Mizpah

A Norwegian, Karl Ove Knaussgaard, wrote a six-volume memoir/autobiography - I've been hearing that the best writers are all reading it.  I picked up the first volume out of curiosity and am hooked.  It's not exciting or suspenseful, mostly about minutiae of life and relationships and self, but it's strangely addictive. 

A few months ago, read a great four-part piece by an Italian, Elena Ferrante (not her real name - her identity is a secret) that was fantastic, about a friendship between two women, starting as children and into older middle age.  The first is called My Brilliant Friend. 

TooSoon, you get me completely. 

Trying, it's totally true what you said about not having a natural evolution and everything being on fast forward.  Luckily, just a couple weeks before I found out I was pregnant, he made a big declaration about being in love and wanting us to be together and making it work - said something lovely about how maybe, given what we'd been through, we may never be whole, but maybe "we can be one together."  At least I know we're not together just cuz I was pregnant....  At least there's that!

The main reason I'm writing though is to respond to some things that Catnip said or implied.  As I stated before, I believe most opinions and advice reflect more of the speaker's values and outlook and experience more than the situation itself, and given that you self-identified as older and Catholic, perhaps that's where your viewpoint springs from.  (I am not Catholic - very, very not Catholic - and I am not older.)

I don't think an unplanned pregnancy should ever be confused with an unwanted pregnancy.  I never said my daughter was unwanted, and there is no shame or "lesser"-ness in a pregnancy being unplanned.  Though I don't need to explain, defend or justify the situation, I will say: after DH died, I developed stress-related reproductive health issues, and was told I would likely not be able to have a child without some sort of medical assistance.  I felt I had not only lost the opportunity to have the children DH and I had planned to have together, I felt I'd also lost the opportunity to be a mother. 

"It was not her fault that she was not planned, may she never find out"?  There are many assumptions and judgments in this statement.  May she know one (age-appropriate) day the truth and the love she came from - that she was the best surprise, that I never thought she'd be possible and there she was!  She came from the love of two people who at one point had believed their hope was gone, found each other and came alive again, and created her.  There is no shame in that, whether married or unmarried, whether we stay together or break up. 

As for staying together just because he's willing to co-parent with me, to me, that's not in a child's best interests.  I want her to learn by example about relationships that are full and total.  I don't want for her to be with a man who doesn't want to marry her, so why would I teach her that by example?  (That being said, I very well may, and am leaning toward it.)  I want her to learn to be a strong and brave woman who doesn't give up on her hopes and dreams.  I do not think that two single parent households is a desirable scenario.  It would break my heart for all three of us.  It's not what I want.  Of COURSE she is a huge concern/priority in my decision-making - I didn't even think I needed to say that, it's so inherent.  But while it's not the ideal situation, there are many very well-adjusted, emotionally stable, successful, happy children of parents who are not together (and many very maladjusted, emotionally unstable, unsuccessful, unhappy children of parents who are together). 

(She does have her father's last name.  And she would not be raised with one parent - it's not the same as being widowed.  She would still have her father.) 

Approaching and reaching one year were very hard for me.  I felt I was about to be and then was exiled from intense mourning, and didn't want to venture out into the land of the living and wasn't ready.  I felt like I was grieving grieving, too, if that makes any sense.  There was something safe and comforting about the horrible, painful grief - I didn't HAVE to envision a future, I didn't HAVE to reenter society, I didn't HAVE to feel pressure to rebuild a life and have hope, etc.  We live so much in our own minds and in our own expectations (even our own expectations of what others' expectations could be)....  Yes, that time period was very hard for me.  I spent the first year saying kaddish (the Jewish mourning prayer) for him and when the traditional first year was over, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  Exiled and flung out is the best description for how I felt.  At first, from him, and then at a year, from ritual mourning. 

How do or did you handle the loneliness?

It's a really rough part of it.  I took a lot of walks on weekends, to be *among* people, even if not *with* them.  Sometimes it helped and made me feel less lonely, sometimes it made it worse - I felt separate.  I took classes, and was among people and made a few friends and had awesome teachers.  I started going to synagogue, and always sat in the same spot - other people do too, and my synagogue neighbors became weekly chit chat people who I ended up looking forward to seeing a lot more than I ever would have anticipated.  I leaned on my siblings to talk to about DH and how I was doing, and I made permanent friends with people on YWBB (this page's precursor) who were in my same timeframe - 5 years out, and they're some of my best friends (this is an understatement).  But: there's no way to fully eradicate it.  Your whole world is gone.  The loneliness is part of the grief/loss.  It gets lesser with time and less raw with time, as do many of the other aspects of his unbearable situation.  I'm thinking of you.

Long distance sucks.  Period. 

And as for never having been needy: me either.  Then suddenly I was.  But really, I think "needy" is a bull$h!t word, just used to ridicule a completely natural, healthy, happy-seeking impulse to be close to the people we love. 

Hi guys, didn't mean to start a controversy/fight.  I hear what each of you is saying - I think most advice and opinion comes from the lens/experience/feelings/opinion of the person giving it (myself included, I'm not trying to be dismissive or insulting).

In response to a few things. 

- I'm not trying to convince him.  I don't WANT to *convince* him, which is in a way why I'm so upset by this.  I feel that it's a done deal, the marriage issue, because I want him to naturally from within himself and from love for me, WANT to marry me.  And he just doesn't.  It's more about that desire/impulse than about the actual institution/legal status for me.  It's about reciprocity of a feeling.  For me, I've never really cared about marriage.  With DH, I was willing and fine with it because I felt like - in all the ways two people can be together and united and bound in this life, I want to be that with him.  And I feel that way about widower babydaddy now.  And I wish he felt that way about me.  But he doesn't.  There is no convincing of that.  Maybe one day he'll marry me.  But I'll always know that I wanted to and he didn't.  Nothing will ever change that.  He's already made himself known.  And it's kinda broken my heart. 

- As for legal status, I feel like maybe I should've learned my lesson from losing DH, but haven't, because honestly the legal status isn't the thing that bothers me.  It really should.  Maybe I'm being irresponsible. 

- As for why we had the baby first and didn't do marriage first....  We were in a long distance relationship.  We didn't intend to fall in love.  It was just starting to get serious and we were just starting to contemplate our future when I found out I was pregnant.  It wasn't a planned pregnancy.  Within a couple months of finding out, we'd decided I'd relocate to live with him (he doesn't have geographic flexibility for a few reasons and I did). 

- TTA, yeah, it's not that easy to say he's not committing so I should leave and find someone else.  That's exactly my dilemma.  I feel like I have to make that decision: accept a situation in which I want more, or leave the man I want to be with.  It's a lose/lose choice for me, I feel.  I *HATE* the feeling of not knowing what to do, of not knowing which is the better option.  I can't imagine staying, in the absence of him reciprocating my feelings, being his girlfriend forever and nothing more, and I can't imagine leaving a relationship I want because he won't marry me (or eventually might/will but didn't initially want to).  Blah. 

There's some kind of specific torture to having more than one date.  I consider myself rather well-adjusted to life after death, but every year there are so many dates for me, and invariably the drawn-out nature of it really gets to me, in a way I think it wouldn't if there was just one date.  There's the date of the accident, the date I knew he was gone (the next morning), the date he was declared dead (2 days later), the date his parents consider the date he died (even days later).  And there's the Hebrew calendar's date of the day I consider his death (when I knew he was gone - I felt it, I knew), and the Hebrew calendar's date of the day his parents consider him to have died.  Also, every year, Passover feels like torture because he died right after it and even though he was alive for it, it feels all wrapped up in death.  It just goes on and on and on.  So my (long-winded) point (the long-windedness illustrates my point perfectly, no? hahahaha): I feel you.  One date would be way more manageable emotionally, in my opinion.  (My widower boyfriend's fiancee died instantly (in a car accident) - how insane is it to be jealous of another widow(er)'s death situation????!  But I am.)

Thanks, guys, for letting/helping me talk this out.  It's a relief.

When he feels that things could escalate or become confrontational, he withdraws.  He's extremely uncommunicative about relationships and emotions.  So did he agree?  No.  Did he disagree?  No.  He pulls back during discussions, but things usually improve after them - he's a man of action and NOT of words (the opposite of me - words are everything to me).  Over the past few months, he's become much more embracing of me, more affectionate, slower to anger/frustration, quicker to resolve and get over things, he's even apologized (something I NEVER EVER thought would happen) at times.  I would say that he does believe I'm more invested, in that he thinks that I care "too much" in general, about everything, including/especially him.  (He comes from a childhood that was filled with parental fighting/anger/abuse - between mother and father, and directed from parents to children - verbal, emotional and violent physical abuse.  He left home at 15, never to return, taking care of himself.  As a result (I believe), he is very unemotional and thinks of human connection and a desire for it as weakness and neediness (I think from having to go with his emotional needs not being met and changing for survival's sake).  I, on the other hand, come from a background of OVERcommunication about EVERYthing, in which closeness between people was all that mattered.  We're opposites in so many ways.)

When we first found out I was pregnant, and reeling from it, he said at one point it would've been better to get pregnant once we were already married, but blah blah blah.  A few months ago, I brought it up in the context of feeling like I was way more invested in our relationship and that I did a lot more of the work/giving in the family/household/relationship, and felt neglected and taken for granted.  He definitely did NOT want to surprise me with a ring.  Definitely.  I wish!

I remember the feeling you describe.  For me, what came next was an intense desire for big changes.  I hope that what's next for you is good feelings, too.  xoxoxo

I mean, if an official marriage isn't/wasn't a big deal, does it really matter if things don't work out?

I really don't think it's about the legal status to me.  It's about mutual, reciprocal feelings - I can say to him I want to be with him forever, and he's not saying the same.  Marriage is a declaration of that. 

I don't expect him to change, and part of me feels like it's all ruined anyway - even if he has a change of heart (and this is a big big if), I'll wonder if he's willing just because I want to and he's giving in, or if he really wants to....  It seems stupid to leave a relationship I want to be in for a technical status, but I'm actually considering it.  Ugh.

(Edited to add: hahahaha, Serpico!)

He's said various things.  Among them are the he doesn't feel we've had a peaceful enough relationship to take that step, that we should not fight at all for a year before deciding to get married (does anyone not have a disagreement for a year????  even in my pretty damn ideal relationship with DH, we had "fights" every now and then - nothing crazy, but I wouldn't say that we never had a "fight").  He's said that he never wanted to get married, but that his DW was the exception "because she was awesome" (um, thanks).  He's said that we both took that route before and look how it turned out.  I feel like it's all just excuses.  I feel like it's that old "he's just not that into you" thing.  We got pregnant unexpectedly during what we thought was a fling initially and quickly got really serious and in-love-y, but it wasn't like we took things slowly and he decided he wanted to be with me forever.  It's possible he's only with me because we share a child.  I don't know.  My fears and insecurities have taken hold.  I feel rejected and less loved. 

When I do go to the grocery store my basket looks as pathetic as I feel, pretty much just bananas and tissues.

 

I think it's a really good advice to try to keep busy with something you like. My wife and I had so many interests and passions but we did them all together and it's too painful for me to even consider any of them without her. Even reading we did together, laying in bed each reading a book, it was so cozy. I was never one to watch much TV, now I haven't even turned it on for over 5 weeks.

 

I have been told I should start taking anti depressants, but I don't know, I never was one for medecine either so I don't know how that would affect me. I had a few panic attacks which I barely managed to fight off going into this weekend, I'm afraid taking something would make my mind less effective regain control over myself. Or would it get better?

My heart's breaking for you (and all the new widows and widowers we've got here).  I'll just share little snippets to let you know that we can relate and that there is light "at the end of" the tunnel - not that this tunnel ends really because they're dead permanently, so maybe it's more correct to say that there's light along the way, the lights get closer together and brighter as you go on....

I subsisted on red Gatorade and a half a banana and a half an English muffin a day for months.  Terrible.  My shopping cart looked just like yours and I carried packets of tissues everywhere - in the first week, lacking all sense of decorum, I actually carried a regular old home-sized tissue box and engaged in loads of public crying.  It's not pathetic, it's right - this is how you SHOULD feel.  It is unbearable and yet we must bear it.

Like you, DH and I spent all of our time together in a happy little in love bubble of two.  I spent a lot of time in solitude after he died.  It was comforting somehow, to be able to have quiet to process my thoughts and feelings.  But too much of it can be too much of it....

Finding something "to do" was really key for me.  I felt like things were so bad in my life that I needed all other things to be stable and good and ok, so (once I started eating again), I ate super healthy, I ran and worked out a lot, I didn't drink - I felt like stability had to be the most important thing to safeguard because I felt so unstable and in despair.  It was also really important to me to pay tribute to him.  I learned Hebrew (took classes) because he was Israeli and I felt closer to him.  I read books he loved.  I went to synagogue on Friday evenings to say the mourner's prayer for him, because he loved our Jewish identity and because I needed to replace our Friday nights of excitement to have the weekend together, with something other than going home to be alone.  I planted a garden in the shape of a heart.  I bought a memorial bench/plaque in the park in the City where we spent a lot of our time.  I went to the cemetery once a month.  These things gave me ritual and purpose and meaning, until I was strong enough to begin to rebuild a life that had more to do with me and less to do with him and us. 

About meds - it's individual for everyone.  I did it without meds.  I went to therapy twice a week for a few months, and continued once a week for two years.  It was very good for me to have that oasis, that time and space. 

We all know where you are and understand your feelings.  Just keep breathing and putting foot in front of foot.  It won't always hurt so much.  But for now, suffering through is the thing.

Is this a subject the two of you can discuss without argument? Maybe if you could both calmly talk about your feelings on marriage you could understand each other with less hurt feelings. Sometimes with things like this it's hard to even articulate WHY we feel the way we do.  The fact that you have changed means it's possible that he could change too but I would think that it would have to come from him and not because he feels backed into a corner in fear he might lose you (I'm not saying this is what you are doing).

It feels so sad to me to think about sitting with him talking about why he doesn't want to marry me. 

I would encourage you to keep talking to him.  I would hope that he would value the things that you value and he would listen to your feelings and articulate clearly to you what his feelings are as well.  To me, when one is in a committed relationship, one owes one's partner good explanations, not ultimatums.  Maybe he is not even sure why he feels the way he feels?

I worry that talking about it is just pressure.  I haven't given him ultimatums, but I feel like I'm under one: accept this or leave.  I hate feeling like I care more, want more, love more, than my partner, but this issue does make me feel that way, and it permeates everything for me inside.  I'm an attorney, and he's a non-communicator, and I think that talking about it makes him feel like I'm trying to "lawyer him," or that I'm trying to convince him.  Which all just makes me so sad, because like I said, I think it's really that I want him to WANT to marry me, not just to eventually give in and "compromise" because it's what I want.  We just went on vacation together, him and me without the baby for the first time, and I felt so much envy for all the honeymooners, because those women have the status I want: their men want to be with them forever.  I hate self-pity, but I'm feeling it hardcore right now. 

I lost DH almost 5 years ago.  I have an almost-2-year-old daughter with a widower.  We live together.  We have a family together.  We've had a rough time of it for much of the past two years, but over the past few months, things have improved exponentially. 

I never used to care about marriage.  Now suddenly I do.  He doesn't want to get married.  I do.  I feel like I'm stuck "between a rock and a hard place," forced to choose between losing the person I want to be with in order to maybe have the right situation (marriage), or losing the hope of the situation I want in order to be with the person I want to be with....  I don't even know why I care - I'm not religious, I don't care what other people think.  I think it's partly that he doesn't want to that makes me want to, or maybe it's not that I want to BE married, but that I want him to want to marry me.... 

I don't know what I'm asking all of you.  Maybe I'm not asking anything.  This dilemma is hurting inside.  Maybe by venting it, I'll feel better.  I don't know.  I don't want to have to make this decision. 

Being a problem solver and a project manager professionally, how do i "manage" myself out of this? How do i go on? How do i eat when he is not here to share a meal with me? Where should i go, if he is not there to accompany us? We were literally together in everything

I can very much relate, as I know many/all of us can, to this feeling.  ("I don't want to eat if he can't eat.")  (Public crying = totally normal!  You'll do it less over time.)  You can't manage yourself out of this.  You can only experience it, feel it, suffer through it, and very very slowly, gradually, with time, rebuild a life and a vision of your future that doesn't make you want to fall to your knees and scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!," for the rest of your time on earth.  My DH and I also spent all of our time together in a happy bubble, and I also lost him extremely suddenly (left for work Friday, looking forward to our weekend, and by noon, he'd been hit by a car while standing on a sidewalk).  That was almost 5 years ago now (5 years?!  WTF?!  How?!).  What I can tell you: the early days feel so long, you put so much pressure on yourself to make "progress," or you punish and judge yourself for wanting to not feel so much pain, because if he's gone, how can you have any relief?  What I can tell you: I barely remember the first few months, and it's probably a mercy.  Having to take care of your daughter will force you to function to a certain extent, but I hope that if you have assistance, you will avail yourself of it and give yourself time for you every now and then - to think, to cry, to write if it gives you solace.  I hope you will find bits of happiness in seeing pieces of him in her.  There's no getting around it: it's unbearable, and yet we are tasked with bearing it.  You will create a happy life/family for your daughter (and yourself), but for now, set the bar very very very very low.  Survive.  Feel the pain and sadness fully.  At about two years out, I felt alive again - I had died with him, and felt that way for a long time.  I have a daughter who's almost 2, with a widower.  Taking care of a newborn, baby, toddler - it takes away so much of your freedom and your ability to be a person yourself.  You've got trauma, and loss, and taking care of a baby - you have all of my sympathy, and I wish I could do something.  Feel free to message me anytime.  We're all here for you.  We've all walked your loss path, and some here had newborns when they lost their partner.  I'm thinking of you.  Just keep breathing, putting one foot in front of the other, hydrating, and feeding your daughter and changing her diapers and holding her.  The rest is for another time. 

Are there meetup groups in your area (meetup.com)?  While your kid is in school, can you do your schoolwork at a cafe, to be among people and maybe end up chitchatting and becoming friends with people doing the same?  Find/start a bookclub? 

Could you just tell them - hey, my son is growing up without sufficient male role models, and I'd love it if you would incorporate him and take him under your wing a few hours once a month.  I really believe that people just don't know what to do, are just in the path of least resistance, and that, when called upon in a specific way, want to and will step up.  I don't know.  I could be naive and hopeful.  Or maybe it's that I'm jaded - people aren't going to do anything unless we make it happen. 

I love you people.  So much. 

Marian, remember those days?  I'm so glad so much of it is hazy.  So glad to have these connections and comforts to take from it.

Mizpah, you'd be more than welcome to join us.

I wish I could!  I live deep in the north country now 

I'm going to get on the bus and go to a concert in Brooklyn tonight with college friends and to a museum in Manhattan the morning (for work, really) and maybe walk across the bridge and back and try to shake it all off if only for 24 hours

Yay!  Don't know you, but wish I could come with you!  Awesome. 

Yes, it is, and I hope it comes very very soon.

It makes me angry to think of healing...being "over him"...cause I don't want life without him.  Part of me doesn't mind being in the dark.

I felt this way exactly.  If it gives you any comfort, I don't think you will be "over" him.  I'm not - it's been almost 5 years for me, and tomorrow would've been his birthday.  I have a boyfriend and a daughter who's almost 2 and I'm not "over" him.  I think about him often.  I talk about him.  I have learned to function, live and love in a world that does not include him.  Learning how to do that is gradual, and requires going through lots of painful moments.  Four months feel like forever - hell, in the beginning, an hour felt like forever.  You will find a new normal, one that doesn't always hurt all the time - it won't always take effort.  You will build a new life - later.  Now you will survive, and do what you need to do, and maybe not more than that. 

And yes, people are impatient for your "healing."  It makes them uncomfortable perhaps.  They wish they could help and they can't perhaps.  None of that matters - the whys.  You need to do what YOU and your daughter need, not what makes others feel comfortable.  I lost many friends after Simon died, and that's ok. 

Are you in therapy?  A good therapist is a great thing.