'My husband is still alive but he doesn't remember me. I'm dating someone new.'

Kay Hughes has always been a practical, matter-of-fact kind of person. Her husband, Richard, was the one who brought spontaneity and softness into their relationship — a kind soul, who reminded her to live in the moment.

"We would have eye-watering laughter at the silliest of things," Kay told Mamamia. "We were going on adventures, spending lots of time with family and friends and just appreciating the beauty of nature. Anywhere we were, there was always some beauty to be found and spoken about."

But in 2010, their world shifted forever. Richard was diagnosed with dementia.

As his condition worsened, Kay watched the man she had married in 2004 slip away, little by little.

They had once been a fiercely independent couple who shared the domestic load. But gradually, Kay became her husband's full-time carer. With Richard no longer able to support her in return, she began to feel "invisible".

Watch: What is dementia? Post continues below.

At one point, she was spending 90 hours a week caring for him.

"It was very isolating," Kay said. "I will always love him, but that close partner-style relationship that we had was forever gone."

For eight years, Kay shouldered the burden alone before she made the heartbreaking decision to move Richard into care. At first, it felt like a betrayal, but she came to understand that sometimes the right decisions are also the hardest.

Kay and Richard at their wedding. Image: Kay Hughes.

Finding love when she least expected it.

Kay wasn't looking for love. She was focused on supporting Richard and finding moments of care for herself.

But love has a funny way of showing up when you least expect it.

Enter: Adam. A childhood friend, Adam was someone who had always been in the background of Kay's life.

"We met in kindergarten and I've been married twice and he was at both my weddings. He's been married once, I was at his wedding," she said.

They stayed loosely in touch, but it wasn't until Adam's father passed away that something shifted between them.

"He connected with me at a more emotional level than he had for sometime," Kay said.

Then, one day, Adam made a confession Kay never saw coming.

"He basically just blurted out he'd been in love with me all his life," she said.

Kay made her position clear.

"I'm married to Richard," she told him. "I want [to] support and love him for as long as I can, hopefully for the rest of his days. That's what I want to do.

It wasn't a "no forever". It was a "not now". And for Adam, that was enough.

"He said, 'I'll just wait.'"

And he did.

Kay and Adam met in kindergarten. Image: Kay Hughes.

In time, Kay began to wonder what it might be like to have a partner to lean on again. Then one moment crystallised the internal shift happening inside her. It was the first time she'd noticed Richard's perception of time had changed.

She hadn't seen him in two days, but to him, it felt like five minutes. Their last beach walk together had been six months earlier, but in Richard's mind, it had happened that morning.

"I thought in his mind, in his view of the world, he's living a very good life," Kay said.

"I'd be more than happy to support him to keep living in his mind that way and I thought I could actually explore something with Adam."

Still, she hesitated. The guilt was real and painful. The marriage she once had no longer existed. But could she open her heart to someone else? Was she allowed?

Kay found another chance at love and happiness with Adam. Image: Kay Hughes.

Kay turned to the people who mattered most — Richard's daughters from his first marriage. People she now considered family.

"There's no way I would if I thought one of his daughters might feel betrayed," Kay said.

"I'll just ask his daughters how they might feel if I explored a relationship with someone else while continuing to love and support their dad."

So she emailed them — the words too hard to speak aloud. When the replies came in, Kay was floored by their kindness.

"It was just incredible," she said. "They said things like, 'You have all our support and all our full blessing. We want you to be happy. We can only imagine how hard that was to write and we applaud you for your honesty.' That coming from stepdaughters, I think is incredible."

Their support became her anchor, silencing any outside noise and judgment.

Kay still visits Richard regularly. Image: Kay Hughes.

Kay still grapples with guilt sometimes. The little voice in her head still whispers: 'How could you leave him there?'

"I still feel like I'm betraying Richard every time I leave him at the nursing home," she admitted. "But most of me knows it's better for everyone that he's living there." 

And when in doubt, she turns to the man she knew before dementia — the man who loved her deeply and always wanted her to be happy.

"I believe strongly he would have said, 'Absolutely, go and have a rich and full life.'"

If their roles were reversed?

"I would want him to go and have a rich and full life and, of course, to continue to support and love me as well," Kay said.

Richard no longer recognises Kay, but she still visits him regularly. And when they're together, the love and laughter remain.

"The nature of love changes," she said.

"It hasn't disappeared. It's just changed."

Watch Kay Hughes on SBS Insight's Challenging Resilience episode on SBS On Demand.

Feature image: Supplied.