Vicar finds love with new lover as wife fights dementia
This last year, just as the clocks had turned back and the cold, dark nights were drawing in, Terry Murphy returned to his home and sat in solitary silence, contemplating all the little things he would miss about Mo, his wife of 40 years, now that she was gone for ever.
I had all these thoughts going through my head, he says. Will I ever again hold someones hand in the back row of the cinema, sit down to a candlelit dinner for two, send a Valentines card, arrive home to the smell of cooking with someone there to ask me: How was your day?
New love: Vicar Terry started a relationship with his new partner, Merion Dance (right) following his wife's battle with dementia
Bereft at his loss, the 66-year-old retired Baptist minister found his thoughts turning to suicide.
We had a fantastic marriage, he says. Forty years of doing everything together and then its all over. It was such a lonely, confusing time and I was in an incredibly low place. There were times when I thought, Id rather be in Heaven than here.
What rescued him from his utter desolation was the lady now sitting beside him, holding his hand, in the house that he and Mo used to share in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
Mother-of-two Merion Dance, 61, has known Terry professionally for more than a decade thanks to his work as a chaplain for the fire service, where she works as a fire safety administrator.
Merions husband died almost four years ago, and, over the past 11 months, she and Terry have formed a close re! lationsh ip. There have been dinner dates and cinema trips, and they have recently returned from their first holiday together, in Mallorca.
It would take a hard heart to begrudge Terry moving on with his life and finding a new love, even if it is only a year since Mo was lost to him.
And there lies the issue. For Terrys wife is not dead. A few miles away, Mo, a 65-year-old former primary school teacher and the mother of Terrys two children, is in a care home in the final stages of dementia.
Better days: Terry with his wife Mo on their wedding day in 1969
Although physically healthy, she no longer recognises her husband or even knows that she was ever married. Apart from the odd thank you or lovely, she is unable to communicate or perform even basic tasks, such as going to the toilet or washing, without the help of staff at the home.
She has, indeed, gone for ever into what, for the husband who still adores her, seems a living death.
There are around 800,000 people in the UK with dementia, and around half of them suffer from Alzheimers.
That figure is expected to rise to one million in the next few years.
It means that across Britain there are thousands of devoted husbands and wives who are left in limbo, grieving for the spouse theyve lost but unable to move on without risking accusations of betraying the loved one who has not yet passed on. That dilemma is, of course, doubly acute for those with a religious background.
So how does the Reverend Terry Murphy a man who has uttered the words in sickness and in health, till death us do part many times when administering at weddings justify his decision to find a new partner?
I am not only a married man but Im a man of the cloth, and Merion and I always knew this was goin! g to be quite complicated, he says. Weve prepared ourselves for hate mail, and were aware that people might say Im an adulterer and that Im going to Hell.
But if our story helps just one more dementia-carer come out of a very dark, desperate place and start living again, then it will all be worthwhile.
To me, Alzheimers is a form of death.
Heartbreaking: Terry with his wife Mo who doesn't remember her husband nor recalling having ever been married
In fact, its worse than death: its a living death. And from my point of view, our marriage has died; its just that my wifes body is still alive and needs caring for.
Im still fulfilling my marriage vows. I will love and support Mo until death us do part, and will continue to care for her as long as I live. I visit her two or three times a week, take her flowers and cake, and sit and hold her hand.
We watch childrens television and laugh together, but its not a marriage. It hasnt been for many years.
There are thousands of people in my situation. Im only 66, I may have another 30 years left, and so Im going to stick my neck out here and say: I think its all right to move on.
Terry and Merion have received much unexpected support for their new relationship. When we first announced we were together, I offered to resign at the fire station, but the Chief Fire Officer could not have been more encouraging, says Terry.
I had already retired from the church to care for Mo six years earlier, so I dont have a congregation to approve or disapprove. But Im still closely connected to many of them, and literally hundreds of people know what I am going through people who saw for themselves the desperately sad, slow march of Mos decline.
Many o! f my chu rch friends have relatives who suffer from dementia, and although one friend has questioned how I could be with someone else who doesnt even attend church, mostly weve been delighted by peoples responses.
Memories: Terry has maintained a close relationship with his wife which he regards as a 'affectionate friendship'
His children, however a son, 37, and a daughter, 39 are still coming to terms with this new situation. Terry knows that for them his new relationship must be hard to deal with.
My children are both at different stages of their grieving, admits Terry sadly. For their sakes, he does not want to say too much, beyond acknowledging the fact that he understands their feelings.
We know through friends who have remarried after either divorce or death that its always the children who find it the most difficult. My situation is even more complicated, so its not a bit surprising that my kids are going to find it tough. It would be strange if they didnt.
It was in January 2005, around four years after the couple first noticed symptoms of Mos forgetfulness, that she was diagnosed with Alzheimers.
She couldnt seem to remember the PIN number on her mobile phone, and she had to read every single label on the pile of washing so she knew what temperature to wash it at, says Terry.
Id find my socks in the fridge and cheese in the airing cupboard. All the classic symptoms.
We visited our GP, who put Mo on anti-depressants. Two or three years later, we were referred to a consultant who started doing cognitive tests, asking questions such as who the Prime Minister was, could Mo take seven away from 100, that sort of thing.
For a long time, Mo was in denial, so when her consultant first mention! ed the A -word, she came home, threw herself on this sofa and said: I want to die. Ive ruined your life.
We both cried a lot. I was upset because it wasnt Mo who was ruining our lives, it was this dreadful disease. We both prayed and asked our friends to do the same. I think our faith kept us going.
But Mos mental health continued to deteriorate. In December 2004, Terry was admitted to hospital with lymphoma a cancer of the immune system.
In his absence, carers visited Mo three times a day and someone stayed with her overnight until Terry came home two months later to find her condition dramatically worse.
By the time Id recovered from cancer, Mo was in what I call her happy place somewhere between Heaven and Earth where she only lives in the present and has no concept of yesterday or tomorrow, he says.
Terry retired from his full-time ministry to devote himself to Mo, but as the years went by the stress took its toll.
Once, I took her to the loo because I knew she needed to go, but she wouldnt sit down. She got so angry she pulled the toilet roll holder off the wall.
There were moments that were so frustrating I wanted to hit her. I never did, but it was hard. She was no longer my wife; she was like a child. But I always thought Id take care of her however bad it was.
The turning point came in April last year when Terry woke in the middle of the night to find that Mo was not beside him.
Shed got up, slipped in the bathroom and broken her hip, he says. I felt so guilty that I didnt wake up myself, but as I followed the ambulance to the hospital, I knew she wouldnt be coming home again.
Mo needed a hip replacement, and, on medical advice, social services decided she needed a level of full-time care that could not be provided at the couples home. Terry felt wretched over the decision, but visited his wife regularly as her condition continued to worsen.
I dont know when the first time came that she didnt recognise me, he says. It only dawned o! n me whe n I asked a friend, who Mo had never met, to pretend to be me and Mo behaved exactly as if it were me greeting her. Thats when I had to accept that she was in a very different place.
By a quirk of fate, it was while visiting Mo that Terry and Merion were drawn together. The pair had known each other for many years through their work at the fire station, but when Merions mother was admitted to the same hospital and, later, the same care home as Mo, their friendship developed.
I was really down throughout November and December last year, and over Christmas I began to think it wasnt right, that life was for living, he says. I was tired of going to the cinema on my own, going out for meals on my own.
'But what finally clinched it for me was when I was reading my Bible and suddenly, in the book of Genesis, I was reminded of how It is not good for a man to be alone.
It was then that I dared to wonder whether there was a brave woman out there who would come out with me someone whod be happy to just be my friend.
I can honestly say I didnt feel any guilt about it. I hadnt had a proper conversation with Mo for five years, and I knew shed want me to be happy.
One day, I was having a chat with Merion in her office at the fire station about whether she thought anyone would agree to go out with me, and it suddenly occurred to me to ask: Well, would you come out with me, just as a friend?
To my delight, she said yes. I honestly wasnt thinking of anything in romantic terms: I just needed a friend.
Merion picks up the story: At first I panicked, thinking, Is this a date? So I convinced myself that it wasnt, that it was just a friendly outing with a nice man.
Terry invited me out for a meal and we discovered we had so much in common. We both loved the theatre, words, Indian food ... But it was the laughter that really made a difference. I couldnt remember laughing so much with a man for a very long time.
Of course I knew what Terry was ! going th rough and that he was still married, so I was apprehensive. I didnt want a man to complicate my life, and here I was falling for a man who was in a very complicated situation.
'But I was also aware that Terry considered his marriage had died many years before.
The couple began spending more time together, but while Terry fell for Merion very quickly, it took Merion longer to embrace the relationship.
In fact, I wavered several times about getting involved with him at all he did all the chasing. It was my friends who encouraged me to go for it, telling me he was a lovely man and that he would make me happy. And they were right.
Nowadays, I drive him to the care home to see Mo. Shes a lovely, sweet woman and I should thank her for making Terry the generous, kind person he is.
Today, the couple enjoy what they term an affectionate friendship. Terry has even shown pictures of Merion to Mo, despite the fact hes well aware that she no longer has the ability to understand.
My deep love for Mo hasnt changed, he says. It will be the same love Ill feel for her when she does die. But I feel its time to move on and Ive got a very clear conscience. I actually think God approves, too.
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