In 2008, Connecticut residents Janet Parmalee and Mike Richitelli met in a way that might now seem “old-fashioned” – online, at match.com. They talked for about a week, got dinner and never looked back.
Janet and Mike settled down in East Haven five years later and got married. At the time they were in their 50s, and altogether had five kids from their first marriages. The pair set out plans for their future, even made up a bucket list of places to visit after they retired.
“We got one done, before he got too sick to not be able to travel,” Parmalee said.
Mike was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, the behavioral variant, in 2022. It’s a disease that causes loss of function, and is terminal.
Parmalee had just retired from nursing, and devoted herself full time to caring for Mike on her own.
Mike’s symptoms had started a few years before he got his official diagnosis. Though physically he was otherwise healthy, “he didn’t even take a blood pressure medication,” Parmalee noted.
He loved going for long walks, but she worried about him getting lost if he went out alone.
“He wore every pair of shoes he could find, including mine, ‘cause we're pretty similar in shoe size,” Parmalee said. “So every shoe was hidden somewhere in the house.”
As Mike’s dementia progressed, he began going to a day center. But Parmalee said caring for him at home became more difficult – he required help with eating and bathroom breaks, and he wasn’t sleeping through the night.
In fall 2025, she made what she called a very difficult decision to move Mike to a full-time private memory care facility.
‘The grief is there’
It’s an hour drive roundtrip to and from the nursing home, but Janet tries to see Mike every day.
They spend time walking around the facility, and playing bounce-pass with a ball. Mike is largely nonverbal because of the disease, which is especially difficult.
“Every time I leave, I kiss him, and say, ‘you know I love you.’ I hadn't heard his voice in a long time, and he said, ‘I love you too,’ and I just started crying,” Parmalee said. “So the tears flow, the grief is there.”
She went home, but kept thinking: go back.
“So I went back,” Parmalee said. “And I hung out with him a little longer, hoping he’d talk again.”
Grief is a common feeling caregivers experience, but when the person getting care is a long-term partner or spouse, it’s even more complicated.
Researcher and clinician Chetna Malhotra studies palliative care at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, and said caring for a spouse or partner with dementia creates even more intense feelings because of that close relationship.
“That partner is physically present, but is not the same person anymore that they married, that they were living with,” Malhotra said.
In the 1970s, marriage and family therapist Pauline Boss coined a term for this kind of situation: ambiguous loss. It’s a paradox, she said, that our culture isn’t used to dealing with.
“The only way you'll get through the difficulty, the cruelty of dementia, is with ‘both and’ thinking,” Boss said.
That means accepting that the person is simultaneously here, and gone, something Parmalee has been wrapping her head around.
“He's not dead, but he's dead, you know what I mean?” she said. “And then he's gonna be dead, and then I gotta keep going.”
‘Just show up’
Boss has written several books about how to navigate various kinds of ambiguous loss, including “Loving Someone Who Has Dementia.” She also noted that support groups, therapy and social connections are essential for the health and well-being of caregiving.
“It is so demanding and there is no letting up,” Boss said. “It's extremely stressful, but one of the worst things about it is isolation.”
For Parmalee, attending support groups has been part of her practice, but she leans on her circle of support. That includes their kids, siblings and Mike’s first wife, Lynn – who visits Mike if Janet is going to be away.
“I always tease her that even though they weren’t married anymore she honored her vows: ‘to honor and cherish til death do you part’ and she’s always been there,” Parmalee said.
Joyce Rossi is another one of Janet’s rocks. They met working at a Middletown school and have stayed close. Living 40 minutes apart, the pair see each other in person once or twice a month, but they talk in between.
“I just want her to know that I'm there for her,” Rossi said. "I may reach out on a day and not even know what her day is like, but I want to at least hear her voice.”
Parmalee said it's the friendships that keep her sane: people she can talk to, vent to and cry to. The biggest thing she has learned from navigating Mike’s diagnosis, she said, is that, “if someone needs me, I'm just going to be there.”
“To ask someone, what can I do for you? Well, just do it,” Rossi said. “Don't ask. Just show up.”
‘You have to forgive yourself’
Though he has full-time care, Parmalee doesn't stop being Mike’s caregiver. She’s navigated administrative hurdles like paying for the nursing home care out of pocket, and trying to get him enrolled on Medicaid.
Mike is more settled now at the private memory facility, Parmalee said, and sees him getting the care he needs. She said the staff is great, the food seems good and there are a lot of eyes on Mike.
But when Janet hears a certain song or ends a visit, she thinks about taking him back home to care for him herself.
“I thought I could do it to the end,” Parmalee said. “So then you have to forgive yourself for saying: I can't.”
So Janet does what she can do, which is to show up for Mike everyday. He’s the love of her life, something a disease can’t erase.
Caregiving in Connecticut
This story is part of our Caregiving in Connecticut series. Explore the stories and conversations.
