Anyone who takes on a care-giving role finds out pretty quickly how isolating that can be.
It can come from the necessity of staying home to be with the person you care for. It can come from friends and family not being comfortable on intruding in what they perceive as a private matter. It can come from the exhaustion that goes with being a care-provider: who has the energy to go out? It can come from others being unsure of how to act around the loved one you are caring for due to ignorance or fear. It can come from not wanting to have people visit since you just don't have the extra energy to be a good housekeeper. It can come from lack of spending money to allow a care-giver to go out to do things. It can come from a thousand different sources.
One example of how this happened to my wife and I below the fold.
Good friends invited us to a dinner party at their home about 45 minutes away. It was a special event, and they had made arrangements to have a chef come in to cook for the dozen or so guests who would be attending.
My wife and I scheduled a respite care-provider to come in and take care of my mother-in-law for the evening. This was someone we had worked with previously, and she was great - but she had only been in on afternoons before. We didn't think it would be a big problem, since dinner was to start at 6:30, and it'd be fine for my MIL to stay up until 10:00 or so - surely we'd be home by then in order to get my MIL ready for bed (a bit of a production usually).
We got to the party. We had drinks and chatted with the guests. It was relaxed, informal, with intelligent conversation and good company.
But about 8:00, it was clear that things were going to run later than we expected. I called the respite person, explained. She was happy to stay late, fudge the rules of the organization she worked through a bet (which said she could only be there four hours without a break). But she didn't have a clue what the bedtime routine was. I didn't expect that it would be too much of a problem - how long would it take to actually eat? We'd just make our excuses, explain the situation, and take off after dinner.
We were summoned to table about 8:30. The first course arrived. The chef came out and explained in loving detail the local sources of the ingredients of the formal appetizer, and how he had painstakingly prepared them. Our host piped up with information about the wine which had been paired to go perfectly with the appetizer. We all dived in. It really was incredible.
When the plates were cleared away, I noted the printed menu before me. There were another half dozen removes to be served. It was now after 9:00. I looked at my wife. She looked at me. I had no idea what to do - it was clear that this dinner was going to run to at least midnight. Probably not a problem for most people - it was a Friday night, so there'd be no school or work to worry about in the morning, and the babysitter could get the kids to bed.
But we didn't have a babysitter. We had a respite worker.
As we were waiting for the next course to arrive, I got up from my seat, and went to chat with our hosts. Both are doctors - specialists - and knew about our care-giving situation. Quietly, I explained the predicament, and that we'd have to leave sometime between the removes. Kindly, they nodded with understanding and consideration.
After the chef brought out the next course, and once again shared his skill with us, the host took him aside and chatted for a bit. We enjoyed the course, but it was after 10:00 by the time we were all finished. We got up and excused ourselves - explaining that events required our early departure from the party, without going into details.
Our hosts went to the door with us. The chef came out, and had a couple of packages with him - at our host's instruction, he had put together several of the additional courses early. I felt like I was skipping out on paying a restaurant bill while nabbing the doggie bags.
We took the packages, thanked them all for their thoughtfulness. We got home about 11:00, got my MIL ready for bed after thanking the respite person and letting her get on home. The disruption meant that my MIL, who had Alzheimer's, was more out of sorts for the next couple of days - people with Alzheimer's don't usually respond well to unexpected change from their routine.
Oh, we were never invited to another event of any kind by our friends, even three years after my MIL's passing.