A wife who
separated from her husband because he was spending money extravagantly
and talking to women on dating sites has revealed he in fact had
dementia.
Pippa McCulloch first saw changes take place in her beloved husband John at the age of just 36.
The
former Navy veteran, who served in Bosnia, began taking sweets from
their three children and buying expensive gadgets they didn't need.
Her 'superman', who was a loving and devoted husband, began to drift away, both physically and mentally.
Tension
between the couple from Southport, in Merseyside, grew. Pippa thought
John was having a mid-life crisis or had changed his behaviour because
he was fed-up with his job abroad.
He became
unpredictable and spent money casually and extravagantly. Broken TVs
were quickly replaced with expensive models but at the time Pippa wasn't
checking the family finances.
She later found he'd spent £8,000 on music downloads.
Speaking to the Daily style Entertainment,
she said: 'I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was different, only
that it was as if someone had replaced my husband with his evil twin.
'I
even felt at one point that his laugh had changed. It was eerie, but I
didn’t feel I could tell anybody. I just focused on the children and
hoped it was a phase, thinking "all couples" go through rough patches,
don’t they?’
Over
months his personality radically changed as well. The kind, gentle,
respectful man who gave up life in the Navy to see their three children
grow up became uninterested in family life and friends.
And John
sometimes became short-tempered which Pippa would blame on the children
acting up or the housing being messy. Never once did she think her fit
and active husband had early-onset dementia.
In
all of this Pippa was desperate to save her marriage and didn't want to
lose her husband who she had fallen in love with at just 18.
Was
it his job working for a security firm in Sri Lanka? Was he on the run?
Perhaps he had witnessed a terrible trauma that he couldn't bear to
face? All of these possibilities would race through Pippa's mind.
But it eventually became apparent over the months that he had 'lost all interest in us'.
The point of no return came when he started talking to other women on dating sites.
Pippa was upset and angry, but she thinks her wounded pride blinded her from seeing what was really happening to her husband.
She
decided to separate from John who greeted the news with laughter. As
Pippa told their children Lewis, Alex and Amy she found him in the next
room buying more clothes online.
He had to
go and live with his sister near Glasgow. But his family became quickly
concerned with his behavior and how he had changed.
While apart John starting sending lewd messages to Pippa and on their son's birthday he sent a photograph of a topless woman.
His mother and sister then forced him to see a GP who initially struggled to realise there was a problem.
Now
waiting for the results of a brain scan, Pippa thought he had a tumour.
But as she received the telephone call she was in fact told her husband
had dementia at the age of 41.
Since his diagnosis he has deteriorated rapidly and now lives in a care home near the family residence.
Pippa
said he can no longer speak or do anything for himself. The children
have struggled with his dramatic decline and barely see him, she said.
She said she felt 'truly lucky' to have had the years of 'blissful happiness' they did.
'This is the long goodbye you hear about with dementia patients,' she said.
'But he is my husband and I love him, so I’m in it for the long haul - even if I never expected to be doing this at 42.'
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