(Article from: https://www.alzheimers.net/husbands-role-reverses-while-caring-for-wife-with-alzheimers/)

Male Caregivers Take on a Non-Traditional Role
A greater number of women (69%) take on a caregiving role for a spouse with Alzheimer’s, but 33% of caregivers providing 21-60 hours of care per week are men, according to a 2017 report from the Alzheimer’s Association.

Family members sometimes dismiss a dad or husband from the task of caregiving for his wife because they assume he isn’t up to it, says Leslie Eckford, co-owner of Mindful Aging, eldercare consultant and co-author of “Aging with Care: Your Guide to Hiring and Managing Caregivers at Home.” However, more men are stepping up to caregiving for a spouse as attitudes toward gender and marital roles shift.

“When the wife’s health issues are physical… many husbands take pride in managing that,” says Eckford. “When dementia is involved, it gets a little trickier. For some men, the initial phase of accepting his wife’s decline can be difficult and take time.”

Stepping Into an Unfamiliar Role, Caring for a Wife With Alzheimer’s
Asking for support often doesn’t come easily for men from Schreiber’s generation. “Admitting that you need help can be harder for some men than it is for women, who are more used to pitching in with home issues,” says Eckford. “The wife may have always been a good director of her own care, but Alzheimer’s takes that self-direction away.”

It helps some men, especially if they’re retired, to view their caregiving role as a new job. “That way, they can identify the tasks that need to be gone and get to work,” says Eckford.

Suggestions to adapt to the caregiving role reversal include:

• Accept help. “When people offer to help, learn to say, yes and thank you,” says Eckford. Allow a friend, relative or volunteer or relative sit with your wife while you take a break and get away.
  Allow yourself time to learn new skills. “The learning curve can be tough,” says Eckford. If you were in the military, normalize household chores like cooking and grocery shopping by realizing that many are not that different from tasks performed while in the service.
• Let go of unrealistic expectations. “You have to realize that the person who once was is no more,” says Schreiber, who continued to travel with Elaine for a while after her diagnosis. On one trip, she left their room and ended up in a hotel lobby in her nightgown. On a 2015 boating excursion, Elaine climbed over him in bed to wander into their friends’ sleeping quarters. “You have to understand how small the world of a person with Alzheimer’s becomes,” says Schreiber. “If you try to take the person out of that world, it upsets them.”
• Seek support. Sources include in-home care agencies, family members, hospital social workers and support groups. “For support, start with the healthcare team. Ask for some temporary home health services to assess the actual home and care situation and set up a plan of care with the husband caregiver,” says Eckford.