anniegirl

No, I think that's just what we do because we are human. There is a little bit of social training in there too. Plus, our society has this weird thing with romantic perfection that's (imo) ridiculously unattainable. Being unsettled is natural when you've lost someone though and it's not something that a new relationship fixes. It bubbles underneath until you feel safe again. And that happens when it happens. Time. And reassuring yourself that things will be alright and that it's okay to open up, be vulnerable and take a chance. Over-analyzing doesn't generally lead anywhere good. If you made good decisions about people before you were widowed, you haven't lost that skill. You are spooked. Perfectly normal. Trust yourself.

"I'm so sorry" is not enough. No words. ((Baylee))

I think there is a difference between mindfully being in the moment and being abducted by the moment and held prisoner. And it's not negative to feel crappy when things are crappy. You don't have to Oprah your way out of it. Cry. Rage. Rant. And then eat some ice cream, have a cuppa tea. Something. Thinking happy thoughts has it's time and place and so does allowing yourself to not feel happy.

No, but it frustrated me a bit because I only joined the YWBB in hopes of finding a way forward. A friend from there told me years later that she'd never seen anyone as determined to move on with life as I was. But she was widowed rather suddenly and my experience meant that I cared for the shell of my LH for a long while before he died. A shell that didn't know me or us. By the time I was truly a widow, I was chomping a the bit for forward progression. I read because I wanted to keep up with people and later I was looking for people and there were still questions. Not so many but a few. I gave up posting because I simply got tired of defending the fact that I was different and my point of view was different from the accepted paradigm because it just didn't fit my circumstances or my needs. I got tired of the bullying and I knew it was distracting to people who needed a quieter and safer place. And that's why I read and I had begun to consider posting again in this last six months or so but I didn't want to intrude. I felt like I would be. Hadn't really sorted through that when the board closed. I was pulled in to the FB group and decided, okay, new board/fresh start. And there isn't anything wrong with you, marian1953. We all had our reasons for silence or posting. No right or wrong. I Me too and I do think it's okay to have discussions about the things that made the old board a wild west sometimes. There were things that went beyond people just have different opinions and heated exchanges. A little passion is one thing but some things went way beyond. No need for recriminations but it does no good for people to sit on their hurts and fears. Truth is sometimes not uplifting. But as I stated earlier, I hope that someone who feels discouraged will feel that they can voice that and ask questions and seek reassurance. We won't always be able to say it gets better but maybe it should be established up front that this forum won't be a place where you will be shamed or ridiculed for asking, being different, sharing what's in your soul even if it makes someone else go "what?". Just my opinions. Just thoughts.

Birthdays are rough. They are "would've beens". Take it easy today.

A fellow escape artist! I couldn't read fiction anymore and I still find it hard to immerse myself in it because it has to be really good and that is hard to find. I also found it very hard to write fiction too. So, I escaped into non-fiction. Yes, it can be done. And blogged. Creative non-fiction. Widows are nothing else if not adaptable. I also found that the first six-ish months were easy compared to the last four or five, but at five months, I just went to pieces at work. I was teaching credit recovery (drop out prevention work really) and ESL in a brand new school that was mainly. And though I had some of the least wanted kids in the school to work with, it was actually a stupid paperwork thing that sent me over the edge one day. I just burst into tears while ranting to a co-worker. She said, "Go home. I will find people to cover you. I will talk to the admin right now. Just go home. You need a break." I went to the cemetery and yelled at my LH's tombstone. No one was around to see this, thank goodness. But I bawled him out good. Told him, "You are somewhere totally free of this mess and I am stuck living it. You'd better get your angel butt off that cloud and send me some help." Next day, I met with my VP and she had figured out a way to get me a medical paid time off to the end of the school year. I just supervised my sub from home. But, I did - as I told you - pick myself up and finish my master's. There was parenting I couldn't magic away tombstone's make poor babysitters). Long story but the point is that breaking down is necessary sometimes. They are opportunities to check and see if we are where we are comfortable. A chance to take stock, make changes. And they remind us that we still need time and to maybe go a bit slower. The last couple of weeks have been busy for you. Lots of people depending on you getting this site up and running. Easy to get caught up. Startling to be reminded that even though you are amazing, even amazing people get overloaded. You will be okay. The next few months will have ups/downs but you will get through it.

Sleep debt. The worst kind of debt, imo. It never can be well and truly paid back. During the first year of widowhood, I didn't sleep more than six hours a night and never without multiple wakings. So not straight through. Even though he was gone and I didn't have to lie awake wondering if he was okay or with half an ear alert for the phone, it took my body forever to come down from red alert. My internal danger sensors are so fine tuned now that it doesn't take much of a crisis to set me off on the insomnia trail though I am much better at squashing it now. That is the hardest thing in the years after, resetting yourself for "normal" as opposed to crisis. What helped me the most (and I have unique circumstances that allow for it that not everyone has) is that I simplified my life so I am not bound overmuch by the clock or a rigid schedule. It was a self-preservation move. I simply couldn't fight who I had become and in accepting and adapting, I have found that I am better. But I was stubborn and it took me a long while to accept that I have different needs and needed a different lifestyle.

So many things but the thing that still impacts me is toll it took on me physically. Caregiving broke my body and I am still dealing the the aftereffect that chronic sleep deprivation and stress inflicted. I remember being told after I gave birth to my daughter that it took 10months to put my body where it was and would take as long probably to get back to where it was before. And that was about right. In my opinion, caretaking is the same. It took three years to wear me out and as long to bounce back (and that's factoring out the first year of widowhood, which is another stress on the body). I find that I resent it too. The lingering things. And I really wonder if I could do it again. I am not sure.

There was no good-bye. My late husband suffered from dementia early in his illness, so there was no opportunity to have any meaningful discussions and the last months of his life he was "awake" but non-responsive. I said my own good-bye. The day after he died, I went to the exact spot where we were standing the moment I realized that I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I cried and said good-bye. But that is not the good-bye of movies or books. I don't know if I envy people who had the opportunity or not and of those I know (my husband is one as he and his late wife had a long middle of the night talk the day before she died), they didn't say formal good-byes either. Who says good-bye to the person they loved most in the world? Can that be done even? I love you's seem more common. It's hopeful, affirming and speaks of future when you can meet again. Good-bye is somewhat of a closure thing and there is no real closure on widowhood.

I do feel a responsibility but I agree that vets should be able to be real. The real value is in being honest for us and for newbies. Some newbies or those in between will occasionally be unpleasantly surprised by what they read here. That's okay and I, for one, would welcome any questions from them that anything I share might bring to mind. If I write something that makes someone wonder what being nine years out is like on a daily basis, I would hope they would ask. If they see something that makes them fearful, I would hope they felt comfortable enough to ask. Only speaking for me.

Chrispy89, posting a memory a day on FB for the first year is not a career/pro widow. And you know, you don't have to do it daily. Once a week is okay too. Especially if it is making things harder and you find yourself struggling with it. It's pretty common to set goals like this in the first year but it's really something you are doing for yourself. I would imagine that your partner wouldn't want you to do something for him that is making you miserable daily. Cut yourself a bit of slack. This was a good idea in the beginning because you needn't it but now it isn't. Take a break. Reassess. I know people talk about grief being work but it's more endurance than work. If it's work, imo, it's time to rethink and come at it from another angle. The urge to write down for the record or to set it straight is a powerful. Maybe it's something you don't need as much or at all anymore. Something to think about.

mizpah, There are probably older members - who weren't posting anymore - who haven't registered here and might not. It doesn't mean they aren't lurking. Just not actively participating. fleur is right about worrying that what we older wids discuss might scare younger ones. Newbies especially. I can remember being really depressed when I would read posts from people 5 or more years on who still seemed caught up in grief, but being nine years on myself now, I know that I wasn't seeing the larger picture. Didn't really understand. The last thing anyone in BAG wants to is be discouraging but things do come up and you want to share/bounce off others and sometimes those things are bleak. It doesn't mean that farther down the road is the same as the first days, months or years. It's different. This is the only board that I know of that's public. There are smaller groups of people on FB and elsewhere but there have always been these smaller groups. There is nothing wrong with having auxiliary groups of like-minded in tucked away in other sections of the Internet or even using the PM system here to have side discussions. I don't think we should be afraid to post here publicly though. Perhaps if there are topics we might feel are a bit too rough for newbies, we could put a warning in the topic line. Though I doubt that will keep anyone from reading who really wants to know what down the road might look like it will be a heads up. And we should remember that our varying life circumstances make being BAG different for each of us. Being married/coupled again is a different set of factors than being single. Parenting and the stage of the kids is a factor. Our extended families factor. Jobs factor. Whether we were caregivers can still be impacting us. The hopes/dreams we had for ourselves and plain old getting older figure in too. My life is not what I had planned. In many ways, it's far better than I ever dreamed, which is great but it invites guilt in. But whose life is exactly what they had planned? This is the YWBB. This is the BAG section. It has a legacy but it's concrete past is what we are creating right now. jmo.

Good to see you. I like the new handle. Welcome back.

All things in moderation, as they say. I think that when we stay true to who we are and remember that we can't help anyone else in our life if we aren't helping ourselves first, we will be okay. And you know what, it's okay to give your heart's desires a little bit of leeway. Life is short and it's work. There has to be joy and hope.

Thanks for sharing this history, Ginger.

Daughter must have gotten a glowing report about you from her Dad and wants to check you out a bit more. My husband's daughters checked me out too (not online b/c this was 8 years ago and social media for creeping like that didn't really exist as much) but it's normal and really up to you if you want to allow it. I would take it as a good sign.

I am glad that you had a great evening and sorry that it left you more confused. There's no rush. Putting our lives back together seems like it all has to happen at once in the early years and any delay has the feel of a life-sentence to it. Neither of those things are true. It's somewhere in the middle. Some things need immediate attention and others can take time (probably need time for clarifying and exploration purposes). You are dating a wonderful man. There are bumps and maybe they can be smoothed out, maybe not and maybe you'll decide not to bother. If there is no reason to decide right now, then don't. And confusion? Even when you know you are moving in the right direction in a new relationship - there is still confusion sometimes.

I am just past nine years out. My husband, a widower, is coming up on eight. And we've both noted this. It has nothing to do with present life. In which we are lucky and really blessed. It's more an acknowledgement that we've had a hard lesson in the fragility of life. You can't unknow some things. It's a bit of a joy suck. I take nothing for granted. And I have things that matter. People that matter. But sometimes, I wonder why I can't dream big anymore. Or rather, I can, but I don't. But I think there is something to being exhausted on multiple levels. Having been a caregiver too has changed me physically. Left scars that I will deal with forever. If it took years to break us down, it will take years to restore. I don't want to end this on a downer note. I do think that eventually most of us (majority) find our new selves, happiness as it is defined for us and that grief is not a life sentence of misery. But the memories and lessons are always there. The trick is to decide what to do with them and how much they will influence us going forward.

Momtojandj, maybe you handled it in a way that increased tension but I am in the camp of "speak your mind" when it comes to relationships and what you expect. No one is a mind-reader. People can't know what you need unless you tell them. You told him. Maybe a bit too harshly. But now he knows. So you go on. Relationships are a bit of work in the communication department.

That's a lovely idea. And you are right not to worry about those before 2011. The Facebook groups are probably where many are who are still connected to the YWBB and people there have been combing their friend's list and alerting people. I will put up another post at the FB group I belong to and remind them again of the deadline and to get the word out to anyone they think might still be clueless. Wish I could help more with the old board but I wasn't active and really am cut off that way. We should remember though that the membership list at the YWBB is a bit deceiving. There has never been a very active base that exceeded more than a few hundred at a time so the odds are good that anyone who is active knows and that anyone who was lurking is savvy enough to hunt down new venues. Those of us who use the web like to think that most of the world does but that's not true. We are still a rather small group in terms of population percentage b/c words on a "page" is not how most people like to interact. But this is a good plan. Thanks for putting it up and for taking charge.

Kids do add more than a few wrinkles. And their ages matter. Adult children, imo, usually have the most difficulty with new relationship - especially if they are in their late teens or 20-somethings and aren't in relationships themselves. Teens run a close second and children under 10 are the most open and often very accepting. My husband - who was also widowed - had two young twenty-somethings and he was honest from the get go about his plans to date again. They were supportive right up until he met me and decided to remarry. It was rocky after that and it took both girls a long time to really be okay with me and the marriage. We were very understanding. We took their feelings into account as much as we could but my husband was always very clear with them (and his sisters-in-law who were a bit cold too) that he was a grown man and his love life was not their business. My daughter was four. She struggled with the changes having a dad for the first time presented, the fact that she felt herself in competition with him for me and just the overall change that our moving to be with him caused. Nearly eight years later - we are a family. Blending took time. It was well worth it. A short version and not in anyway meant to be other than simply an example of how you can enter into and build a relationship even when the kids aren't yet alright. My children do come first in many, many instances but never when it puts my relationship with the man I love in jeopardy. I know perfectly well how selfish that sounds. We live in a kid centric society (though perhaps we didn't grow up in it ourselves) and parents are supposed to sacrifice everything - including their own futures - to make certain our kids are happy. But our kids are grieving. It's a process that takes time, and beyond being understanding, listening and keeping them from self-destructive behavior (which is nearly impossible once they hit a certain age), there isn't that much we can do. They have to weather it and come out on the other side. Just like we do. Giving them the power to decide what we, as the parent, should or shouldn't be doing is not a kindness to them (or to ourselves). We are still the parents. It sucks sometimes. It sucks harder when grieving is involved. But we have to think of the longterm future whereas kids (and they are kids up until the day you know they aren't anymore and that can be a long time) don't think longterm. They think about now and maybe a couple of days from now. They are not worried about us not should they, which is why we have the tricky job of balancing our very real and important needs against their perception that the world has ended when it hasn't. I know that sometimes love isn't enough no matter how much we want it to be. I am glad that you and your guy are still talking. Still trying to find a way. That way - whatever happens - you can find a measure of comfort in that. You are a good mom. He is a good father. You both deserve your happiness. Together hopefully but individually if not.

You shouldn't beat yourself up and you are not a whiner. Sometimes it's just nice to get it all out and know that people understand. It's spring. It's a holiday. Enjoy.

I don't know that I would call any of the issues you two have "red flags". They are problems to be dealt with that will take time, effort and ultimately might not be worth the trouble but you say that he brings you passion, he values and respects you. Those are not little things. You build relationships on those things. Do you love him? That's something you haven't said. And will you be okay 10 days from now or 10 months from now with the decision? It won't cost you anything but time and conversation to see if you can come up with solutions. Minus love though, I am not sure that I would continue. For love (and passion, respect and being valued), I'd be willing to do so mighty heavy lifting. It's not easy. You are right. And not fair. I hope things work out the way you want them to.

He loved you very much. Thank you for sharing this. I know how hard it is.

If I am reading this correctly, he's found what's he's always wanted in you, but you've had what you wanted and can't say that he is equal to or better? Is that the real problem? Forgive me if I am reading things that aren't there. Words on a screen, ya know. Sometimes need a bit more info. But, from a personal perspective, I married in my 30's for the first time. My LH was a great guy. He suited who I was at the time though I have no way of knowing how we'd have fared over the long haul b/c that simply never happened. My husband, marriage and life now is the happiest I have ever been in my life and I feel guilty saying that b/c my LH got sick early in our marriage and I spent most of our marriage taking care of him and juggling way to many issues at once and alone. How can LH possibly compete. You had a long and happy marriage - even though there were issues. New guy is issues from day one. How can he compete? Ultimately, you have to do what is best for you. You are dating. It's serious but it's still not a firm commitment and your priority is you. You've talked. You're still not convinced. Maybe it is time.