San Antonio -- Imagine your spouse not only forgets you, but finds new love with someone else. It's not infidelity - it's Alzheimer’s.
It's not easy to talk about. But one man, whose life was changed by Alzheimer's, sat down with News 4 WOAI to share a very difficult story.
He wants more people to understand a disease that robs not only your memories, but often times, your heart.
“I met her through her sister in Washington D.C.,” Marshall Jackson remembered.
In 1969 when Marshall met Billie.
“She was an introvert and I was the opposite of that,” Marshall told us. “I think that's what drew us together.”
He was 26. She was 23. And it was clearly young love. Only three months after they met they got married. 40 years later Marshall's feelings haven't changed. But he showed us how Billie has.
Marshall explained some of the signs, “You see there's an emptiness in her eyes. And that's what Alzheimer's will do.”
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer's three years ago Billie doesn't know her husband anymore.
Marshall moved her into a nursing home last year. And that’s when something strange happened.
“I walked in as I normally do. I start looking around for her and she's walking down the hall, hand in hand with this gentleman. And it made me take a step back a little bit,” Jackson told us.
It's called New Attachments. Patients become drawn to others when their families are away. We checked in with the Alzheimer's Association who says, it's fairly common. Your loved one is really seeking out a companion or friendship or someone to be with them, like a spouse was, on a daily basis.
Billie found someone that helped her get to a comfortable place outside her disease.
“It got to the point sometimes they would eat together and I was like the third wheel,” Jackson told us.
Marshall seems to take everything in stride. He hasn't forgotten what he said in 1969. He took his wife in sickness and in health.
“I made a commitment 40 years ago and I plan on keeping that commitment,” Marshall held back his tears as he finished his thought. “We're married. Whether she knows it or not. We're married.”
Alzheimer's is a terminal illness. In the absence of an immediate cure, families say support groups like the Alzheimer's Association is the best medicine.
To find out about what support groups are –
Click here.
