I Forgot to Remember

While this is a one-of-a-kind case, there are a lot of people who live with lesser variations of it.

Some friends of mine were involved in a serious auto accident about 20 years ago. The husband was driving when a drunk driver crossed the median. He had only minor injuries -- bruises, scrapes, a sprained wrist. Two of his sisters, in the back seat, were killed instantly. His wife, in the passenger seat, was in a coma for several months. She started walking again a year later, and talking a few months after that. Her personality is similar to her prior personality, but not the same. It's not like my friend is married to an entirely different person, but he is married to someone he had to re-teach to walk and talk and think about the world.

Another friend of mine with lifelong mental illness experienced a change in symptoms when she went to college, and a change back after she had a baby. Her husband had thought her college personality was the "real her" and was devastated when her parents said she seemed more like the "real her" of her childhood.

I think a universal truth about marriage is that you're never married to the exact same person over a long period of time. Sometimes the changes are extreme enough that you really do have to re-learn who you're married to.