Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor is happy that her husband is in love with another woman.
Last year, O’Connor left her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court to look after her husband John, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. John O’Connor has been slowly losing his memories to the disease for the last seventeen years. Although the O’Connors have been married for fifty-five years, John has started a new relationship with a patient at a care facility in Arizona.
Experts say that it is not common for Alzheimer’s patients to start new relationships. People who suffer from the disease can forget loved ones and tend to live in the moment. But having dementia doesn’t mean a person doesn’t need to interact and have social connections. Some relationships between Alzheimer’s patients are simple and don’t go much beyond holding hands; other relationships are more mature and are expressed on a physical level.
The O’Connor family reports that before the relationship, John had been depressed and talking about suicide. Now that there is a new woman in his life, John O’Connor is relaxed, happy, and comfortable at the residential care facility.
For some families, watching a parent or spouse begin a new life with a different person is hurtful. You may feel betrayed — your parent or spouse has forgotten their old life and family connections. Try to remember that a person with Alzheimer’s disease loses much of their past. Sometimes, everything but the day-to-day experience is lost. These new relationships are not meant to cheat or hurt the family; a person with Alzheimer’s disease does not know he or she is cheating on a spouse because he or she doesn’t remember having one.
It isn’t an easy thing to see happening to a loved one. The possibility of new relationships is not one that is often explored in looking at Alzheimer’s disease — which is why Sandra Day O’Connor went public with her experiences. Rather than file for divorce or make a fuss about infidelity, she is happy that her husband is comfortable and happy in his new relationship.
She is truly one amazing lady.