Debbie I didn’t get to spend retirement with my husband either. He only lived 5 months after stopping work on medical grounds. I’m both terribly upset and sometimes angry about this. He deserved to have at least one year of healthy retirement as I 'm sure your husband did.
3 Likes
Doug was older than me so he had been retired for several years, but for the last five years he had several medical conditions that resulted in him dying.
I can understand how upset you are, it has always been my regret I didn’t take early retirement.
We were looking forward to spending time together but it wasn’t to be. X
2 Likes
@solost I’ve just seen tjis, your first post, as I’m gradually making my way through this site - and it sums up everything, especially the single soul, which Sharon and I shared. Everyone in the ospice said about Sharon and I: "we all know you two are both a single unit’, which just sums it up… So I totally get the way you feel, you are NOT alone…
1 Like
Hi Julie,
My husband died almost 4 weeks ago, 5 weeks after his diagnosis. I am still reeling from the shock, but I also feel terrible anger, because his death was avoidable.
I am also consumed with guilt, but I can’t work out why. My husband, Stuart had literally just retired after working so hard all of his life.
I can’t ever imagine getting pleasure from anything ever again, and I spend most of the time wishing that I was with him.
Ann
1 Like
Hi Ann
I’m so sorry to read about Stuart and I can empathise with your sense of loss and shock so much. It is still very early days for you but you will find a lot of support on this site so keep using it as long as you need to. It’s no wonder you are feeling so angry if you feel his death was unavoidable………
It’s been just over a year now since Ian passed away only seven weeks after his cancer diagnosis. Like Stuart, he seemed fit and well and then suddenly, he was gone. To be honest with you, that sense of shock lasted for most of the year and is still with me to some extent. I started having counselling after about 4 months as I couldn’t accept what had happened and kept expecting him to walk through the door.
I mourn the loss of Ian’s future as although he was nearly 69, he had so much more he wanted to do. It’s that loss which I’m finding so hard to cope with at the moment. I’m still here and like you, I’ve wished many, many times that I wasn’t, but Ian doesn’t even have that choice anymore. In fact, it was my 69th birthday yesterday and I found it so hard knowing that Ian never even made it to his 69th as he passed away a few days before.
Everyone grieves in their own way and time but as to feeling guilty, I’m sure you did everything you could. There are so many things I wish I had said and done in those last few days but I was on autopilot and I never thought that Ian wouldn’t pull through.
You must look after yourself and take each day as it comes. If you would like to talk more, please feel free to private message me.
Julie x
4 Likes
Hi Jean,
You have said something that has really struck a cord with the me today, that our soulmate would not want the legacy of their death to destroy us!
I lost the love of my life 8 months ago very suddenly and unexpectedly and am completely heartbroken, the way I have tried to cope is by thinking about what Pete would say to me and I know for sure he would not want me to wallow in self pity.
Your words have made me realise that much an all as I hate my life without my soulmate I need to pick myself up and get on with life, friends has told me I’m brave and strong, I don’t feel I am at all, but I would like to think that by carrying I would make Pete proud.
Thank you so much for your words, they have helped me more than you know.
Sending love
Muldool
3 Likes
Hello Julie and Ann
After reading your posts I can resonate so much with both of you. My husband died four months ago and I am finding it a real struggle every day. I miss him so badly. We were together for fifty years. I was sat alone in my living room on my 70th birthday not long after my husband died. It should have been a time of happiness to reach a milestone birthday but instead it was just another lonely pointless day. Like you Julie I also mourn the loss of my husband’s future and the loss of my future without my husband in it. I wish you both love.x
2 Likes
Otoolea
My partners death was also unavoidable he had a farm accident in June with multiple breaks in his body I cannot comprehend what he went through in the time he passed in October 21 with heart failure. I cannot go out in my garden for long now as I begged him that sunny hot day not to go up on the farm and take a rest but he took no notice. I am here this morning begging to be with him as I have begged to many times for him to come home and he can’t.
Jessica
2 Likes
Hi Jessica, thanks for replying. I feel full of anger, but also guilt. My husband had literally just retired and I feel like I am morning the life that he has missed out on.
I know that it is very early days for me, but when I look to the future I see only pain.
I’m sure you have gone through the whys and wherefores, but we can’t go back and do things differently.
I have an amazing family and have a lot of support, but I feel alone and just want to be with him again.
I hope we can both get through this, and if you have any advice I’d be really grateful.
Ann
1 Like
Otoolea
You are lucky to have family I have no one I have one neighbour who is wonderful. I am in floods of tears at the moment I have to go to a hospital appointment tomorrow for my knee I do not know how I am going to cope without my partner. If they decide to operate how am I going to manage without him. I worry now about things I never even thought about having to do everything on my own I am just exiting every day is it worth it. I wish one day I could come on this forum with a glimmer of hope 9 months on it is worse.
Jessica
1 Like
I agree @Otoolea.
We can’t change the past or what has happened and it’s almost like a form of torture or self harm to get into that way of thinking - though keeping away from it is far, far easier said than done.
It’s also easy to think “if only” and imagine a happy outcome when, in reality, the journey may have been slightly different but the end result could have been the same.
Sadly, the partner shaped hole that is left can only be filled by one person so no matter how many people are around you, or not, that feeling of half of me is missing and I’m not sure I can function on half measures, persists .
I read somewhere recently, that when a couple have been together for a long time, it’s almost as if you share a brain!
You plug the gaps in the other person’s knowledge and memory (I can so relate to that) so, if the plug has been removed, ever likely we’re feeling lost, bereft and a bit aimless.
It’s still early days, relatively speaking, for me on this Godawful trip, but I am trying hard to focus on what I have rather than what I haven’t and just dealing with the here and now will have to be good enough for the moment.
Good luck with your hospital appointment @Jessica1231. Tell them you live alone so that they can gear up your after care accordingly (hopefully).
2 Likes
Hi, I’ve just been reading all your posts and I just wanted to cry. I understand you all perfectly.
I’m grieving too for the future my beloved husband has suddenly been deprived of and will never see,he was only 57,and so much younger at heart. I have my grownup kids with me but I don’t want to be an emotional burden to them. They have their own lives to get on with, of course they’re suffering too, it’s just not fair that they’ve had to go through this.
Winingit, I was particularly touched by how you say that a couple can seem to share the same brain. That’s me. We were ‘one person’, now I just feel like a robot or a clockwork toy, getting on with life just because I happen to be still alive.
These lazy sweltering hot afternoons over here are just causing my mind to go through all these negative heartbreaking thoughts, sitting here and watching TV without really ‘watching’ it, my mind always being elsewhere.
Wishing you all strength and comfort.
3 Likes
Hi Loobyloo
Thank you for your kind thoughts. It is still such early days for you and I can remember writing many posts in my early days with tears streaming down my face.
Already I’m being asked about what I want to do on my 70th birthday next year, and like you felt on yours, I’ve replied nothing as it will be pointless without Ian by my side.
Take care,
Julie x
1 Like
Hi Julie,
My children suggested that we went out for a nice lunch or similar but I said I didn’t want to. I just didn’t have the motivation to do anything and still don’t. I know my posts might sound very depressing but I am not depressed. I just miss my husband so much as do my children. I think they just didn’t want to let my (significant) birthday pass without doing something. My husband didn’t even reach his 70th.x
1 Like
@Trixie1 I just saw your comment about not believing he would pass, and it hit such a chord with me. Despite caring 24/7 for my Sharon for 3 years from the day she was diagnosed, including 5 months at her bedside in a hospice sleeping on a campbed, doing everything for her, and consciously knowing it was going to end badly - when she went I just couldn’t believe it. What I should have told her, not told her, done, not done - and I was hit by crushing guilt. Everyone says I was such a star, and because of me she lasted so long against all the medics expectations - but they don’t understand. There are two things that stick in my mind that mainly causing me massive guilt - which I’m sure people would say is trivial, but which I can’t bring myself to write here because it hurts too much, but it’s tearing me apart. If SUBCONSCIOUSLY I’d actually understood she was going to pass I could have corrected them with Sharon, but I’d didn’t as I never truly believed in my soul that she’d go, , and now it’s too late. There are no words to describe this, but I guess you get it, as probably do others in our World.
1 Like
@Wingingit I totally get your point about a shared brain - Sharon and I completed each other, we shared a soul. So now, nothing makes sense, half of my soul, existence, brain whatever - is gone. There are no words to describe this…
1 Like
Hi almost ten months since my hubby died . I never thought he would die and leave me . We had been together since we were 16 and he died at age59. We never discussed if he died . All I said to him when he was diagnosed with cancer . Was that I hoped he was going to fight cancer because I needed him . With him is the only life I knew . I muddle through each day now trying to be positive but fail . I cry each night for him and the happy life I had with him. I only wish now I had spoke to him more about how much I loved him and what an honour it was to be his wife . And a lot more stuff. We were truly in love and I love and miss him more and more each day . Sorry for your loss xtake carex
3 Likes
All take care I wish I had the words for us all to help
So many if only
Hope you manage the day and can find some thing to make you smile tough road xx
2 Likes
Hi rose hope you the best you can be . I’m kind of struggling this week . I’m trying my hardest to be positive but I can’t seem to find any strength to keep going . But I know I have to. I feel like I’m trying to climb a wall but it keeps getting bigger and can’t see any sunlight at top now . I manage to get a little way up but then I fall to the ground again . I think I have given up trying to climb to the top and now just sitting at the bottom looking up . No future . No happiness. No life . I miss my hubby so so much . And every time I think of him my eyes fill with tears . And believe me I think of him a lot . I keep telling myself this is not how he would want me to be .All I want to do is make him proud of me but I am failing at that . I must for my own sake try and find some peace .sorry for going on . But I know I can really say how I feel on this site . And you all understand . Hope I havnt made you or anyone reading this feel down .i will try and give myself a talking too. Thank you for listening . Xtake carex
2 Likes
Hi Broken, your explanation of comparing how you feel to climbing a wall, is so precise. It really is that way, and it’s so slippery isn’t it, with no steps to put out feet on to help lift us up to reach the top of this wall. I also feel as if my head is filled with a thick fog, can’t see anything so I can’t find my way around.
It does help so much being able say what we want here, no fear of being judged, it’s so hard to find the right words sometimes, so it’s a great relief sharing with you all, thank you.
1 Like