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Martin has now spoken movingly about that experience, describing the devastating sense that Fiona is gradually moving further away from the person she once was.
“We can see her slipping away,” he admitted.
It is a short sentence.
But behind those few words lies the enormous emotional weight of a family learning how to love someone through a disease that can slowly alter memory, independence and identity.
The diagnosis that changed everything
Fiona publicly revealed her Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2023.
She was only in her early sixties when she received the news.
Before doctors identified the condition, some of the changes she was experiencing had initially seemed as though they might be connected to menopause.
There was confusion.
Anxiety.
Brain fog.
Symptoms that, taken individually, could easily be explained away as part of something far less frightening.
But eventually came the diagnosis that Fiona and her family had every reason to dread.
Alzheimer’s.
For Fiona, the disease already carried a deeply personal significance.
Both of her parents had experienced Alzheimer’s, meaning she understood all too well what the diagnosis could potentially mean.
Knowing the disease from the outside, however, could never fully prepare her for becoming the person living with it.
Nor could it prepare Martin for becoming the person standing beside her.
Their lives changed.
Priorities changed.
And the future they may once have imagined together suddenly became much more uncertain.
From television executive to full-time carer
For years, Martin had lived inside the demanding world of British television.
As a senior figure behind the scenes, including his time as editor of This Morning, his professional life revolved around deadlines, live broadcasts and the relentless pace of daytime television.
Eventually, another responsibility became more important than any television programme.
Fiona.
Martin stepped away from his career and became increasingly devoted to caring for his wife.
It was not simply a professional decision.
It represented an extraordinary transformation in their marriage.
The person who had once been his partner in the ordinary rhythm of family life now needed growing levels of support.
Their relationship was still a marriage.
But it was also becoming something else.
Martin was becoming a carer.
And that role carries a kind of emotional complexity that is difficult to understand unless you have lived it.
There are practical responsibilities: appointments, medication, routines and constant decisions.
But there is also something much harder to measure.