than anything.

Mike Barnes: It always amazes me when every once in a while, something comes up where she’s able to remember something, at least just a little bit. I call it finding the cheese, as opposed to anything, the holes in the cheese. It’s finding the cheese, and it kind of gives you, personally, and it gives me, but when she does that, it gives you—not hope—but it just gives you a little bit of happiness because you realize that the old Mom is back, at least for a second.

John Barnes: That’s true, yes. Well, this morning, we called her brother in Amarillo, and at the close, she jumped in there and said goodbye. Sometimes I have to force her to say that, but she did it on her own this morning. She said goodbye anyway, so you just never know. I never know from each visit.

Mike Barnes: I know that you’re part of a support group here in the town where you live in the Dallas area. That’s helped you a lot, hasn’t it?

John Barnes: Oh, gosh, yes, it has. Yes, it makes me really appreciate where Mom is because they’re taking care of her and everything. Some of the people in the support group are having to take care of their loved ones in their house.

Mike Barnes: It wears them down, doesn’t it?

John Barnes: 24 hours a day, and they’re just worn out.

Mike Barnes: Some people, unfortunately, don’t have the luxury or the chance to be able to use memory care or something like that. But I want to talk more about the support group because when I first signed up for it three years ago, I was afraid you would go to one because I think it was on Zoom when it first started. You would do it once and say, “Son, I’m done with this, I don’t want to do this ever again,” but you have been a regular visitor to that support group ever since.

John Barnes: Yeah, I think I go there because I appreciate my position more than anything else and what my wife is going through. That really, really helps me. I’m just so tickled to death to go to that because everybody in that support group has problems, and it’s a plus.

Mike Barnes: I know that you’ve been very vocal to some of them, saying, “You don’t need to visit so much.”

John Barnes: Oh, yeah, most of them come in there and they want to visit every day. I say, “You don’t need to do that.”

Mike Barnes: You thought about that early on.

John Barnes: Oh, yes, I did. I wanted to go see her every day. No, no, no. The doctor said, “You can’t do that.” So, you’ve got to cut it back. When she first went into memory care, I went to see her twice a week. Then I’ve increased that to where it’s three times a week now, and most of the time, the third time, I either take her out to lunch or we go get an ice cream cone or something like that. But it makes a big difference. If you’re there every day, I think it’s wearing on both sides.

Mike Barnes: Which is what we were worried about with you, wearing you down. Has there been a chance for you to help tell other people how you’re able to keep that good attitude? Because I think it’s hard for a lot of people to laugh or to smile when someone with Alzheimer’s thinks that you’re someone else. Like me today, when Mom didn’t recognize me, it can be hard to laugh, but you have to have that type of attitude.

John Barnes: That’s right, you do.

Mike Barnes: How do you tell other people that?

John Barnes: It’s hard to tell somebody. I mean, you just got to keep a positive attitude and don’t let what your spouse says to you or what a personal friend says to you get you down. You’ve got to be positive about everything, and that’s what comes out with the pictures. The pictures are the best thing that you could ever do because it goes back to when we first got married and all the way through different pictures with the kids and everything else. Some of our trips, like to Alaska and Lake Tahoe—she remembers that because she points to the picture of Lake Tahoe. She says, “Oh, the mountains,” she says, “That’s up in the mountains and out west.” I say, “That’s right, it sure is.”

Mike Barnes: Finding some cheese sometimes.

John Barnes: That’s right, yeah.

Mike Barnes: One more time, I want to go back to your attitude because is it partly because of your personality and y’all’s relationship for 64 years of marriage that lets you accept these things a little bit better? Because let’s go back, the first two weeks of Mom in memory care were terrible, and even the first couple of months were not easy on you because you missed her so much.

John Barnes: I did.

Mike Barnes: But you have been able to have such a great attitude for the last almost three years.

John Barnes: That’s right.

Mike Barnes: I think you could show a lot of people how to do that. Is it part of it because of your personality and y’all’s relationship over the last 64 years?

John Barnes: I guess it could be. I don’t know how it’s worked, but maybe some chemistry there between the two of us has worked. Although she would like to come home with me, she mentions that, and I say, “We can’t right now, we can’t do it. You’ve got to stay in memory care, and I’ve got to stay with physical care.” So, the two haven’t met yet, but we’re still working on it. I keep telling her we’re working on trying to get together. Anyway, that’s been working.

Mike Barnes: I think you’re a great role model for a lot of the people in Parenting Aging Parents because it’s not easy going through what you’ve been going through, and you’ve set a great standard for everyone. Thank you for doing that.

John Barnes: Oh, sure, thank you. Thank you and Diane for helping me.

Mike Barnes: Well, we’re just trying to help.

John Barnes: Couldn’t have made it without them, couldn’t have made it.

Mike Barnes: Hey, if you have any other topics you’d like us to discuss, please let us know. Parenting Aging Parents.

*This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or mistakes.

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