Loving your spouse doesn't require abandoning your need to feel at home in your own life.

I explain why it matters

My husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2022. By late 2023, he had declined so much that I made the difficult decision to move him to an Assisted Living facility.

After he moved, I felt adrift. My roles—wife, friend, caregiver—were gone. The home where we had shared joy and sorrow and all the moments in between no longer provided comfort. It haunted me. I could see every project we’d worked on together, the improvements, the DIY-gone-wrong, the beauty of a life shared. I felt isolated, alone, and no longer at home.

Along the way, I learned this lesson:

Loving your spouse doesn’t require abandoning your need to feel at home in your own life.

Here’s why this matters:

• Caregiving without identity leads to resentment. We all need a home base—a place to recharge, reset, and be ourselves. A place that’s safe and non-judgmental. A place to cry, laugh, scream, argue, love. To just be.

• Isolation clouds judgment. Caregiving makes your world smaller. Decisions revolve around medications, daily routines, and next steps. Living this life in isolation can skew your sense of what’s sensible and practical. Decisions become more emotional, coming from grief and despair instead of reasoned thought.

• Grief lingers longer when we refuse to move. After my husband moved to Assisted Living, I was adrift. Years of joy, sadness, home improvement projects, celebrations, and all the other milestones of a shared life were embodied in that house. I thought it would provide comfort. Instead, it saddened me and held me back. My grief was stuck there. I had to decide to change my home.

One way to think about home is by applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Home integrates two middle levels of Maslow’s hierarchy: the second level of Safety and the third level of Love and Belonging. Home requires both: safety and a feeling of belonging. How to Find Belonging and Enhance the Satisfactions of Home

Make one forward-looking decision

I began preparing our home to sell.

His presence was everywhere—every project, every memory, every moment of joy, sadness, and simply being together.

But something had shifted. Instead of comfort, I felt isolated. Instead of belonging, I felt loss.

There was no longer a sense of “home” in that space. I felt “safe” but no longer felt “love and belonging”.

And this is what I discovered:

• Movement restores agency. I started sorting through closets and storage, decluttering and organizing to prepare the house for sale. I checked every system and appliance, making sure everything worked. I contacted a Realtor. Restoring agency in my home helped me restore agency in my life.

• Not a five-year plan. Not a dramatic reinvention. This wasn’t an overwhelming change, but an evolution toward the next step. I made visible choices. What stays, what goes, what is introduced. Each week had goals, lists to check off, milestones to meet.

• Just one step forward. It started with one step. Reordering, reorganizing one room at a time. Change out the throw pillows. Remove the clutter. Clean out the kitchen junk drawer. Each step moving forward.

Sometimes rediscovery starts with rearranging the room.

I was a caregiver of a husband with Alzheimers for 4 years and lost sense of who I was along the way. I write to help others who feel isolated in losing the love of their life to find a sense of belonging after.