TLDR to start: my mom was diagnosed with dementia about 2 years ago and things have gotten increasingly worse. I am often overwhelmed by pain and sadness and my partner feels like she is neglected and used as a provider of comfort. Don't know what to do...

Hi all,

I (40M) have been with my partner (40F) for a very long time. We started dating out of high school. We have a wonderful daughter (5) and we love each other. We have had ups and downs like everyone, but I feel love and mutual attraction kept us together.

Two years ago my mother was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of dementia and this hit me like a ton of bricks. Things have gotten worse over the last two years and now my mom is in a care facility, basically unable to talk or recognize most people. It has been the hardest period of my life, and two years (and counting...) are a long time. Recently my partner had a breakdown saying that she felt that I had lost interest in her, that I didn't find her fascinating anymore, and that I had been swallowed by this immense sadness I feel for my mom.

Unfortunately I think she is right. I love her very much and I am attracted to her, but very often in the last years I have been overwhelmed by sadness and anxiety and have looked for comfort and reassurance in her. Now she feels like comfort and care is all I take from her and she needs to feel like a couple again, rather than two people in a weird comforter-comforted relationship.

I agree with her and I aspire with all my heart to get that feeling of mutual attraction and fascination back, but I feel like my mind is incapable of that under this circumstance. I've tried to keep a smiling face for my daughter, but I have neglected my partner over these years.

We are both, separately in therapy, but I still don't know how to get myself and my relationship back from the abyss of sadness in which my mother's illness has thrown us. How to reconcile love for your partner and this feeling of prolonged grief? How to find comfort elsewhere and be able to give rather than just take from your partner?

Any similar experience? Any suggestion?

Thanks!

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