Customer Reviews

Dirty Details: The Days and Nights of a Well Spouse

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This book is painful to read and even more painful to live. That is why it proved to be necessary medicine for this well spouse. A testament to the fact that I am not alone, I am not crazy, and there is "life after innocence." I will cling to that as I trudge this path of "chronic bereavement." For a Well Spouse, this read is a must for surviving the isolation and endless hard work imposed upon unwitting victims of devastating, chronic illness.

Thank you Marion D. Cohen, God bless you for your brutal honesty.

This book is difficult to read, but difficult to put down as well. The unimaginably difficult life of a person with severe MS is virtually ignored by his spouse as she describes her daily routine of caring for her husband. This bothered me at first, but there are other books about those who live with MS -- this book is about how this disease cripples the life of a spouse who is in perfect health. My husband has MS and I have to say, this book scared me to death. Yet it was a comfort to know there are others who understand the frustrations, guilt, and anger a well spouse experiences.

This exceptional experience of a person with MS and the problems of living with a well spouse are documented thoroughly here. I wouldn't say this is an optimal guide for the newly diagnosed, but it is an honest account of much of what a well spouse goes through in coping with a chronically ill spouse.

I don't understand the precise meaning of this psychological term, but I do know that it is not possible to diagnose the supposed mental condition of author of a book of this kind just by reading it. This book is a very honest account of a wife who was left almost completely alone for many years to care for her severely and increasingly afflicted husband, an experience few of us, fortunately, have to undergo. I was greatly impressed by the author's strength, courage, and love. Her writing skill brought her experience vividly to light.

I've owned three copies of this book. The first two copies, read at the beginning of my career as a caregiver, were thrown away in horror and disgust. At that time, my reaction was: "how could anyone be that angry?" and "it's a very different situation, so the outcome won't be the same..."

For twelve years, I've been caring for a stroke-survivor spouse. The syndrome is classified as Organic Brain Disease with Executive Dysfunction: not a true dementia but with an equally devastating effect on personality, family and quality-of-life.

I explain to others that my husband died sometime in 2000, that I care for "a family member who is a stranger, a homeless person, an out-of-control adolescent..." Certainly not my husband...

The experience made me tough as tempered glass but survival took a huge emotional toll. There were days when I wasn't certain that I WAS still part of the human race. Like the author, I finally reached the point when I knew that I couldn't be a caregiver any longer. It's the hardest decision I've ever made.

Every well spouse should probably read this book. But don't throw it away: you may need to read it again.

It is evident that writing this book was probably quite cathartic for M.D. Cohen. It is a vivid portrait of narcissism and self-absorption of a rather high degree. Pity for Ms. Cohen's negativity and aspirations to martyrdom emerge early in the reading of this book. It is also difficult to imagine how Mr. Cohen was able to endure the rampant emotional DIS-ability of his alleged "well spouse". I was gratified to learn that he was finally released from her "care" and concomitant anger and negativity. If anything, this book shows who the "well spouse" REALLY is. And the author is NOT the well-spouse. Not in the least. I wish Mr. Cohen and his children well. And perhaps, by now, M.D. Cohen has been healed of her emotional illness. One can hope.

An LCSW in Virginia