6 Sanity-Saving Tips to Help You Care for Your Aging Spouse

We can hear your sigh of frustration already. You’ve already been trying to stay positive and it’s not working or you wouldn’t be reading this post. Don’t worry, we have some advice that will help.

I don’t doubt that you have been trying to stay positive from the beginning. It’s frustrating and exhausting to put on a happy face when all you feel like doing is screaming and bashing your head into a wall.

As the days wear on the negativity starts to overwhelm you. It’s easier to give in to the negative emotions, fears, and doubts than to keep fighting through them.

But staying positive is achievable with these tips and practice.

How to Flip Your Perspective

The key to changing your attitude from a negative to a positive is to let go of all the negativity in your life. The negative thoughts, feelings, actions, and people around us have to go.

1. Start by making a list. Think of all the things that are bringing you stress or causing you to feel down.
2. Once you have your list completed, it’s time to flip the script. Look at each item you wrote and come up with a way to turn it into a positive one. Don’t see a way to do that? Then come up with ideas to make changes to the situation to remove the obstacles.

For example, you used to love to travel and go places with your spouse, but now they have a chronic health condition that makes traveling too much of a hassle. It’s easier to just stay home and try to find a solution. You tell yourself “as long as they are happy then you are happy” and you just take it one day at a time.

The more time goes by, you start to resent them a little for your isolation.

You know deep down it’s not their fault, but you hate missing out on opportunities to socialize with your family and friends. You can’t join them for holiday celebrations anymore because they live too far away so you just never see them.

This might seem like a hopeless situation and it’s much easier to sink into that pit of negativity. The more you sink the more hopeless it might seem. The thing is, it’s probably not as big of a hassle as you think.

Airlines and travel agencies have made a vast amount of improvements to accommodate the ones we love with chronic health conditions.

There are even some ways to make traveling with a spouse who has dementia, sleep apnea, oxygen tanks, hearing or vision impairments, diabetes, or wheelchairs much easier than you might think.

Instead of telling yourself that it’s too hard and not worth the hassle, look up ways to make traveling easier. If you still don’t think it’s something you want to try, then make the time to go alone and visit with friends and family when you can. It’s important that you take some time back for yourself.

You feel like you have to stay with your spouse 24-7 and you worry about going too far and leaving them in the care of someone else, but you have to take care of yourself too. Hiring a private-duty caregiver can ensure they receive adequate care and alleviate some of your guilt so you can travel and enjoy your life.

You can’t provide the care your spouse needs when you’re burnt out and drained yourself.

Communicating with our aging spouse can end in blow-ups, misunderstandings, and unintentional hurt feelings quickly. One second everything is perfectly fine and then the next you are screaming at each other.

Dealing with all the complications and hardships life throws at us as we age isn’t easy. 

It’s difficult for the person going through it, but it’s just as hard on their spouse. 

According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, spouses who also double as caregivers are at a higher risk of experiencing depression. 

Learning how to take a step back from our emotions and discuss things logically is not the easiest thing to do. It takes a lot of practice and willpower. 

Deescalating the Situation and Working Through Triggers

It’s too easy to snap and go on the defensive when you are always exhausted and feeling burnt out. It takes a conscious effort to change the way we speak and approach the hard topics so we don’t go into a conversation ready for a fight. 

Practicing proper self-care, as mentioned above, is crucial to the success of this. If you’re irritable and have a short fuse because you didn’t get enough sleep or haven’t been eating right, it’s only going to make it that much harder for you to control your emotions. 

Here are some things you can try:

• Acceptance
  Accept the fact your spouse isn’t the only one who might need to make some changes. Take responsibility for your own actions and be willing to work on the things your partner wishes you could do better. Don’t just ask them to be the one to change and take the stance that you haven’t done anything wrong. 

• Open Mind
  ​Go into the conversation with an open mind. Listen to your partner and ask them about how they feel and why the situation makes them feel that way. Don’t ridicule or tease them about their feelings. Be empathetic and really try to understand where they are coming from. 

• Find Solutions
  ​Focus on finding solutions to your problems instead of placing blame or rehashing the details. Name-calling and I-told-you-so’s are not productive.

• Stay Calm
  ​Keep a reign on your emotions. If you feel like things are getting heated, call a time-out from the conversation. This doesn’t mean you have to leave the room and ignore each other. Instead, change the topic to something that you both enjoy talking about until you both feel relaxed enough to discuss your issues again.

• Don’t Yell
  ​Use your inside voice and keep your tone and body language non-combative. Going into the talk ready to fight will just put your spouse on edge. They can sense your mood and feel the tension even if you think they can’t.

Playing the role of a caregiver can put a real damper on the relationship. When you constantly have to monitor them, help them, and tell them what to do, it creates so much tension that it’s hard to break through it.

They get tired of your “nagging” and you get tired of being underappreciated and not having any time for yourself. 

When the only interactions you have with each other end in arguments or silence, it’s time to make some changes.

How to Bring Back the Spark in Your Marriage

Learning to communicate more effectively is the first of many steps in reconnecting with your spouse. Making an effort to do some of the recommendations below will help ease the tension and bring back the spark in your marriage.

Spend quality time together.

This means time spent actually interacting with each other. Sitting in front of the tv or just being in the same room is NOT quality time. 

• Try doing activities that you can do together. Go bowling, go out for dinner, catch a movie and discuss it on the way home, or play games together. 
• For some more ideas, take a look at this article.

Make it a point to do something thoughtful for each other each day.

• Leave a little love note somewhere you know they will find it. 
• Cook their favorite meal or eat out when you know they are stressed and not in the mood to cook. 
• If they drink coffee and have a hard time getting up in the morning, prep their coffee the night before so it will auto brew when they wake up. If your coffee maker doesn’t have that function, you can still prep everything so all they have to do is push the button. 
• Show them that you thought about them and cared enough to make the effort.

Take the time to learn each other’s love language. 

Everyone has their own idea of love and what it means to show love. 

• For some people that might be gift-giving. 
• Others might feel loved when you spend quality time together. 
• Physical touch is another way we show our love. 
• Give the book The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman a read. It’s a real eye-opener and can you show you how to mend some of those sore spots and open wounds in your marriage.