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My dad told my mom he cheated on her before they were married and had a kid. She asked were there other affairs and he said yes. She believes everything he told her he did. But when he accuses her of cheating and tells us she’s cheating and with who, we aren’t supposed to believe him. She says you can’t believe anything he says about her. But she says she believes what he tells her he did. I just want to scream at my mom. Why is she picking and choosing what stories he tells to believe? She said that she no longer believes in their marriage and that their whole marriage was a lie.
Do dementia patients lie about their own actions? How to I help my mom understand and believe she can’t believe anything he says?

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It isn't a lie; it is a mistaken belief. Or it may actually have happened. The beginning and the end of the story is that no one can know for certain. So why spend the end of a lifetime wondering about it. Next it will be that his 2nd wife was Sophia Loren? Who knows. It certainly isn't something I would spend a whole lot of time discussing. For me it would be "We can never know, so if you want to believe it, then believe it; if you want to understand that this is a part of a demented mind, then think that. It's up to you". Then smile, shrug and walk away. I am 79, my partner of 36 years is 80. If he tells me this whole story now in a state of dementia or in a state of perfect mind my attitude is pretty much "Hope you had a good time, and hope you have great memories, and on we go". I have my garden, I have my books, I have my walks and my family and my sewing. I have HIM to have good days with. Life's too short. One of these days we are, one of us, going to lose the other. Far be it from me to waste our time with nonsense. Of course some of us preFER nonsense; so, if that's what we choose, it's a valid choice.
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My mother is "married" to her first boyfriend who she hasn't seen since 1944 and who has actually been dead since 2009. She doesn't even remember my dad, to whom she was married for 66 years. Her story about the fake husband is so convincing that it ended up in my dad's Rotary Club newsletter as an article congratulating the 88-year-old bride and groom a mere four months after my dad died.

Her reality is our reality, but we know it isn't true. With dementia patients, you have to take what they say with an ocean's worth of salt.
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Please tell your mom that she’ll never know what is or isn’t true now, and there are much more important matters to focus on anyway. His memories can’t be trusted, it’s time to move on
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If there's part of a memory floating around they'll try to patch any missing pieces with whatever information they can pull in at that moment. What they can 'remember' to make the story whole doesn't necessarily have to have happened to them or be from a time anywhere near when the thing occurred. It's just a memory they've latched onto, to complete their 'thought'. From the outside this can seem like a lie or a startling piece of new information. An example: Last week my mom told my sister-in-law that she was engaged to someone who was a navy pilot who did not survive WWII. Keep in mind she was a junior in high school when WWII ended, and by her own admission over the years, she didn't date really until her senior year. Now, I did have a great aunt whose fiance never returned from WWI, and Mom did date a Navy pilot before she met my dad in the late 40's. We had a neighbor she dated after my dad passed away who survived the Bataan Death March. So. You never know where the pieces of the story are coming from, and I hope that you can continue to take them with a grain of salt. They are a product of a mind that's grabbing at anything it can to make sense of their day. I hope your mom can understand and let go, and not let your dad's confusion add to her stress.
This helped me-- http://www.dementiacarestrategies.com/12_pt_Understanding_the_Dementia_Experience.pdf
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If you think dementia patients "lie" then I recommend further education about what dementia is and what it does to people. Tippa Snow has good videos on YouTube which I think you will find very helpful.
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Your father's dementia is painful and distressing for all concerned. You're dealing with it your way. Your mother needs to deal with it her way. Sympathise with her badly hurt feelings but don't try to lead her through any analysis of truth - waste of time, and anyway who knows? If she asks you directly whether you believe a paticular statement say no and say why not, namely that your father's recollection is necessarily unreliable and best ignored; but don't insist she agree with you.

It might also be worth bearing in mind that you weren't a witness to these times and can't actually know the truth of what happened. Could be we are all blissfully ignorant of episodes in our parents' lives that we'd rather not know about - but you're not likely to get the real facts from your father at this point, either.
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Try not to think of it as lying. He's not trying to mislead anyone, those are the truths in his mind, even if they never happened.
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