My husband died in April 2024. A friend, who’d lost her own husband the previous year, told me that it gets easier once the ‘First’ anniversaries are over. I’m now going through the third one’s and it still feels as sharp, if not sharper. I can’t understand why I’m still here, it makes no sense.
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I have two friends that lost they husbands one is 2 yrs and other 3yrs. Yes they get on with life but both have said they still find it hard. I am nearly one year in and though I thought orginally god the thought that this can go on for years surely I will surface but now I understand it may well not happen. I have no idea of my future and I am so very sad that I may just have a future of just getting through the day. What do we do! I guess just carry on.
Maybe just maybe something may enter our lives to bring a happier existence for us. We can only hope x
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I lost my partner in april 2023 over 3 years and still find im struggling to survive .Miss him everysingle day that dawns .We didnt just lose them we lost who we were im not the same person now .We carry on cos we have too and cope alone cos no other choice and to other people we are ok but im sure it changes us forever .The lonliness is the hardest thing for me to cope with no family here which is hard for me too . Sorry im no help.im struggling to find any positives tbh .Just hope things will.get better in time for all of us .
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Hi JemimaJane I am sorry to hear that you are suffering after three years and you don’t find any improvement. I am coming up to nine months and that sounds pretty frightening. Do you have friends and family around to support you? I find the solitude very difficult to handle after having such a bubbly sweet wife with me for forty years it seems so strange. People say you should find hobbies etc but it isn’t easy to think about things like that when you are suffering with the loss of a life time
I hope you find some comfort soon
Thinking of you and sending hugs
Wishing you all the best Tom
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Thank you for your kind thoughts, especially as your own loss was not so long ago. I do have family and friends, very good one’s who try to take care of me but my children have their own lives and I can’t take them away from their families. It’s the evenings that I find are so awful, when everyone is generaly settling down and yes, the solitude is almost crippling. I was with my husband for 53 years before he died and before that I lived with my parents and brother. I didn’t go away to college or such so I have never lived alone. In my 70’s it has come as a big shock.
Hobbies? I’ve tried to go back to some of the things I did for ‘fun’ before my husbands illness but I keep thinking ‘What’s the point?, who’s going to notice?’ He was always so encouraging and I miss his input so much.
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Hi, sorry you’re still feeling bad but I can understand that. It’s my partner’s 1st anniversary next Saturday. He died suddenly and my world came crashing down. I’m not as crazy and irrational as I was in the early months but the grief is still horrendous. I don’t see myself being any different six months from now, or indeed six months after that. I didn’t want or ask for this new abnormal life I m expected to navigate.
How can I move forward after almost 40 years with my lovely partner? It’s impossible, some people think you can fick a switch and be ok again. I think grief affects everyone differently, it might be easier if you have kids and grandkids as there’s weddings, births etc to look forward to. My whole personality has changed, I now suffer from anxiety on a daily basis. I used to be optimistic but now all hope and joy has gone. Why would I even want to move forward with nothing to look forward too. Some people just die with their partners. Take care
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Your 1st anniversary date is the same as mine.
26th Sept 2025. 5.32 am.
Like you I’m not great. Dreading it to be real. A whole year of complete misery.
X
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@Absent 26th September is our wedding anniversary. Lost my wife 5 weeks ago. I will share your pain on that date.
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I’m just coming up to 21 months and the pain is probably less visceral and more sadness, on a daily basis, but no less pronounced. CS Lewis said in the book he wrote after his wife died that bereavement is like an amputation, and I can relate to that. The initial wound may have healed, although it opens up very easily, but the limb is always going to be missing and life is still ‘wrong’ without it, no matter how much adjustment I might try to make.
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Hi JemimaJane
I lost my wife in December 2024 and so far the loss doesn’t seem any less. In fact this second year has been slightly worse because the first year was full of the necessary distractions of her funeral and dealing with her estate.
I would also suggest that some couples are closer than others and maybe we just got lucky with who we chose as a soulmate.
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It was June I lost my husband. I check this forum regularly to see if anyone has a magic cure for the grief we are feeling. Im only 52 my husband was 55. The thought of living with this sadness the rest of my life fills me with dread. Sometimes it feels life is getting easier the grief is lifting, but most times it comes crashing down again. No matter what I do it’s keeps finding me again. I can only pray that I can find peace again but hope also I don’t live too long if not. I wish there was a pill to take to make everything better, but until then all I can do is pray for myself, my husband and everyone else on here we find peace
God bless to you all and loved ones
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Hi JemimaJane I am sorry it must be difficult for you. I met my wife when I was eighteen and we spent every day together. We work together for forty years and I never found pleasure in doing anything on my own. Unfortunately now I have no choice but I still get no pleasure without her.
Wishing you all the best Tom
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I hope so, I would like to be happy again. One year in is so very early, I feel for you.
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Thank you.
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The second anniversary of my husband’s death is 9/24. About a month or 6 weeks ago, I felt as though I was back to the early days of grief. My brain fog came in, my anxiety shot through the roof, my self-doubt, worry, fear all came rushing back.
I realized that 2 years was not some magical amount of time where I would feel different, act different, live again or feel normal again. I hoped it would be. But, it isn’t.
The first year is a blur to me. I don’t recall much of it. The first few months I kept the house dark with all the blinds closed and sometimes taking a shower was just too difficult. I didn’t eat and I didn’t sleep.
Is it easier now, I don’t think so, but I now have a routine where I can keep up with the demands that once took 2 to handle. I’ve learned to grocery shop and cook meals for one and luckily the one I have to cook for doesn’t care what it is because she just eats to live.
I am still exhausted all of the time and find it very difficult to be away from my home for over 3 hours. I don’t sleep in our bed, but rather the sofa - it is not as empty.
I have stayed very busy with all that 2 estates entail as I also had my Aunt’s death to handle and getting delayed maintenance done on the house. I began to purge the house bit by bit and haul away all the useless, broken things, the things I no longer need, want, like, use, fit. I have to create MY home, not OUR home, as I can not live with all the memories of the life I lost surrounding me. I am still purging, cleaning, painting, re-doing things.
However, I have pushed myself to do things that are enjoyable. Not often, but I did, in fact enjoy those things. My husband always is the forefront of my every waking moment and I felt sad that he was not there to enjoy these moments with me, but I did them anyway.
We adapt. We keep moving. We function. From the outside, we look like we are just fine, but we know better.
We aren’t “fine”, we are surviving. Some days we are “okay”, some days we stay in bed.
Here is what is easier. Laundry. Housework. Grocery shopping, Making decisions. Driving. Falling asleep. Accepting invites. Purging.
I don’t cry. I am not angry. I do not ask “why”? I have accepted this reality.
Will I never be joyful again? Maybe not. But, I had the best life with my husband that anyone could ask for and if this is the price I pay for that life, so be it.
I claimed “our” house as “my” house. I claimed my life and I do the best I can under the circumstances. I work at it everyday.
Here comes my 3rd year of widowhood and it still feels like yesterday or 1,000 years ago that my husband died.
It does get “better”. The tears don’t flow as easily, the physical pain eases, there are more “okay” days that bad ones. There is happiness dispersed in there too.
I read this the other day:
You can grieve and grow.
You can laugh and miss them.
You can heal and still hurt.
You can trust God and still have questions.
You can feel grateful and heartbroken.
You can move forward and still hold on.
You can be strong and need support.
The old me died when my husband died. I no longer recognize myself. It is up to me to create the life this person wants and needs. It’s the hardest thing I have ever had to do and no one “gets it” unless they have walked in these shoes.
We are walking wounded.
But, we are walking.
Much love,
Peaches
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I’ve just passed 7 months of losing my husband, soul mate, the person I shared nearly half my life with. I thought I had started to make progress, and possibly in some respects I have, but a couple of weeks ago coming home on the train, without trigger or warning, it hit me like a ton of bricks how much I miss him! I know this, I’ve known this every day since he passed, but this was a wake up call and the depression from this is only just starting to lift.
I returned to work 3 weeks ago, started a new job with new people. My small group of colleagues are lovely, they know, I don’t have to pretend with anything. Most days are crazy, with one particular colleague ( same sense of humour) we can laugh like drains - this feels normal. The working day is what I remember ‘normal’ like to be like, what life should be. But then I return home and I am enveloped by the emptiness - not of company - but of my life without the other half of me. I’m not a huge people person, I don’t crave company, I’ve always been happy in my own company, but the company of my husband not being physically by my side is now a void I am all to aware of - and one I know will never been filled - will remain eternally.
But we do have to keep going forward - how I don’t know? I think everyone in this God forsaken club knows they have to find a path they can walk. As we will all state, we died too the day we lost that person. Me personally, I’m still in the early stages of trying to work out who the me is - one day at a time. I’m starting to accept that I’ll never be the same; my personality has changed, my assessment of myself has changed, and I know going forward, I’m now always going to be susceptible to periods of being ‘mentally unwell’ because I that’s what grief has done to me as a person. I guess the point of this is, I’m never going to ‘accept’ the loss of my husband, but I am starting to accept that I am not the person I was ( she is gone) I am someone different and working on accepting that is the only thing that is going to help me continue to put one foot in front of the other. Accepting that for every painful step I take forward, some days they will continue forward one step at a time, but other days there is always possibility of that one step forward resulting in the next two going back.
Sending 
to everyone on this position x
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Dear Cas. living without our loved one is a terrible experience, our life has been changed forever. I found around the seven months a real low period as if I was going back to the early days of grief,. I managed to pull myself out but it did leave me thinking that I could fall back down at any time. Life is tough but the love I’ve had the privilege to experience has been the greatest blessing.
Wishing you all the best Tom
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NO they really don’t!!!
Take care. Sending hugs x
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Mine was August 2024, so yes I am just into the third year. I think it is normal for the first to be a blur and the second year to be harder. Time goes. I have had phases where I thought I was improving, some times when I have not been on this forum for months and then something happens and I’m back. It’s not linear. I have got to the stage of surviving certainly, but not yet thriving.
I had planned to tackle this more pro-actively than I have so far, as have been using distraction only really, and been contemplating joining a programme called “Finding Hope in Widowhood” ( Finding Hope In Widowhood ). It’s very expensive but maybe I need something like it to encourage me to tackle the next phase as I close down our business next year (our only baby, as have no kids, 37 this year, so another huge emotional trauma) and start retirement without him and try and find some sort of purpose again.
But my Mum died last week and I am thrown back completely, rather complicated by sibling issues and a 300 mile distance (I am the absent, useless one in their eyes, it’s not a supportive family).
I think we just have to accept that the pace of things will not be smooth for us. Recognise what you have achieved so far and give yourself credit for all the things you have survived. Celebrate small wins.
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Thank you Peaches
Wonderful Post, absolutely wonderful.
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