I’m exhausted & frustrated with stubborn husband. How do people do this?

OK, I know I’m not going to cover all the details of what’s going on & based on some responses others here have gotten, I know someone will jump all over me & try to make me feel guilty, but just know in advance: I’m too tired to care if you bully me. I’m venting because I’m exhausted, frustrated, & quite frankly losing my mind. My therapist is amazed I haven’t crashed & burned from the stress.

My husband has dementia; the doctors guess Alzheimer’s, but I think they just pulled that out of the air to satisfy me. I’m pretty sure DH was in the early stages right when we got married, but he hid it well, blamed his forgetfulness & random bursts of anger (never directed at me) on his stressful job.

Almost immediately after marriage, he retired, we moved in together (he had lived & worked 500 miles away), and he began doing dumb things like drinking & driving. He was NOT like this before retirement, but I think boredom and the dementia started kicking in. Any time I had to leave town for work (there’s an age difference, so I’m way off from retirement still), he’d go get himself into trouble. He got himself arrested while I was away for six hours at a job interview! I should’ve bailed then. We wanted to buy a house, and that’s when I discovered he (in combination w/ last ex wife) had screwed up financially, he had NO savings, & there was a foreclosure on his credit. So, I used my good credit to buy our home & put it in my name.

About a year later, he has a mini stroke & I finally get a neurologist to listen to me about his behavior (I’d sent him to several & they all acted like I was a gold-digger or a worrywort, which puffed him up & bolstered his “there’s nothing wrong with me!” argument). Started him on Aricept & over the past 6 years, things have gotten worse. He won’t stop doing things I don’t WANT him to do (sticks his hand thru the delivery slot in the secure mailbox to pull out the mail so he can open it & hide it, write nonsense on it), but won’t do anything USEFUL (grab a banana or apple to feed himself).

I’d asked him when we married to get Long Term Care insurance; he lied & said it was too expensive (it wasn’t); now it’s too late. He has a good federal pension & good insurance, but he refused to sign up for Medicare Part D because “that’s for old people (he was in his mid-60s & qualified) & I already have insurance”, so now, Medicare won’t let him join without paying a BIG penalty. His last ex wife gets $1600/month & is constantly calling his cell, looking for more $. He has no kids.

He hasn’t driven since 2015 (the minute I learned I had cancer, he suddenly couldn’t drive; I was dragging myself out of bed with my chest wired shut after surgery, because he wouldn’t do anything for himself), so now I’m head chauffeur on top of everything else.

He fell out of bed this past April & is now urinary incontinent at night. I pay $20/hr for an unlicensed care aide (all more expensive companies have SUCKED) to come 3 days a week for 5 hrs each day, so I can get a break.

Now, he’s decided that he won’t get up out of bed for me; he wants me to stand there begging & cajoling while he lies there, soaking through the Depends and the washable bed pads.

I take him to doctors, and it’s SHOWTIMERS all the way; he’s “fine” & the doctors do nothing to help me. I’ve been to the Alzheimer’s Association, care aide companies, etc., and everyone just says “you’re going to have to place him”, but HOW?! I’d have to give up my home & all of his pension & SS & it would STILL be too expensive for a decent facility around here (I’ve checked; the nicest one is $7,000, smells like poop & keeps them in glorified prison cells).

I’m at the end of my rope. I make decent money, so we’re nowhere near qualifying for assistance, but we also can’t afford private pay without my having to go live in an RV with my dog! I’ve had places say that I should cash out MY retirement to pay for this! Insane!

How the hell do people (mostly women) DO this?