Tip: Alzheimer's took away his marriage, not his life

Outside of divorce or death, when does a marriage end? For Barry Petersen, his answer came during an agonizing journey.

Petersen, a longtime correspondent for CBS News, began his heartbreaking journey five years ago, when his wife, Jan, also a journalist, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Jan Petersen was only 55. In retrospect, Barry Petersen realizes the problems began years earlier. "Jan began to show very subtle signs that something was changing when she was 40," he says. To help others cope with the anguish of seeing a loved one slip away because of Alzheimer's, Petersen has written "Jan's Story: Love Lost to the Long Goodbye of Alzheimer's."

The disease quickly advanced. For his CBS job, Barry and Jan were living in Tokyo. Finding help or support groups in Japan proved difficult. As happens in millions of families, Petersen assumed the role of caregiver. "I had a day job and I had an all-night job," Petersen says. The ravages of Alzheimer's soon made it clear Jan needed to live in an assisted-living facility. The two returned to the United States. Jan is now in a assisted living in Denver, near where Petersen is living.

Even as he visited and helped care for Jan in the facility, he struggled with loneliness. His course became easier when he received an e-mail from Jan's mother, Caron: "I am hopeful that you will find a woman with whom you can share your life," she wrote, adding that it wouldn't hurt Jan, "who would never know or understand."

Spurred by what he calls this "extraordinary e-mail," Petersen began a relationship with Mary Nell Wolff, whose husband died in 2004. But he has not forgotten about his wife, who can no longer recognize him. "Mary Nell goes with me to see Jan," he says. "She is my co-caregiver."

Petersen knows not everyone will agree with his choice. He says most letters and e-mails he gets are supportive, but there is the occasional caustic comment.

"The issue was, do you keep living, or do you not?" he says. "I decided that I needed to keep living."