Wheelerswife

CW...I'm definitely planning on being there on Saturday night...I'm guessing it is the best option for most of us if people are choosing just one night. Maybe we can have a bit of a roll call?

I listened... It is hard to be this far out (the 5th anniversary of my second husband's death is in January) and to feel like life is in limbo. It has only been in the last few months that I feel like some of my life is finally coming together again. We often have ideas of how our life will progress...and when our dreams are shattered, it can be hard to find hope for future happiness. I'm glad you detached yourself from an unhealthy relationship. That is the beginning of another round of healing. I have been quite impatient myself with the time it has taken for me to regain my footing over the last 4 1/2 years. You are working toward that yourself...and milestone dates might be making this feel overwhelming. Your 30 year old cohort doesn't likely understand life as you do; however, you have learned some life lessons that will make you a good friend and partner long into your future. For now...when the pain has rebounded...cry as you need to cry. Channel the memories of the love you had with your beloved Christopher. You know in your heart what he would tell you right now. Go have fun with your friends. Let them distract you from your pain and get through your birthday and vacation. Hugs...and Happy Birthday! Maureen

Hugs....I hope I always miss my guys, but I don't want that to hold me back from trying to live. Maureen

Welcome, br1979, I'm so sorry you lost your beloved husband. It is so difficult to lose a spouse unexpectedly. Each of us finds our way through this terrible situation. Sometimes it feels so unbearable...but we are all still here in spite of all we have been through. I don't have children, but I understand from others that there is an extra layer of grief for parents who also hold grief for their children. There are a lot of other parents with younger kids here...perhaps you will feel a connection to someone and can relate to their stories. Post away...we will listen. Hugs, Maureen

I believe it is in Wells.

Bumping this up...September is just around the corner, right?

Ah...not with my new job right now. Would love to see you, though!

I would...except I am nowhere near Phoenix.... Maureen 😉

I went back to school about 2 years after my first husband died - left a lucrative 26 year career and didn’t even know what I wanted. (Yikes!) The situation became complicated because my second husband died before I finished my degree, but I went on to get that second Bachelor’s and then a Master’s degree, too. If you can do it from a financial standpoint, I say go for it. It isn’t fun to be in a rut. Maybe this can pull you out and give you some vitality. Good luck! Maureen

He had many lessons to teach, didn’t he, Sandrine? To live every moment to its fullest. To grasp every opportunity, because you never know what you can learn and what fun you can have. To think really big - because we limit ourselves way too much. I miss him. He was an incredible friend. Maureen

It has been almost 9 years since my first husband died. I found YWBB (the precursor to this board) 4 weeks later. I attended my first bago just 6 weeks after my husband died...with a group of people obviously widowed longer than me. I continue friendships with many of the people who were there that day. I have met widowed people from near and far. There is such a spectrum of where people are in their lives. The vast majority have productive lives, though I doubt any that I know would equate living their lives with getting back to their old selves. I will never be the person I was before my first husband died, nor the person I was before my second husband died. Losing my husbands has changed me. My widowed friends who are 5+ years out....some are very happily remarried, a couple have been through difficult remarriages, and many are not recoupled. I know fewer widowers, and my remarried/not remarried numbers are a bit skewed, since I know more widow/widower couples than widow(er)/non-widow(er) couples. I realize that my friends are but a mere subset of people widowed too young and it is likely also skewed in some way versus the general population of people in our age ranges who have lost a spouse. My friends, much like me, searched out an online support group and made connections there because that worked for us. Even in the microcosm of my own life, I have experienced my two losses very differently. I was happily remarried to a wonderful (widowed) man 18 months after my first husband died. I wasn't "dating" or even considering dating when we started talking. It just evolved from a long platonic conversation. I only recently felt as though I was ready to date (although I admit to checking out dating sites to see what they looked like long before I was ready). I don't want to live the rest of my life without a great partner. Will I find one? I hope so! And it would be great if it happened without a lot of rejection along the way... Hugs, Maureen

I remember you, jsoriano. I’m glad you made it back and found us here. I hope your little ones are doing well. I still find that connections with other widowed people are a critical part of my well-being. Keep checking in! Maureen

Isn't this complicated? There are a few things I know and a lot of things that I don't know. What do I know? I know that I loved my first husband deeply. I met him at 28, married at 30, and I lost him at 47. Six months later, I met my second husband. He was also widowed. We connected, initially thinking we would be friends on this widowed journey. We talked for hours and hours. Strong feelings developed. We decided to meet, realized we had something very special between us, made quick decisions to close the gap between us, and we married a year after we met. The love we had between us was different - fuller - I would say, perhaps partially because of our age/life experience and the impact of losing the persons we each loved so deeply. Unfortunately, I lost him less than 4 years after I met him. It has been harder for me losing my second husband. I know a lot of people who have been widowed and have found wonderful love again. Many are also with widowed people, but some are married to people previously divorced. I know that they share very deep relationships with a second spouse. I also know a few who perhaps came to the conclusion that they had found a good life companion, but they don't have the same level of intimacy as they had with a late spouse. I know that my relationship with my second husband was entirely different from that which I had with my first husband. They were very different people. It didn't do much good to compare. I do know that I never doubted myself in my relationship with my second husband. I have not made much headway into the dating realm since my second husband died, so I can't give you any thoughts on how I might feel now if I was attempting a relationship. I'm not sure there is one right answer here....perhaps it just has to be right for you and the woman you care about. Best wishes, Maureen

Wonderful! Love seeing your smile. You look great! Congratulations to both of you! Maureen

Love this post, Rob!

Some people are true DGI’s that should know better. Like my gynecologist. She told me just weeks after my first husband died that I would be better off without him. Yeah. A 60-something year old doctor. Or my father. He asked me when I was 3 months out why I was still sad, since I knew my husband was going to die. (He has always been stunted emotionally.) I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I do tend to hold onto the sting of these kinds of comments, even when I don’t want to. It is kind of like someone inadvertently dropping a hammer on your foot. Even though they didn’t do it on purpose, it still hurts a lot when it hits and it takes a while before the pain subsides. Maureen

Interesting discussion here. I need to preface this by saying I could not open your links, so I am responding without the opportunity to read your wife's words. When I think of my first husband, I know he was predestined to die young - because he got 2 bad genes that together gave him a progressive neuromuscular disease with a lousy prognosis. He was expected to die in childhood, yet he lived to be 53. The beginning of the end started 16 months before he died when he became critically ill and his muscular weakness impacted his ability to breathe on his own. With today's technology, he was able to have ventilator support at night. Some people live for years with the assistance of technology and some people with his disease have lived for decades in a much more debilitated state than my husband. However, the loss of function and the anxiety that overcame my husband were unbearable for him. In the end, when facing another long ICU stay, he chose not to avail himself of extensive measures. A week before he died, Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer. We had followed Patrick's story in the news, as we had enjoyed some of Patrick's films together. We had just come off a weekend away together at a casino/resort where we had stayed 2 nights in a luxury hotel, seen a few shows, and had some nice meals together thanks to a gift from his parents. I had carted his ventilator and other medical equipment with us to the hotel, as nothing was going to stop us from living as fully as we could. My husband was extremely weak and medically vulnerable; however, he was not sick. The night that Patrick died, my husband wanted to talk, and so we went to bed a little early and I held him in my arms and we basically reviewed our life together. We had talked abut death and dying since we met (18+ years earlier) and so this was not unusual for us, especially in light of Patrick's death announcement. As we were talking, my husband asked me if it would be better for me if he died a quick death or a slow death. I told him that it wasn't about me - that when his time came, I hoped he would have a peaceful death and that I would do everything in my power to see that he was not in pain. I told him I hoped we had many more years together and that we would overcome the challenges we faced. He seemed very calm after our conversation. I put him on his ventilator and we went to sleep. The next morning, he woke up after the best night's sleep in years...but he was congested. Within 24 hours, he was in the hospital and quickly critically ill. He chose not to undergo aggressive treatment and went into a coma a short time later. He woke again later that day and had 2 lucid days before becoming confused, then comatose, and several hours later, he died peacefully. Something tells me he knew his time was close. I know that as sad as I was to lose him, I knew his suffering was over. In some ways, my suffering also ended....or perhaps just changed. I no longer had to ache for him for his suffering. I no longer had to worry about him choking or his fear of losing the balance of his head or if his daytime caregiver would know how to make subtle adjustments to make him comfortable. But now I suffered from the loss of the man I loved so deeply. We are left to process loss on the part of our spouses/partners as well as our own losses. For me, this has been life-altering. Twice. I don't honestly think my second husband had a clue he was about to die, even though he was in unknown heart failure. I was clueless myself. Sigh. Sorry for the hijack, but thanks for reading. Maureen

It is hard to lose special people in our lives. I think I am more sensitized to this than many people I know who are not widowed. Linda sounds like a really incredible woman and I am glad you and your son were graced with knowing her. Hugs, Maureen

New folks?

And to you as well!

Hugs, my friend. There are so many experiences that come back to us that we cannot share with another because it is part of the intimacy we had with our late spouses. I’m not quite sure how my second husband John was able to share the home he had with his late wife with me. I know there were memories he had that he needed to experience alone. I remember the night before landscaping contractors were going to level our (undeveloped and fairly ugly) back yard to create the plan that John had planned for us. He stood in the back yard with tears running down his cheeks, knowing that the few flower bulbs that Cheryl had planted would be scraped away along with the weeds that were growing rampantly. I found John outside and gave him an appreciated hug, but then he needed his space to process his own lost dreams. Thanks for for the chance to remember this. Hope I didn’t hijack! Hugs, Maureen

Hi, Heather. I started experiencing panic attacks within a few days of losing my second husband unexpectedly. They were quite significant in the beginning and I did see my doctor for help with them. I did not tolerate some medications very well. I also saw a counselor with experience in grief and eventually chose to get a service dog to help me recognize early signs of anxiety. I am doing considerably better now than I was 4 1/2 years ago. If you need help managing what is happening, ask your doctor. There are many ways to help cope. Hugs, Maureen

It won’t be snowing in Maine in September. 😏

Hi, Heather, I'm so sorry you had to join our club. Watching the love of your life die is so difficult. I, too, wanted the last hours of my first husband's life to go more quickly. I didn't want him (or me) to suffer any more. It is so early for you in this process. The pain is so acute...breathtaking at times. You have gotten some good information from some of the others....this is truly something we take moment by moment. This is your experience and you need to feel comfortable taking it your own way. Others may think they know what you need...but give yourself permission to listen to yourself. Read here; post when you feel the urge. Nothing is off limits. People have listened to us...and we are here to listen to you. Hugs, Maureen

I don't necessarily need extra entertainment when I am near beaches...I love beach therapy...