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Comments for "Talking about Intimacy, Sexuality & Alzheimer’s: Part 2"
Marriage is for better or worse. “Having a friend†is not at all appropriate. And I think even mentioning such a thing is wrong.
We live in a country that is polarized about sex—there are sexual aspects, images and innuendos in the commercials and movies we watch, the music we listen to and the books we read and yet we keep a bit of our Puritanism intact, by somewhat voyeuristically seeing and listen, but usually not discussing it. It keeps the topic of sexuality at once close to us and also at a distance. When the senior population is added to the discussion the tendency to clam up is exacerbated. Truly it is only through discussion that such topics have a fighting chance at staving off the alienation, guilt, fear, frustration or embarrassment that many feel in regard to their relationship with their spouse while dealing with Alzheimer’s. Every person needs to decide how to live their lives in a way which is most conducive to their belief system—for some that might mean “having a friend†and this could even be discussed by a couple previous to or in the early stages after diagnosis. Finding what’s right for a specific person takes discussion.