anniegirl

I think the one thing that makes people doubt the whole idea of anticipatory grief is they think it is a shortcut that will speed up the healing timeline or that it's like getting ready for a 5k or triathlon. Grieving in advance makes being widowed not so bad. That's not really what it is at all. People who've been suddenly widowed are like women who are suddenly thrust into menopause by illness or surgery. It's like "boom"! You are here! When you've been a caretaker and you see death coming, you aren't yanked out of time and put somewhere else. You knew and you thought about it (even if it was just a little), the life after. It doesn't make it suck less and depending on how much caregiving wore you done, it doesn't mean you will "recover" faster. And it matters whether or not you and your spouse were still emotionally connected right up to or close to the end. Losing the connection and being "just you" at some point in the care-taking, being forced to be single but not really, changes things in the aftermath too. I think there is more guilt in the latter because there is a sense of relief, freedom and an "at last life can move forward again" rather than hang in a holding pattern. When someone dies, it's crappy. The anticipation doesn't make that go away. And it's okay to say, "yeah, I knew" and also, "I was relieved". Both are valid emotions that in no way make you a horrible person or diminish the love you had for the deceased.

Yep, totally agree because it is simply too hard to do for too long. It doesn't matter how much you love and "get" each other absence makes the heart grow frustrated and that frustration will eventually doom the relationship. In my case, I moved. Quit my job. Sold my house. Gave away or sold everything we couldn't fit in the back of his truck and a 6x12 foot Uhaul trailer and left a place where I lived for 20 yrs and a state I'd lived in my entire life. Emigrated to Canada. 1500 miles away. And no, it wasn't all hearts and flowers all the time, but neither was the LDR. We were lucky because his kids were young adults and mine was in pre-school, so though we had blending, we didn't have the insurrection that some people have when they have kids who are old enough to have opinions but not old enough to realize that they don't have a vote. I have never been sorry I was the one who uprooted and moved. There have been adjustments. If you'd told me 15 years ago I would be a SAHM, I would have laughed at you. And for all the common roots of Canadians and Americans, Canada is still a foreign country in ways that aren't obvious on the surface and the culture shock, though not as bad as it probably is for people coming from other places, was still real. The biggest thing about pulling the pin on an LDR and moving to a both in the same location relationship is the fear of change and of "having made a horrible mistake that can't be undone". Change is work. Nothing more. And there are very few things that can't be righted.

The need to "fill a space" is not a bad thing and sometimes, when we begin to think about dating again, we tend to think it is more often than not. The need to share our lives is what, imo, that void is and we fill it with friends and children too and don't hesitate to do so as much as we do with the intimate companion thing. I was in my mid-30's when LH came along. I was not looking for anything at that point in my life. I'd really spent my entire adult life as a single person and it surprised me to find that I liked being partnered and I missed that when he was gone. There is nothing wrong with knowing who you are and seeking to be that person. Friends, family and children will react how they react. You can't control it and ultimately, their feelings are theirs to deal with. We can't make change hurt less for them anymore than we can make it less confusing for us. Our journeys are individual so are theirs. People who love you will be supportive as long as you make it clear that you don't live your life via committee.

I don't know if it's really possible to know if you are ready until you've tried. There are lots of things you can do to assess yourself, prepare maybe but how can you know if you'll like something/someone until you've taken a step or two towards investigating to find out? In my experience, when you start wondering and daydreaming, you are probably ready to investigate/explore possibilities. There are things you can do that are social and mingly that aren't dating but would give you an idea about how you really feel deep down. But widowed seem to believe there is some mile-marker that you will pass one day and the idea of being with someone not your late spouse will not seem odd or even somewhat wrong. That place doesn't really exist. Even when you meet someone amazing and know you are in love, or will be soon, there is a surreal nature to it and it's confusing and can lead to a lot of unnecessary angst. You should do whatever feels most right for you. If you want to try putting yourself out there socially - do it. If you'd rather not, don't. Loneliness is part of grief. in my opinion, it's one of the worst and most frustrating parts because it's something time doesn't seem to touch. Other things fade but not the need to know and be known by that one person who matters more than anyone else in the world. What makes dating hard is that it's a "letting go" step. It's an acknowledgement that you are going on with your life. It's not a race. And it's not a requirement. It's something that you do for you and it can be really hard to admit that you want and need companionship and love. But it's okay to do it.

Totally agree and it's a habit that's hard to break. I still get caught up in the "anticipating" dread more easily than I would like.

I know there are people who wish I was the "old me" but - in my case - it's not that she died, she just stopped working. I just couldn't make her work for me anymore. Everything about her and the life she lived felt wrong. Confining. Irritating. Frustrating. Rote. Some people, who know only my widowhood story, applaud the sureness of purpose and the swift, decisive way I moved forward and onward. But if you know my caregiving story too, you know that I was married to a man who had dementia, who didn't know me or our child. I was caring for a stranger and then a shell for nearly 3 years before he died. I had a very long time to think about what I wanted and didn't want widowhood to be. I didn't quite hit the ground running, but close enough. Rebuilding, as ATJ notes, is the holy grail of tragedy survivors. It's what we are aimed at by family and friends and the self-help industry. If we hit the second year without X,Y or Z accomplished or in sight, still feeling out of sorts in ways that are obvious to those still paying attention (and most of them aren't), we feel like we've failed. There is an excellent book on grief called The Other Side of Sadness. It's just about the only real research on grief that looks at it from the point of view of the grieving and discounts entirely the notion of steps and it's rather reassuring, pointing out that from a functioning perspective nearly everyone comes "back online" between 6ish months and two years. It's not nirvana. Your life and happiness are still your personal responsibility, but the surreal feelings settle and fade. You can breath again. Feel again. Take interest and make plans. Get hopeful if you want. But the problem isn't - never was - that you don't heal. The problem is that your world view has changed. Your sense of safety and fairness has been profoundly shaken. And on some very deep levels, you aren't not the same person anymore, so your life isn't the fit it was prior to your loss. Is it a wonder that we feel like we are making no progress when we try to put our very different selves back into the pattern of our old lives, which is what everyone wants us to do - so, hey, no pressure - and why we feel life we are failing or flailing. My personal story is a boring one. It was not easier or harder than anyone else's. I had changed and I had to make changes to my life to accommodate the new person I'd become. I am just as human as anyone else and so I like change about as much as everyone else. Somethings were easier. Others quite difficult. And just when I think I am content and ready to put on the finishing touches, something "comes up". Life does not care about my plans anymore now than it did over a decade ago. I get frustrated because I think I should have accomplished something tangible by now. Started a business. Written and published a book. Found enlightenment. I live in a nice little town where - for the first time in my whole life - I am considered "one of us". I have a family I love and who loves me. I have a nice little house (that I've resigned myself to never being finished because it's been in a state of "renovation" since before I moved in). I dress as I please. I punch no clocks unless I set them for myself. I paint. I draw. I dabble in politics. It's not a life I "built". It's the life that was created by the simply force of my living it. We talk a lot about rebuilding but I don't know that I believe in that as an action or a thing that we purposefully plan and do. We create though for sure with every action and word and it's when we are not paying attention that we find we're living someplace that maybe we don't want to - if that makes sense. I read posts here and I remember so many of the feelings and worries and I just want to reply "it's okay. you are going to be okay. really. it just feels overwhelming right now. take breath. take a nap. sit in the sunshine for a while and don't think so hard. it's going to be fine." But I don't because that's not what most need to hear. They need to scream and cry and vent and hear that someone knows this and gets it. Knowing that they will be okay is for another day. For someday. People are creating lives right now as I am typing this and don't even know that. Just like I didn't know it. Everything from the moment you enter this existence is all about one day being in a completely different place. It's all about the rebuild. Well, I started one place and ended somewhere completely different - how very me of me.

You were absolutely not being punished for anything. It's not unusual to have feelings like that but you were not responsible. If bad wishes could harm people, there would be precious few of us walking around on the planet. You had normal feelings of hurt and anger. You did nothing wrong. Do yourself a kindness and forgive yourself and then let it go. In your first post you mentioned that you don't think you've grieved because you've been so angry, but you had every right to be angry even while you were mourning. They are not mutually exclusive things and you can do both. You were doing both and it's okay if you felt more anger than sorrow. But if you want to move on, move on. You can do that any time you want to. There is this idea that unless we've "grieved it all out", we remain in a holding pattern where forward progression can't happen. That's not true. I know people who've remarried in the first year. At only months out. My husband was just ten months out when we married. He wasn't done grieving. I don't know when he finished the active part of it to tell you the truth, but he was moving on well before it - that I know. People go back to school, relocate, start relationships, make big plans well before they are done with grieving. There are no rules. There is what works for you and that's the extent of "rules". Do what you want and what's best for you and don't let yourself be held back. Grief is an ebb and flow thing. It takes time but you don't have to put living on hold and wait on it.

I haven't been to my LH's grave in 8 years-ish. I can't say for sure. I live in another country now and even when I do get back to the state where he is buried to visit other family, his grave is hours away from my hometown. But I don't visit graves anyway. Or memorial sites. My husband's LW is scattered all over. Literally. If she has a "resting" place at all it is under a tree at her late Uncle's farmhouse. It's the exact spot where LW and husband were married as teenagers years and years ago. But he never visits her grave or the memorial bench for her in the city near where we live though my stepdaughters do once a year. He went only the first couple because they insisted but then stopped. When I was growing up, every Memorial Day weekend, we did the cemetery thing. We'd take my grandmother and I would hold her arm to steady her as she walked over the uneven grass and gave her annual guided tour. And I miss that. Because Grandma saw visiting cemeteries as the way you passed on family and stories not as a solemn, mournful thing. When I think about visiting cemeteries again, it's the older ones that we took my grandmother to and I think about taking a camera and sketchbook and capturing image and writing down everything I can prime out of my memory. I used to feel guilty about not visiting the LH. But there is nothing there but a box of ashes. No memories. No stories. Because I carry those around with me. It's just a tiny plot of ground and stone that cost money I couldn't afford to spend and wouldn't have had his family and friends not put pressure on me to do it. The grave is just a reminder of things I would have done differently in the last days and aftermath and I am done with that.

I would imagine that man needed those words to help him cope with what happened to him. It's a survivor thing. The need to believe that this awful tragedy that upended you and affects everything still had some great higher purpose of lesson. We all say things in the aftermath - while we are sorting and trying to make sense - that though it works for us, probably makes someone else feel terrible. Accidents happen. People get sick. Everyone dies at some point. There's no reason beyond the fact that we are mortal and live in a finite reality that we have very little control over. It's okay to assign meaning or believe that you've grown/learned something and it's okay not to. And it's normal to want for there to be reasons, answers and meaning. And there is no reason to take someone else's words as anything more than just words. Your truth is not someone else's and vice versa. But it's hard in the first years to be somewhat "live and let live" about things that just go against the grain of everything we feel.

The more adults you add to the equation, the harder it will be even if everyone gets along and presents a united front - which you don't appear to have. You are not the bad guy for speaking up and point out the obvious and wanting a plan that is workable with every one the same page, but you can only do so much on your own and then - the hard part - you have to let Dad and Mom work it out where your stepson is concerned. And yes, his mother has a bigger share of the responsibility and you aren't the hired help for her to dump on and disrupt at a moment's notice. Your partner's kid(s) is always a tricky thing to negotiate. The older they are, the harder it can be. But, imo, it starts with establishing ground rules with your partner. Gets back to expectations and finding common ground. Parenting is forever. There is never going to be a time when kids won't be a factor - big or small - and figuring out the boundaries is not optional if a relationship is going to flourish and last.

Nearly ten years on, none of it seems like my real life anymore. LH and I seem to me like a movie I watched once. As Jen suggests, it could simply be self-protection. We can't grieve constantly. We'd die. And our brains have a way of sorting and organizing things that sometimes appear to act quite independently from our conscious thoughts. For months after LH died, I'd drive by the hospice and it felt like I should stop because it seemed to me he should still be there. But that feeling faded. I moved away the year after he died, and the change of setting eliminated any of those nagging feelings that he might be/should be still around. The upside of moving. But, we let go - imo - when our lives reach that tipping point where life is more now and tomorrow than yesterday and what if. And because there is no closure, this "feeling" that he or she is "somewhere" lurks though it springs out at you less and less as times goes one. I wish I could be more helpful but some things just simply "are" until the "aren't"

A lovely song. I love signs that come via music.

I relocated during the second year so many things were sorted and disposed of one way or other long ago. And as LH spent the last two years of his life in nursing homes and hospice, there wasn't a lot of him left anyway. But things still turn up. It's not a shock. It doesn't pull me backwards really. It feels a lot like another life and one I didn't really live. There were regrets and guilt still around year 5 but now heading to year 10, no. Mostly all that is gone. We do let go. And maybe that's the saddest part. We let go and are okay about it. Not something we could have ever dreamed of in the beginning. I hope you find some good memories and things to smile about today.

You absolutely can come here and I really wish we had a separate forum for those in relationships because you make the valid point that we don't have a space of our own and lumping us in with "social" sort of downplays the very real, not at all light hearted aspects of going from widowhood to new relationships and the work and issues that come up. I know that no one agrees with me, but relationships/remarriages and the issues that come up don't belong in Social and do need their own home. SimiRed, you are more than welcome to post about things that come up in the BAG section. There are people there who can probably relate. Blending is such a common thing anymore but there are no one size fits all solutions. With my own daughter, I simply had to spell out my expectations to my husband. He was of the opinion that he could never really be her father truly but eight years later he totally is her father. Even people who know he isn't her bio-dad often forget because they have such a great relationship. Expectations. If you have them, you should say so. You can't get what you don't ask for. jmo and I realize that asking is only have the battle.

Most people, who've never needed to give the why's and why me's of life more than a sideways glance. That would not be anyone here. So do share your post, I have a feeling that it will provoke much thought and just as thoughtful a bunch of replies. But to respond to the OP's query: Life is very good. On the surface and even below layers there is little to complain about. In fact, I don't complain much - unless I am ranting about politics. The ninth anniversary of LH's death passed at the beginning of the year without any drama at all. I even forgot on the actual day though I had noted its approach the week before. Husband and I will be married eight years this June. Daughter and I finally were granted Canadian citizenship in the fall. The older daughters are settled-ish (how much can you be settled at 30ish these days?). No one has died - recently. The economy is not manhandling us. The weather where we live is slightly improving with climate change. I feel settled. I have yet to write a book to the finish but I am getting closer, and I don't really worry about "what am I going to do with my life?" and haven't for a while now. I also don't worry that I am living life wrong, the way I did when I was younger (widowhood magnified that feeling for me). I am pleased with myself. I wish I could say I learned some patience, but sadly, that still eludes me. One of the things I worried most about when I was widowed was "when will I start living in a way that is forward rather than backward looking." And I don't know when that happened, but I can affirm that it has. In fact, I am pretty good with the future even though I know I have zero control over what might be waiting out there for me. Having a future doesn't feel like something that only other people get to enjoy and look forward to. Good topic, Bluebird. I await, ATJ's. Now all we need is an "Ask Us Anything" topic.

Exactly and I think that is the thing that professional widow stuff started out with but has steadily moved away from. You can't sell quality time, conversation and the feeling that one isn't all alone. That can't be packaged.

That was me for a while and it took me a long time realize that I'd done it on purpose. But, in most cases, those who I boxed out or avoided were people who couldn't accept that my life had changed and that it had changed me too. The wanted me to fit the same role in their lives that I always had, and in a lot of cases that meant being the person they could lean on, complain to and come to for solutions to their problems. I just didn't have the energy. I had a small child who got first dibs. I was a junior high school teacher and I had no choice but to be the same person I had always been for my students but outside of the classroom, I retreated, hoarded my reserves and was pretty damn picky about where I spent myself in terms of others. It was a long time - years - before I bothered to repair relationships. Mostly I could because most people really do understand, but there were a few relationships where there was no going back. And though it's sad, I am better off without these people because I was never all that important to them in the first place. But when you are still in this particular trench, it is a vicious sort of cycle. Once you realize what's happening the onus is suddenly back on you to feed the cycle or stop it. I still avoid my family sometimes (because the are a dramatic bunch) and I ignore social stuff when I know that I really won't be into it and the effort would be more than anyone would get out of it. I think personalities play into this too. I am very introverted by nature. Any extrovert people may see is a learned thing and it costs me in energy. I fall on the side of guarding myself and hoarding energy and building safe quiet spots and cultivating similar relationships because this is what I need to stay healthy. There is nothing wrong with this. I don't beat myself up for being who I am and needing what I need. I don't think anyone should. We are far to hard on ourselves. Needlessly so. Not wanting to be social isn't a crime. Needing space isn't either. What other people think about us isn't our business (as my wise old mother reminded me constantly as I was growing up.) The farther away you are from your late spouse's death, the more easy it becomes to examine life in general and yours in particular. Even if there is nothing yet you can do to change things, knowing what you want to change is still good because thinking and planning now will mean you will be ready to move on it when opportunities begin to arise.

I think I should add that many of the early bloggers never wrote books or monetized their blogs. Blogging was just something that some of us did and we developed a tiny community and it helped. Some of us have left those blogs up even though we don't blog anymore because people still search and still read what we wrote - despite the fact that there are more books and social media today. Fairly regular my old blogs stats will spike and I know that someone is reading through my story, which I hope is a help. My only issue with the widowed industry is that it's always been about right and wrong ways to think about grief. There's no colouring outside the lines encouraged, which I think means that more people find themselves looking in and wondering what's wrong with them than not. I'm not okay with that. I honestly haven't checked on the Camp Widow or Soaring Spirits offerings in a long while so I can't tell you what they do currently or how Oprah it is or isn't or if it's inclusive or exclusive, but in the beginning, I found it to be little (or a lot) of all of that. And I will admit - complete disclosure - that I was completely banned from posting at the SS blog. Like completely. My comments were eventually never approved. So I am not impartial. But I knew (virtually) Robin, who set up the Camp Wid website, and though we haven't communicated in a few years, I can tell you that her motivation was completely honest and sincere. She was in it to set up a safe place on the Internet in a way that YWBB and Widownet weren't.

Closing in on the first anniversary can be really hard and nearly anything can knock you - illness especially. I hope you are feeling (physically at least) better today.

I was offered anti-depressants when my LH took ill. It was pretty stressful. But my question to the DRs (even LH's DR thought I should "look into it") was always, "Will they help me get extra sleep? Do laundry? Shopping? Take care of the baby? Work fulltime for me?" Because what I really needed was physical help and not a pill that possibly make make me not mind that I had too much to do and no one to help me do it. I did talk to a counselor (that didn't last long b/c the poor woman spent most of our sessions lamenting more about my lot than I did), but in the end, I decided not to try them. I am glad I didn't because a lot of the recent research on anti-depressants and grieving suggests that they are over-prescribed and that absent depression, they aren't useful. In fact research now suggests that anti-depressants aren't quite the awesome thing they were sold as in terms of mild depression either and that other treatments and reliefs should probably be tried first. However, if you think that you might need something, you absolutely should talk to your DR about it. And definitely read up on anti-depressant as it pertains to grief. For myself, I found a gym with a daycare and began using both regularly. I cut myself a ton of slack on household chores and I gave myself permission to be sad and not worry about it. After all, I had cause and I did have friends and lighter moments and felt that I was going to eventually find myself on the other side of all the heartache. I have widowed friends who did take anti-depressants and found it helpful and some who did not find it helpful. We are all different.

As far as I know, no one on the YWBB board is a professional widow. Many of the Soaring Spirits folks - the founder, board members and original bloggers are ex-YWBB. Camp Widda was founded by someone who spent time at the YWBB. I can think of at least 2 widowerers who've written books (plural) spent time at the old board. A lot of the older widow blogs (stuff that dates back to the middle or so of the last decade) were alums as well. It seems that you are attracted to that type of widowdom or you aren't. Haven't found too many who are neutral on the subject.

I don't think you are knocking your LH off any pedestals by countering with the truth - especially when children are being manipulative. Children naturally try to play parents off each other and that doesn't stop when one of us dies. In fact, it ups the ante a bit. There are times when you have to be a bit less strict because you realize that grief is in play but not when they are using your late spouse against you to get their way or make you feel bad or to guilt you. My daugther was three and a half when her Dad died. She really didn't know him but that never stopped her from using his absence to try and get her way or to guilt me. She was about about 7, I finally sat her down and told her that it was not okay for her to do this. That it hurt my feelings and that it was wrong to hurt people's feelings in order to get your way about something. Even at six, she knew what I was talking about and it never happened again. Your daughter is old enough to be called on her behavior and for you to be honest about how it makes you feel and why it's wrong. On another note, I found that it's better to be honest about LH when discussing him with our daughter. He loved her and had barely any time to be her father but it does neither him nor her favors to paint him as someone he never really was. I am always age appropriate but I want her to know who he was rather than give her a polished version. He wouldn't have wanted to be seen as some unattainable goal that she needs to measure herself ( or others) against.

My dock has always been stories. The ones I read, watch, spin for myself and write. A dock is a good thing.

It's almost always about something else and grief is a handy learned response.

Carey and Catnip, It's easy to take on responsibility for others, isn't it. I've been there. It's hard to remember that in reality, we can't make others' decisions for them. I am not an expert on men but having been married to two of them, I know that you can't force them to do anything they don't want to. My LH made decisions that caused him to not be diagnosed properly in the beginning and it cost us because it meant his decline and death was much harder than it had to be. Ugly. Long. Scarring. But, I stopped blaming myself for not doing this or doing that instead of something else because the reality is that I only have control over my own actions. I am not powerful enough to take blame or credit for anyone but me. It's my opinion - and nothing more - that we can hang on to those feelings of hurt, disappointment, anger and guilt - or we can accept that what happened happened and there really was nothing we could have done in the moment that would have changed anything. Hindsight is really nothing but "what ifs" in reverse. Having read your stories, I still don't see how you could have changed anything. Even a little. Everything you are whipping yourselves with are simply "what ifs" that you don't know for sure would have had any impact at all. You will feel what you feel until you don't need to anymore. Guilt. Grief. They are somewhat the same in that they serve a purpose and when they don't anymore, they ease up and fade away. No one here thinks you should feel guilty. You are good people who bad things happened to. It wasn't your fault. You did what was needed in the moment. That's all anyone can do. Be easier on yourselves.