NEED TO KNOW
- Emma Heming Willis told Vanity Fair that she “felt like [her] marriage was crumbling” with Bruce Willis before they learned of his dementia diagnosis
- The magazine reported that she considered divorce at one point
- Emma’s book The Unexpected Journey is out now
Emma Heming Willis considered several avenues in her changing relationship with husband Bruce Willis before he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
In an in-depth profile with Vanity Fair on Friday, Sept. 5, the author and caregiver advocate said, “I felt like my marriage was crumbling” ahead of her husband’s diagnosis, with the magazine reporting that she even considered divorce at one point.
Per Vanity Fair, Emma, 49, worried that Bruce, 70, had fallen out of love with her or that he had become someone else — before they received the news that he had aphasia and, later, was diagnosed with FTD, following a “romantic, beautiful story” of their relationship before.
But before his diagnosis, Emma wondered, “ ‘What is going on? This is not the person that I married. Something is just so off.’ And I just couldn’t figure it out.”
“It is so hard right now for me to tap into that time of our life,” she added of their romance before Bruce started showing signs of dementia.
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Emma shares daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, with the Die Hard actor, whom she married on March 21, 2009.
Speaking with PEOPLE for a recent cover story, The Unexpected Journey author said that long before Bruce’s FTD diagnosis in November 2022, she knew something was amiss. She just didn’t know what.
“FTD doesn’t scream, it whispers,” Emma said. “It’s very gray to know where Bruce stopped and where his disease kicked in.”
The former model went on to say that she “started noticing his stutter started to come back, but I never in a million years thought that was a symptom of FTD.”
“Conversations weren’t really aligning anymore, and our relationship started to shift. It was hard to put my finger on why and what was happening,” she explained.
Unaware that her husband’s brain was changing and absent of an explanation for his increasing distance and their communication issues, Emma grew frustrated and self-doubting. “I thought it was something I was doing in our marriage that was not working anymore,” she said.
Continued Emma, “It’s like you’re banging your head against a brick wall. You’re just like, ‘Where is the miscommunication coming? What is happening within our relationship?’ “
When they received a diagnosis, Emma told PEOPLE, “There was relief in understanding, ‘Oh, okay, this wasn’t my husband, it was that this disease was taking parts of his brain,’ ” she recalled. “Once you hear that, I just softened.”
“I have heard so many other couples that have gone through this where they just can’t figure it out [and] think it’s a marital problem, but in fact, it’s a symptom of a disease,” Emma said.
The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path is available now wherever books are sold.
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