My husband died just over 2.5 years ago. I never needed hobbies and friends when I had him. Now I have joined a walking group,volunteer twice a week at the village primary school and have become a member of the W.I. I have got to know quite a lot of people locally and have made a few really supportive friends who show no signs of “disappearing “. Reading this back,it looks as though I’m getting on reasonably well,but it is a huge effort to keep up this momentum and I still get worried about having time on my hands especially in the evenings and weekends. Am I expecting too much of myself? I overthink things which doesn’t help!Sorry to go on……
I’m so sorry for the loss of your husband. Thank you for sharing this with us. I’m just giving your thread a gentle, “bump” for you - hopefully someone will have some thoughts to share.
I am sorry no one has seen this post, sometimes they just don’t seem to show up.
I’m sorry you too have lost your husband, I lost mine 10 months ago.
Evening and weekends are the hardest times for everyone I think. We can keep busy during the day. From what you say you’ve done amazingly well filling your time with helping others.
This group has been so helpful for me, it’s like I’ve made a whole new group of friends. When I first joined I read through old posts, there are some very knowledgeable people here with great suggestions on how to cope. When I’m having a bad day or evening I come here and post or just read through how everyone else is coping.
I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you but I hope this post now gets noticed and someone comes along with some ideas x
@Blue7 3.5 years for me since I lost my wife and I can very much relate to what you say about the effort it takes to keep this new life going. It sounds as if you’ve done amazing things with your time and you should be incredibly proud of what you have built for yourself. I’m in a similar place although my efforts have necessarily been much more work focused, I look back and know I have achieved more than I could have ever imagined when this first began. And yet, like you, i still worry about the weekends and the evenings, I still compare this life to what I had and the ease and certainty I once enjoyed without even realising it. I guess we make these comparisons, that we judge ourselves in the only ways we can, looking at what we had and where we now find ourselves, but I’m beginning to realise that it’s simply not the same and that rather than worrying about the effort and the momentum that I should just be enjoying this life that I have built, trying to let myself sit with it, letting it sink in and thinking how I can develop that further. For me this is reframing the weekends, the evenings, the effort and momentum as just part of this life, that for the moment they just are, that I feel discomfort with them is not necessarily positive or negative but just part of this ongoing journey, that over time things will change. When I look back at the time I had with my wife 3.5 years into that was very much just the beginning, there was far more to come that enriched and crystalised, I guess that it will be very much the same for this new one, that as much as we are further away from what we have lost we are only at the start of what we can do with what is to come.
Hi Blue7 It seems like you are dealing with your loss in much the same way as me, I also joined many activities after losing my wife nearly 12 months ago, I also understand what you say about the evenings and weekends as it’s not possible to fill every hour of the day sometimes we are alone with our thoughts and that’s when time seems to drag on for ever. So you are not alone with this feeling. And a quote I read on this site sums up our situation, We no longer have anyone to do nothing with.