Skip to content 
It is about what happens to a marriage when one partner becomes seriously ill.
It is about fear.
Frustration.
Exhaustion.
Uncertainty.
And the strange coexistence of grief and gratitude.
Because families affected by dementia often live with two truths at once.
They can mourn what is changing while still being deeply thankful for what remains.
Martin has also used his voice to call for greater investment in dementia research and stronger support for those caring for loved ones.
Behind every diagnosis is often an invisible network of people doing everything they can to keep life functioning.
Partners.
Children.
Friends.
Carers.
People quietly reorganising their entire existence around someone they love.
A marriage entering a chapter neither of them chose
Perhaps the most moving part of Fiona and Martin’s story is not simply what Alzheimer’s has taken.
It is what remains.
Their marriage is no longer the same marriage they once knew.
How could it be?
Illness changes relationships.
Roles shift.
Plans disappear.
The future becomes harder to imagine.
But love does not depend entirely on memory.
Martin can remember for both of them.
He can hold the stories Fiona may struggle to retrieve.
He can remember the television years.
The family milestones.
The Christmases.
The arguments.
The laughter.
The ordinary days nobody realised would one day become precious.
And when Fiona cannot remember a moment, that does not mean the moment never existed.
It still lives in the people who shared it with her.
Holding tightly to the person who remains
There is no easy ending to a story about Alzheimer’s.
No perfect sentence can remove the fear of what may come next.
Martin’s admission that the family can see Fiona “slipping away” is devastating precisely because it acknowledges something many carers quietly experience: the feeling of losing parts of someone while still being able to sit beside them, hold their hand and hear their voice.
Yet his other message may be equally important.
Fiona is still here.
She can still smile.
She can still be stubborn.
She can still share moments with the people who love her.
And those moments matter.
Perhaps more than ever.
For a family living with Alzheimer’s, love becomes less about assuming there will always be another Christmas, another holiday or another remembered conversation.
It becomes about recognising the value of what exists today.
A smile.
A familiar expression.
A quiet afternoon together.
The person sitting beside you.
Alzheimer’s may change the way memories are held.
It may erase details that once seemed impossible to forget.
But Fiona Phillips’ story is also a reminder that a human life is far greater than the memories a disease can take away.
And as Martin continues walking beside the woman he has loved for decades, he is carrying something Alzheimer’s cannot simply erase:
the history they built together — and the love that remains even when remembering becomes harder.