My Dad Is Being Disloyal to My Mom in the Final Stage of His Life. I Can’t Watch.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My father is 93 and failing badly. He probably won’t be with us much longer, and his mind left the building some time ago. I’ve had a good relationship with him, and he’s been a great father to me and my sister. I’m not his caregiver. My mother has hired a full-time aide who handles a lot of the physical stuff. But I visit frequently and provide what help I can, which admittedly is mostly emotional support. Here’s the thing: Lately, every single time I visit, he perks up when he hears my voice, brightens, and is grateful that “Helen,” his first wife, has come back to see him. (Helen died years before I was born. I’ve been to the gravesite a couple of times.) Then, within minutes, he realizes I’m not her and starts crying and/or raging at me. I know it shouldn’t bother me, especially since it doesn’t trouble my mother. But it upsets me enormously. I hate that he’s being so disloyal to her. He’s been married to her for over 40 years, and in his last days, his few remaining thoughts are going to some other woman? Mom does her best to calm me when this happens, and I feel like I’m failing her, requiring support from her instead of giving it to her. How can I get past this and be someone my family can rely on for this last stage of my father’s life? —Gut-Wrenched Dear Gut-Wrenched, Since your mother is taking this in stride—she is evidently secure about her position in her husband’s life (and heart)—I find myself wondering if it really is only your father’s “disloyalty” to her that’s upsetting you. I’m not dismissing what you feel, I assure you. Of course, it would be disconcerting to witness, momentarily but repeatedly, your father seeming to be delighted and relieved that his first wife has returned. It seems to me that it would also be upsetting—much more upsetting, given that your mother doesn’t believe he wishes he were still married to Helen, or that the last 40 years mean nothing to him—not to be recognized, even briefly. To be mistaken for someone he loved long before you were born. That must be very painful! So perhaps you could reframe this problem. If you want to be able to support your mother in this last period of her husband’s life, I think you’ll need to accurately identify the full source of your own distress, and (perhaps with your mother’s help, since she appears to have the ability to separate your father’s dementia from who he “really” is, or at least to be serene about his delusions) remind yourself that your dad’s mistaking you for long-gone Helen doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you dearly, and that his sadness and rage once the fog clears and he sees that it’s you after all isn’t really, in the end, about disappointment that you’re not Helen. He has much to rage and be sad about. In other words—as your mom knows—it isn’t personal. Do your best to stay calm when this happens. Your calmness may help to calm him, too; your agitation may make matters worse. What you’re all going through is hard. No need to make it even harder. —Michelle More Advice From Slate My in-laws—who view all boundaries as challenges to try to cutely get around—just announced they’re getting a second house on our street to “summer” here and then clarified that “summer” meant five months of the year (and if they’re admitting to five that means it’s at least seven). When three of the four adults involved want this and it’s probably a good thing for my young kids to have some family around, I don’t see a way to veto it. But I’m filled with dread every time I think about it. Advice Family Kids Parenting