Mizpah

Oh my gosh. The puritanical moralizing! Humans are sexual creatures. There is nothing wrong with consenting adults enjoying themselves, enjoying having a body, enjoying each other, etc. How does a woman (any person!) lose her self-respect by enjoying (within reason/safety/sanity of course) the body and life we are given?

So very beautiful. Made me teary. Thinking of you and your daughter. I get angry when people "speak for the dead," but I can't help but think he'd be so proud of you.

I remember this thought so well, though I remember the 3 month general time so little (thank Gd). I remember thinking that each moment just took me further from him, and took him further from life. Each moment separated us more and more, and I hated it. Like you, I didn't WANT to feel better - rather, I wanted to be close to him. (He was 28 and was hit by a car while he was standing on a sidewalk. My therapist told me early on that I was not just dealing with loss, but also with trauma. I was angry even at that - I didn't care about what I had to go through or "the process," I only cared about him - what he had lost, the him that I had lost. Everything that wasn't him obliterated him.) Like Trying, I barely remember "the early days." Writing memories helped me continue to feel close to him, or at least to resist thinking about anything other than him, like I was preserving pieces of him that could otherwise disappear, since I was now the only bearer of all things only he and I knew. Perhaps it could bring you some comfort. Now I have journals full of stories. I don't have him. But I did. And for that I will always be the luckiest. Like you. Just keep surviving. And honestly - just keep hurting. It's what is natural and normal. What's the quote? "The pain now is the love then - that's the deal." Something like that. Or from Joyce Carol Oates' book about losing her husband: "Suffer. He was worth it." I'm babbling. Just trying to give you anything that could possibly be of value to you, as you now is me then. We all walk next to, beside, and behind you.

My MIL was haunted and tortured by these questions - constantly asking why - why him, why then, why this, why me, etc., etc. I immediately initially said, "There is no why." This complete conviction, that there is randomness and chance in life, I think spared me some of this. I realize it's silly to say - "hey, just think the way I think." I wished she could have though, and you too. I hope you find some peace from this.

His first birthday that he wasn't here for, about 9 months in. I looked down at my finger, and thought how RIGHT it looked, how I never ever wanted to take it off, and then in a strange moment of disconnect between thought and action, I took it off. I wear it once a year on his birthday, as a kind of gift to him.

It is NORMAL to want love. There's NOTHING "wrong with you" for feeling lonely. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert or any of the (often nonsensical, constricting) classifications and definitions we impose upon ourselves, we crave closeness and care and connection, by creature nature. For me, grief showed me that I needed to let go of what I thought I was, and let myself be. You don't need to be saved and re-coupling isn't the only way to survive it, but didn't our lost loves show us that love is, as DH used to say, the ultimate prize in life? We seek it, even when we wish we wouldn't, even when we don't want to, even when we wish we could just be satisfied with what we have. Don't do this to yourself: "I've had three years to get over it, what's wrong with me?" A life was extinguished. Your life was hugely altered. It's bad enough to feel so bad, but to feel badly about feeling bad.... Let yourself off the hook a little. Don't judge yourself for wanting what we all want. I hope you find some peace, and what you're longing for.

You will always belong here. I only wish we could alleviate your suffering. You're in my heart and in my hopes.

No one can wake you up or put you out of the misery, but know that, even though right now it is unbearable, there will come a time in your life when you do not feel such searing pain. You will not always hurt like this, or at the very least not so constantly. It takes a long time, I won't lie (though it's different for each person), and it's a slow, gradual process, but you will not always hurt like this.

I think it's less like a human calling himself a cheese sandwich and more like an open-faced sandwich calling itself a sandwich. Not technically a sandwich, because nothing is sandwiched between two pieces of bread, because there's only one piece of bread. Yet it's close enough that no one wants to go through the rigmarole of saying, "It's a piece of bread with cheese on top but there is no second slice of bread." I was at lunch with a work colleague a couple weeks ago, and she was talking about a woman she knows who she called a widow. Another person asked how long they'd been married when he died, and the woman went on to explain that they were actually just engaged and he died before they got married, and said how long they'd been together. The responses? "How horrible." "So sad." "Poor girl." None of this parsing and correcting or, "Oh, well, she's actually not a widow then, is she?" I will say, though, that I take a critical view sometimes myself. I call NG a widower even though she was "just" his fiancee. (Like I said in an earlier response, DH and I called each other husband and wife, as did our friends and family, we wore wedding bands with each other's names engraved, and I changed my name legally. NG and his fiancee called each other fiance and fiancee.) But he's called her his wife a few times in conversation with me, and it *does* (against all of my opinions) rankle me. I continue to call DH husband because I don't want to short thrift him in death from what I gave him in life, but to change the nomenclature after death, I don't know, it does bother me. I don't know why. It's silly. He knows the truth. I know the truth. It's complicated. Our language lacks a word for this. We do our best.

I'm so sorry, Michael. Bearing the unbearable. There are no words. I'm thinking of you, for whatever it's worth, and I know right now: not much.

I went to dinner Sunday with my mother and my sister, my boyfriend (widower NG) and our daughter. In HIGHLY simplified form, my grief looked like: a few months of extreme trauma/devastation, started to feel alive again and happy around 2 years, got involved with NG, quickly got serious and got pregnant and relocated to join him and then a couple years of pretty significant difficulty and unhappiness - levels of emotional pain/distress I didn't think I'd ever feel again (mostly new-relationship-related, but I'm sure grief played a part, and his too, and both of us missing what we used to have, angry at what we had now and what it lacked comparatively). Well, gradually things improved (or rather, we improved, I'm sure - maybe!), and now (6+ years out) I'm feeling hopeful again and at times (more and more), truly "happy." So when I opened my fortune cookie after dinner on Sunday (after a lovely, heartwarming day with my still-feels-new little family), I instantly became teary, as did my mom and sister when I showed it to them before stuffing it into my wallet to keep (maybe forever): "The hard times will begin to fade. Joy will take their place."

Oh gosh I'm so sorry. That's so hard. But therapy *can* help. It can't change your circumstances, and its goal isn't to "cheer you up" or anything like that, but for me, some of the benefits were the ritual of having a time and place and person to go to that were all about my needs (in a world that of course is NOT), of having a place where I could say ANYTHING (including hopelessness), of knowing that I was doing what I could to be as healthy as possible in highly health-threatening circumstances (emotionally, but also physically and mentally, etc.). So much of grief and loss is about processing, and talking through your thoughts and feelings is processing. Grief isn't to be fixed, as Trying said, but to be gone through. Therapy helps you go through it. (I went twice a week for 8 months and then once a week for more than year after that - DH was hit by a car while standing on a sidewalk and had brain injuries - I was severely traumatized.) I needed to be able to say things I didn't feel I could say in real life. I needed to be able to fall apart. So, for me, it wasn't about, "Hey, therapy will make everything better," but more like, "Therapy will allow me to be honest about how horrible things truly are." And, for me, that did - very very slowly and very very gradually over a long period of time - help me, give me strength, reveal my resiliency, allow me to take joy in aspects of life again, help me feel alive again, help me become myself rather than a zombie, help me reenter the land of the living. (Can you tell I love therapy?)

My mother found YWBB within the first month, and started pushing it on me. I'd never been part of any on-line forum (and haven't been part of any others since) and was extremely resistant. I also felt anger, that what I was going through wasn't about LOSS GENERALLY, but about DH himself. It felt insulting that what I was going through was generic, or about me, or about grief itself - it felt like yet another thing that was being taken from him. But then I read. And everything people were saying resonated, in a world in which I felt completely and suddenly out of place. It was like living in a country where everyone spoke a different language, and suddenly I was transported to a land where I found out other people talked like me too. I was on YWBB CONSTANTLY. It was much busier back then, as I recall it, especially in the newly widowed section. I read and read and wrote and PM'ed with people. There was some toxic drama on the board within a year (2011-12, for those of you who recall the two people who went nuclear), and I left, but by that point, I had found my tribe, and made supportive relationships that have lasted to this day and I hope to have my whole life, even with people I've still never met (and many I have). Years later, I have sisterhoods (and brothers too) that have kept me aloft and inspired me and been that communication and support constant I needed in DH's absence. I can only hope I've contributed to their well-being as well.

And do not absorb his opinion. Completely disregard what he's saying about your relationship with his father. You know the truth.

This.

What they said. It's ok to cry. Then he'll know it's ok to have feelings and express them in the safety of family/loved ones. Strength isn't in denying or suppressing or avoiding feelings - it's in accepting, confronting, experiencing them in a healthy way. Don't be hard on yourself - life's being hard enough on you.

Yikes. It sounds like Scott assigned you quite the task. I say cut yourself some major slack and choose what feels right to you.

Oh hon. I could've written this word for word, truly, except I was 32, and he died on April 30th. Otherwise, every single word. That was six years ago now. Keep breathing. Keep hydrated. Get sunshine. Let your feelings out. We are all walking this path with you, next to you, in front of you, behind you.... We all get it. Back then, I thought of it as having to survive the unsurvivable, bear the unbearable.... I'm wishing you moments of comfort and solace in your days.

I think it's very smart and mature to know what you do and do not want your life to be - and what you want for your children/family. Not to be cynical and ugly, but the love between two people is only part of a relationship. The life you can build together is a big factor. I got involved in my current relationship with some naivete/inexperience in issues like this, and while I don't regret it, it can be difficult and full of stress and strain. I know that if we part ways, there are things that will be dealbreakers in the future, no matter how much love there could be.

Agree with the above whole-heartedly, and much that is stated by others. And this is going to sound crazy, but I agree with both my own opinion on this, as well as the complete opposite of my opinion. I'm a widow who is with a widower. He was not very far out when I met him (I was 2 years, and he was 6 months), and I overestimated how ready he was, based on how he portrayed himself, things he said and did, our connection, and his having had other romantic/sexual partners after death but before me. It was very very very very (I would just keep typing "very" over and over for a while, but I guess I'll stop) difficult for a long time between us, and caused me a lot of pain, and I think interfered with his grieving process. I don't regret it (and we're still together, years later), and you're going to do what you're going to do, and I'm the last person who would ever tell a widow not to take comfort where you can find it, BUT. I would say either don't do it, or go in with your eyes wide open and EXTREMELY upfront and honest with this person so they don't get hurt. But he's an adult and can make his own decisions. I definitely understand the impulse to find closeness and comfort - I resisted it with a couple of DH's co-workers, and it was very hard to decide not to allow myself those cozy feelings (or at least not to act on them). So I completely understand your dilemma. Part of me is like - hey, lady, allow yourself good feelings. But the other part of me is like - alert! alert! save yourself from danger! Therapy is awesome. I highly advise it.

But I'm a woman and I don't get it either, so maybe it's a personality thing. (Unless I'm a man on the inside? No.)

Is this problematic because he is regarding a funeral as less important than a retirement party, and we're sensitive about death/honoring the dead, or because of the few changes in plans for his people over yours, or because he doesn't think it's necessary for you to accompany him? You say you'd rather go to the funeral, and he said yes or he'll go alone - he gave you an out if you wish to take it, but you don't want to. I don't know. I'd just say, "Of course I'll come with you," or something. I don't know. I think I'm missing what's problematic here.

So true, all of it. Your clarity and honesty will continue to give you the strength to walk our path. Thinking of you

I'm so sorry. Those words don't even begin to communicate the feelings I have for you upon reading that. Thinking of you so much.

Serpico, Secure people don't have insecurities such as you describe in your marriage. (Relationship insecurity is not on par with being insecure about one's love handles.) I recall you speaking very early on in your relationship about your now-wife's issues when you referred to your late wife, and that she expressed dismay that you had photos of your late wife in your house. You stated that even now she struggles with memories of your late wife being brought up. To me, your combined posts read as though she doesn't respect your life before her. I am guessing that her issues are not specific to marrying a widower (referring to your recent post), but more of what seems to me to be her anxious attachment style. I respectfully disagree. I don't know Serpico's wife personally of course, but secure people can feel insecure in certain types of scenarios. That doesn't necessarily mean they're not a secure individual in general or that they form anxious attachments or that they don't respect their partner's former life or feelings or late spouse. I know from my own experience. I have never felt insecure in any of my relationships before. But now I'm with a widower, and I have relationship insecurities. It's not as simple or simplistic as it seems, or as I used to believe it to be before I was in my situation. It is very hard to be with someone who will always love someone else. I say that as both a widow and someone who is with a widower.