mikeeh

Why can't we hate each other? Why can't there be hard feelings and animosity? Why can't I be angry so that I can curse her memory , for now, and move on. I would rather get over anger and remember that I love her than try to get over love and just feel this emptiness. No more communication. Yet my whole FB page is her. Some of it I think veiled messages to be about healing and being happy. About how life is what we make it and if we decide to be happy you can be happy. So besides not texting or emailing. Besides not seeing her live her life on Facebook, do I not read her blog either? It is a public blog, not directed at me. So what if it is talking about how she was crying on her living room floor. That is was over something mundane but just the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks has worn her down. But that despite the current pain she would do it all again for all she has learned and experienced. Do I count down the days to 90. Waiting eagerly as each day goes by, one more day closer to when I can talk to her again? Do I even want to talk to her again. Well, of course I do I miss her and I love her. But will it do any good to talk to her again? If contact resumes it will be as "friends", not as lovers or even as people who love each other so dearly. And if we can't maintain the "friend" status then maybe not talk at all anymore. Why set myself up for the next round of pain because the idea that I can be just friends with her is ridiculous. Possibly if I find someone else to share my life with in the next 3 months then I can appreciate what she did for me in our time together. Maybe I will be able to thank her for being the catalyst to find whoever the new person is.

The "need darkness to appreciate the light" comment was told to her daughters when talking about why we are splitting up. I think as much also for herself to deal with her own pain. We have written. Letters and email exchanged. I went to her house last night and we had a 3 hour goodbye with lots of talking and hugging and kissing, and just holding each other. She has a strong spiritual side to her, a woo side. She is into all the spirits and auras and ghosts. She says my wife brought us together so she could open my heart again. She claims a sensitivity to emotions that can really bother her. She finally told me last night that after every time we were together she had to do her little rituals to get the negativity out of her house and off of her. That my negativity really affected her, but she loved me so much that it was something she put up with. I'm not sure I buy it as she says it, as far as the woo side of it. But I will acknowledge that there was something there. There was something that bothered her. And I can't do anything about it so I have to admit it is over. Even if it is not to hurt her anymore. She let me see her one more time now that I understand why it is happening. I don't like it any more than I did before but I understand. We are going to do the 90 day thing. I have un-followed her on FB. If necessary I will un-friend but I can't really wrap my head around that concept. There is still a hope that we can be friends in the future. It still hurts and though I did fine last night with minimal tears I am making up for it this morning. Especially when knowing last night was goodbye forever, with no chance of texts or emails or anything that will let us know we are thinking of each other. Un following her this morning was like sticking a knife in my own heart.

Thanks ABL, you are right just the thought that I will get over this loss is painful. The idea that I will not have her back in my life hurts. That it will be a time when I don't miss her, or that the thought of her doesn't make my chest ache and the tears flow. It is amazing how much this is like when I lost my wife. Right down to the fear that I will stop missing her. That I will get use to her not being a vital and intimate part of my life. It is amazing how quickly the universal widow fear of eternal loneliness returns to your mind and your every thought. She thinks the pain of our break up will spur me to personal growth and teach me to learn to live life again. She says that you need darkness to appreciate light, you need pain in order to truly appreciate happiness. Doesn't she think I have had enough pain in my life with having to watch my wife die over an almost 5 year span.

Thanks SVS, Sorry to go on so much about this. I know it must seem silly. Nothing everyone else hasn't gone through many times.

Thanks, This is our time. I should be holding her in my arms right now. We should be kissing like we haven't seen each other in a year. Even though it has only been a week. We should be just starting to share our wonderful day together with love and romance and fun. Now is the time we would have been together, and I am sitting on the sofa fighting back tears. Not very successfully. This will be the first of "our" weekends that we will not be together. A landmark, that once I go one of 'our' weekends then it is really over. I sent a letter she should get today. I know it won't help, and will probably hurt. But I have already lost her so how much more harm can it do? We will exchange an occasional text as "friends" but the coldness, and the formality of it may be worse than not hearing from her at all.

There it is. There is that feeling I remember so well. That empty hollow feeling of loneliness and isolation that was such a prevalent part of my earlier widowhood. For 10 months I wasn't a widower anymore. For 10 months I once again had someone that cared for me, that loved me. I had someone to share my life with. Someone who would wish me good morning, someone to say good night to. Someone who cared how my day was. I wasn't a man who lost a love to breast cancer. I was a man who found love with a wonderful, beautiful, loving caring woman. Gone now though. Once again it is Friday night and I am sitting on my sofa alone thinking about how long and lonely the next 20-30 years of my lonely life is going to be. Except this time I have experienced a wonderful passionate love and with beautiful, sexy loving woman. I think a nicer more passionate love than the one with my lost wife. Mostly I think because I had lost Maybe I will lucky and get a similar diagnosis as my wife did 8 years ago. Then this pain will go away. This heart ache will be over. If I only get 10 months of happiness for years of pain then it hardly seems worth it.

No anger from me. Just loss and tears. Lots of tears. When I lost my wife I had 4 years of illness that prepared my for it. The relationship morphed and changed as she got sicker and we lost her so much by bits and pieces that by the time I lost her it was I was readier. This just came from out of the blue. And I just don't even know how to cope with it. Because she is right, and it was too much pressure and responsibility on her shoulders to be my happiness.

Update: She broke up with me today and I am absolutely devastated. My wife of 22 years was my first relationship. We all know how that ended. This relationship of almost 10 months is the only other real, intense, loving relationship I have been in. At the ripe old age of 52 I am going through my first break up. I don't know how I am going to deal with it. I know everyone has dealt with this before and I am just late to the party but it is like getting chicken pox late in life. A million times harder to deal with. We love each other intensely. She broke up today because she loves me too much and it is too much of a burden on her to love me. She was the only happiness I had in my life. That was too much pressure on her. It was suppose to be casual, maybe even instructive to me on how to be a better lover. But for her I was just too nice and too lovable a person and she fell in love with me. And I of course fell in love with her. For 9 months it was constant texting and calling. Good Mornings, and Good nights. Helping each other through our problems. My crappy job that is working me to death. Her problems with her ex. Both of us helping with our personal and self esteem issues. My teaching her what love is and her showing me that I am worth loving. She was 4 months out of a rough divorce when we met. It was suppose to be casual but it turned into so much more. She wasn't looking for more and can't handle more. But she can't be with me without the intensity of our relationship so she can't be with me, and I can't be with her. And it is killing me. Everything that has been good in my life for the past 9 months has been her. Now I am suppose to ignore the pain, and ignore the loss and just get on with life? When we lost our spouses I think we all felt that we would be alone forever. I know I did. What a wonderful accident that we met and I got to spend 10 months not alone, and in a relationship that in many ways was better than the one with the wife I lost. Now I have to try and find someone who can live up to her? Her beauty, her love for life, her passion, her desire? I am suppose to believe that this pain which in many ways is worse than the pain from 3 years ago because it was a choice someone made, is worth the risk of trying to find someone else again?

Thank you all for your time and your advice. It is hard to explain to others what the relationship is and how I feel about it. Especially when you can't really explain it in your own head. I know I want to enjoy the time I can with her. I have to decide how concerned I want to be or can be with the time I don't get to spend with her. Neither of us feel we are ready for a "real relationship. While my 22 year marriage was good it was not perfect. Whose was? The idea of not being married is a little appealing to me right now. She is recently divorced and wants to enjoy her freedom. I guess she has to decide why she did it, and if she will keep doing it. Then I have to decide if I can live with that. I have had a philosophy about sex that I have to decide was it real or a rationalization. If real it is very hypocritical of me to hold this against her. If a rationalization then I have to figure that out and decide what to do about that. That my supportive reaction to her relevation has helped her so much is also a little difficult. It creates an almost co-dependent air to it that makes me feel the harm to her would be huge if I let it get to me and told her it did.

Here is another catch. This seems so intricate that it is hard to explain it all without overwhelming. She has her own self image or self esteem issues she is dealing with. It doesn't seem like she does because he strength and vivid personality is one of the things that is so wonderful about her. She does not come off as a "messed up" person or a basket case. As a matter of fact she has been a wonderful support for me and helped me a lot with my own self esteem issues. She has said many times that my reaction to this declaration has been a great help to get her through some of her issues. That my continuing to love her and be there for her has helped her a lot. To show such unconditional love and show her that what she thinks of herself is not true. That she is worthy of love and being loved. She thinks I am a great person, best man she has ever met. That I have made an incredible change in her life. Now it feels like there is even more pressure on me to not even let on how much it has bothered me. And do I even have the right to let it bother me? I don't know if it will continue. I hate to ask. Part of what she is trying to figure out is why she is doing it. Are we getting too close and it is a way for her to pull back and get some distance. She doesn't want a real relationship and doesn't want to be 'obligated' or lose the freedom she has had for only a year since her divorce. Is this just a way to re-assert that freedom. With her own self esteem issues is she just using sex as a way to make she this friend really likes her? I jut feel that I can't talk to her about how I feel anymore because the front I put up is just the one she needed to help herself. And one of the best things about this was that I finally had someone I could discuss my feelings with. To a large degree much more than the wife I lost 3 years ago.

First let me apologize and admit that I am very selfish and only come here when there is something bothering me or something I have to vent about. I don't feel I have the insight or ability to offer advice or understanding so I only come her when I need. Sorry, and I get it if nobody comments. I am weeks away from the third anniversary of my wife's death. Besides just not being ready emotionally I also have our 17 year old at home so I don't feel I am ready for a relationship. Some of ou will probably understand though when I say that even if I don't want a real relationship I don't want to be alone either. So I placed an ad looking for someone who was interested in something 'casual'. There was a woman who responded and we hit it off and we have been together now in our unusual relationship for close to 8 months. I think we have both gotten much more involved and there is much more of an emotional element to this than either of us expected. There was never an expectation or promise of exclusivity since we were just 'friends' keeping each other company until the right person came along. We have become very close with daily good morning and good night texts. Daily expressions of love. Talk about how important we are to each other and how much we have both helped each other since we both consider ourselves damaged. She is divorced, and I am here. She has her kids every other week so we get together every two weeks and spend a lot of the weekend day/morning together. Just this last weekend she tells me that one of the guy friends she will go out with drinks or hang out with she has hooked up with a few times. That after a couple drinks or something things just got a little wild and they have had sex. Again, there was no promise of fidelity or exclusivity so she has not cheated on me or broken any promise. I guess I just figured that I mean so much to her that it wasn't a question. She doesn't think she will ever be in a 'real' relationship again and does not want to surrender her freedom. I know I haven't slept well she has told me. I said all the right things about how I had no claim on her and we made no promises to each other. I do have to admit it hurts and it makes me wonder. I wonder what she is doing during the two weeks we aren't together. I wonder how if I mean so much to her how she can do this and risk losing me over sex that was meaningless, not as good as the two of us and had none of the spiritual and emotional connection that we have. So are there others of our widowed brethren out there who have had to deal with this? I know that if we are not pledged to each other that she does not owe me her fidelity. She is younger, and more attractive than I would ever think I would be with. If my option is to say this is killing me and I can't deal with it You have to promise me the fidelity we didn't ask for at the beginning I risk losing her. Do I gladly accept the part of her time and attention and love that I can get, or do I say it is all or nothing and risk losing all of her. There must be other people who have had to deal with this A

Ours was yesterday SVS.. 24 years ago yesterday I married her, and 2 1/2 years ago yesterday I buried her. Maybe it is the fact that the half year mark alls right among everything else. My birthday, Christmas and our anniversary, with her death and funeral salted in between.

I think it was all fairly universal that when we all hit the 6 month mark it was pretty significant. For some reason hitting the half year really hit home. Of course for me it was the day after my 50th birthday and the day before Christmas Eve, but it was also 6 months from the day she died. Now, like most of us in this group we are a year or more into this does the six month/half year mark still mean anything? Today is the 30 month mark. It does not have the ring to it of saying 6 months. Two and a half years ago today was when I lost her. Once again it is the day after my birthday, and the day before Christmas Eve. But it is 30 months in and not 6, not 18. So does the half year still affect you so much. Or being a year or two or more does that mean that nothing really bothers as much including the annual anniversary. It has to subside to some point and it has. I am not looking to judge or looking for validation. I am just kind of curious, is the 6 month mark point still significant?

Welcome back. Glad you have found a place of comfort and feeling welcome. I wonder though, what made you change fields and leave accounting to go into assisted living? I have been contemplating a change like that myself lately but it is a big change and I m not sure what I would change to. I am also in the accounting field and just don't know if I have what it takes anymore. Life is too short for the constant pressure and stress. Just not sure what would be any better and how much of a hit to the income can I take to survive. I get the toxic affect of the family too. That is why I haven't talked to mine since shortly after the funeral.

This isn't very deep or emotionally wrenching. I just have to share this and the people here might be the only ones who may appreciate or just be able to hear this and not get too uncomfortable. I am not into numerology or spirituality or any real kind of woo. I did wonder about this for awhile but as 2 1/2 years approaches I sat down and looked at the numbers. My Mother's birthday was the first of a month. My wife was born on the first. They both died on the 23rd of the month. They were both 55 years old when they died. I thought all that was an incredible coincidence. Then I took a closer look It turns out that my Wife and my Mother both lived for the same number of days. The both lived 3 months and 23 days past their 55th birthday. Like I said I am not really into numerology and find it hard to believe the number 20190 has any real significance. It just seemed like a weird coincidence and had to share it with someone.

I must be getting use to this life without her to some degree. I don't really feel the angst or the need to come and vent or have a pressing issue to impose my insight on others over. Now though it has all stoked up a little with more of those benchmark life events that she should be here for. Our son, our only child, has done some major growing up these last few weeks. He has his first real job working at a movie theater. He took his road test yesterday and got a perfect score so is now has his drivers license. He is a good driver so I knew intellectually that he will do fine. It is just hard because we here all know that bad things can happen and death isn't an abstract concept. It is way too real. It isn't so much his driving that I have to worry about as it is all the stupid drivers out there. Because I can, and because I want to do what I can for him we bought a car tonight so he has a license and a car. Tonight after we picked up the car I followed him home. He wanted to go to a store and so as I turned down our street he kept going. The metaphorical implications of him driving away from me, just two red tail lights disappearing were pretty hard to take. She should be here. She should see how good a driver he is. She should have helped me make the decision about when and if we buy him a car. She should see how proud he was to pass his road test without getting one point off. She should be as proud of him as I am and as he is of himself. She should be here to share in my worry every time I think about him driving that car around on his own. Sorry, just felt I had to share that with people who might understand. Mike

Does any one else think that if they were lucky enough to find someone that they will be a better spouse next time? I am coming close to 2.5 years and I have been thinking. My son takes his drivers test in a couple weeks. He has a job interview at a local movie theater at the end of the week. His first job not including working at my office. Soon he will be on his own and I will be alone. It gets me thinking about having a life again. Being able to go out and do things and maybe meet someone. It gets me thinking about being married or in a relationship again. I wonder if I will do better next time than I did first time. We had a good marriage but will the next one, if there is one, be better? Will I not take her for granted like I may have done with my wife. Will I cherish the time we get to spend together more than I did after a decade or so of marriage Knowing what we lost, and that it could be lost if it got to a point where there was a Someone out there again would I be a better spouse. Knowing it could be lost again at the drop of a hat, and after sitting here wishing there were someone to sit with would I better if despite all odds I were to find another someone to be in a relationship. Am I the only one who has thought about ths.

I thought I would give a quick update on this situation. So yesterday was the big pack up the office dress down day. Doesn't my co-worker were the same "Save the Rack" shirt she wore at my original post. Luckily we were all too busy so not much of a distraction. Now, I was originally concerned that the Physical Therapist that I took my wife to for the neuropathy had moved their offices from one place in that office park to one right across the parking lot from our new offices. Here is a new twist. Because there is some prep work and reconfiguring to be done we have to move into some temporary offices for a few weeks. I just discovered this morning that the temporary offices are actually in the empty offices of the PT place. So now I will be working in the offices that the last time I was in that room was to try to keep my wife walking and stable enough to be able to go to the kitchen on her own. Maybe I am just being silly, it is just a room after all right? I guess the question is do I even say anything to the people I work with? Would they get t? Do they care?

Is this my buddy AC from the old chat room days? The person whose real name I cannot use because it is Her name? Welcome back ! I was wondering where you have been, thought you just didn't make it to the new board. Spent a week in Boston this summer. Would hve been nice to say Hi. Hope everything is okay now. Be Safe Mike

This is the time when I could really use a second parent in the house to help with these decisions. Lacking that my fellow wids on the board are drafted into asked for advice. My son is 16. He is a good kid, a smart kid, and has a pretty good head on his shoulders. Now he wants to go to a rap concert in the city. He wants to go with a couple of his friends. He only has his permit and not his license yet but one of his friends or a brother of a friend does have their license. The idea of a concert scares the hell out of me. The idea of a rap concert scares the hell out of me time 2. I have heard of violence at these rap concerts, even at this venue which is where I go to see my old man music sometimes. Then there is the whole issue of pot and getting high. Not just him doing it and getting caught, but the driver doing it and my son getting in the car with him. Pot is better than booze but I don't like either. So, do I trust my smart, responsible son and let him go? Including strict instructions that if you driver smokes or drinks to call me for a ride home? Can you go to a rap concert and not get high, even a contact buzz? Do I assume that he will go, he will go and he will get high, pot is more omni present in today's world than booze was in mine, and that is just what kids do at his age. I did it and lived and turned out okay. he has to grow up sometime right? Mike

Well said Quixote

I usually have a couple of choice words in response to those ads.

I like Joe Biden and voted for him in a primary when he ran many years ago. I think he is trying to gently break it to people that the grief has sapped out of him the determination needed to run for. I liked him then and I like him now. He was so eloquent in expressing himself when his son died. He is so sincere in expressing his feelings. I am glad he has the wisdom to know he doesn't have it in him. I think many of us can get some kind of inspiration or support from how Biden is so open and honest in showing what grief does to a person.

Thanks all, My wife never understood the whole 'fighting cancer" motif. She always felt like she wasn't doing it right or not strong enough because it always got worse. No matter what treatment she subjected herself to, how much poison she let them put in her it got worse. Then you hear about the damn fight hard, stay strong and it always felt to her like it was her fault it was killing her.

I know that I am weird. I know that my brain works different from other people. I take issue with some things that other people don't even think about. So maybe this is just me. It is Friday and we are allowed to dress more casual than the rest of the week. One of the women I work with, on casual Friday, wore a "Save the Rack" t-shirt with a set of horns and a pink ribbon. It was a humorous supportive shirt to promote breast cancer awareness. I don't really need any more awareness of breast cancer, I am quite aware of it thank you having lost my wife to it 2 1/4 years ago. Is it strange, won't say wrong, of me to be so bothered by that shirt? Am I just being too selfish and narcissistic in thinking that out of consideration for me she maybe shouldn't have worn that shirt to work? I said nothing, I am not mad. We work together well and get along just fine so it is not an anger or long term thing. It just kind of set a mood to the day that I couldn't shake. I found myself avoiding her today just to not have to deal with the shirt. Is this just me being irrational? I know it is petty of me, and I don't want this to happen to anyone else, but I also get that same petty jealousy I get when I see an old couple in the grocery store. Why do you still have each other at your age and I don't have her. It is hard not to resent survivors even though you don't really want bad things to happen. And don't even get me started about that damn Cancer Center Ad. "We are going to win" my ass! And to top it all off. We are moving our offices to a new building. Our boss took us on a road trip to show us where the new offices are going to be. While much closer to home, just a couple miles, it is in an office park where the physical therapist is that I took her for to try to help with the neuropathy. Lots of memories from taking her there and helping her through her sessions. Just a combination of circumstances that made today not a great day.