I have just lost my husband of 51yrs suddenly and finding really hard to cope as we were very close
51 years is a lifetime together. You know each other so well that sometimes you don’t need to put things into words. Everyone is different because every relationship was but the one common theme is overwhelming loneliness as the physical presence we all treasured so much has been snatched away. I cried constantly and I still cry every day. I got angry with him for leaving me even though I knew it was rubbish to even think he wanted to die. You are not rational as everything is different and you don’t want it to be, you want back the life you had. It was so cruel because you had the hope that he was recovering so the shock must have been greater. Grief is a hard and lonely road but I find talking about him, crying, surrounding myself with photos helps a little bit. I don’t kid myself that it will end any time soon. You don’t ‘get over’ losing your lifetime love but you may learn to build a life that is different. It will take a long time. I put one foot in front of the other every day and just see where it leads I hope you have a loving and supportive family and I am sure that lots of other people will tell you their experiences too. It helps a little to know that what you are feeling is normal for the place you are in now and you are not going crazy. If you are then we are all going crazy ltogether.
Hi Queenie, I am so sorry for the loss of your David. Florence’s words are very wise, and sum up parts of my own process since losing my husband two years ago. When you say you’re finding it hard to cope, it’s perfectly okay that you have no idea how to do so after 51 years. This is a huge, bleeding tear across your heart; coping with that has no blueprint; it’s something we learn as we go. And whether you feel you are coping or not, if you are breathing, getting out of bed or going back there, eating however minimally, crying for your man, this IS coping in a sense. Please pat yourself on the back for that.
This is a very supportive forum and I hope you’ll use it when you need to feel a bit less alone.
Big ((((((hugs)))))) Queenie if that’s okay.
Louise xo
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That’s my husband’s name too. I am so desperately sorry for your loss.
Sending love and understanding xx
It is so nice to be able to be in contact with people who understand what I am going thru. Family and friends try to help by being there but no one can understand unless they have been thru such a life changing loss.
I so agree with you about people trying to help. I expect we were the same before this happened to us. Although people can, with a slight shiver, imagine how they would feel if they lost their partner they have absolutely no idea of the depth of misery and despair you are plunged into and how much it hurts. The problem is that all my life I have been a problem solver or able to mitigate a problem but I have no control over this one. This helplessness exacerbates the pain and loss and you drift around with no safe anchor or forward path. People say on here it gets easier and, perhaps, it does. For now we just plough our furrow as best we can
Hello Florence. You made a comment and which is absolutely true: the depth of misery and dispair of losing one’s partner can never be understood until one goes through it themselves. My husband passed in August 2018 and I feel as if I am just drifting through a life which seems to have very little meaning without my darling to share it with. We were married for 44 years. It is as if half of me has died and the other half just existing. I force myself to get out of bed in the morning, cry several times per day and then make myself go out and about in the hope that I will feel better outside of the walls of my home. Like you I have been able to help others resolve their problems but cannot find an answer to mine. I just long for the day when my husband and I are together again and which I firmly believe will happen. For now we must try and honour the memory of our loved one and do our best to carry on.
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Dearest Salvia It is really hard to carry on like you I just manage to get thru each day by going out I loss Dave on the 30.9.18 and I find it harder know then when it first happened As Dave went thru a awful time in the hospital and the doctor’s would not sign of when he passed. So we have coroner involved as well and all Ican think of is the bad treatment he had at the hospital and he only died because of his treatment. At moment because of having to deal with the hospital and fighting for them to apologise and acknowledge my Dave was a person not just a number in a be, I can carry on.
Hello Queenie. We’re in a similar place. Eileen and I married in February 1967, 51 years like you, and she died on 8th September 2018. She had had elective heart surgery a week earlier and seemed to be benefitting and recovering well.
HM Coroner ordered an enquiry resulting in a post mortem in the week following Eileen’s death, but the Coroner then required more information, and tissue samples had to be taken for further examination.
Only this week has the matter reached a conclusion, allowing me to obtain a Death Certificate.
My family have had a lot of other distressing events in the last year, including right up to today. I don’t feel comfortable discussing the details, but I’m getting knocked back one thing after the other.
I don’t know if any of that helps you, but I just want you to know that I feel for you.
Dear Edwin
I so understand how you feel. I am still in the middle of trying to sort thru. Why my husband died. The depth of helplessness you feel in dealing with the consultants etc., is heart breaking. An apologise means nothing as my life like yours has been ruined. They will forget Dave as soon as they walk out the door. I only want to stand in front of the consultants and the nurses who was suppose to take care of David for them to see the hurt they have caused. I was at the hospital everyday for 8 hrs and the problems always happened after I left.
Thinking of you hope the out come of the report has helped you. Love queenie
Dear Edwin I hope you are coping better now that you have been thru the awful distress of finding out why you wife died. Not sure once I have like you gone thru all the trauma of fighting to find out why Dave died if it will help. As I am really struggling at the moment. I am sure you are also dreading christmas although I am sure like me you will have lots of family round you. I find I still feel very alone Edwin the only thing we can do is just get thru one day at a time hoping the next day the hurt might feel a little less. Take care Queenie
Hello Salvia and Florence, your comments resonate with me 100%. I lost my husband 7 months ago on Wednesday, ‘drifting through life…’ is exactly what I’m doing and pray for the day we can be together again. We had our golden wedding anniversary March 30th this year and exactly 2 months to the date I was at his funeral. February, he had a second bout of flu, we never suspected or expected he had a terminal illness, he had no specific symptoms. Never visited the doctor in over 40years, never had a day off work sick. I sometimes feel anger, not to him, but towards others. I see really bad people walking about and think why Alan and not them. I’m sure others have thought this too. ☆
We should all get together and do a tribute version of ‘The Drifters’ who, if you are old enough, we’re a good group a long time ago. There is some merit in not looking too far ahead as it scares the … out of me. I cannot, as yet, see a future but I am told constantly that I will so I wait patiently for that to happen. Children often say that ‘it’s not fair’ and my mum’s reply was if you are waiting for life to be fair you will wait a long time. How true. When I see elderly couples walking around hand in hand or arm in arm I can get really angry and think why are you still alive when my Den is dead. Unreasonable I know but it happens. I wont say any of the usual platitudes because personally I don’t hear them. I am hoping that sometime I will come out from the fog and mist and discover that there is a world to live in and a place for me to be there. Family and friends are kind and I do appreciate them but in the ‘wee small hours of the morning that’s the time I miss you most of all’.