Hi all. My beautiful wife, Christine, passed away on 22 October. To say I’m broken is a massive understatement - one of my biggest battles is guilt and how I’d do things differently if I had the chance - nothing massive, just being more patient, etc. These feelings batter me round the head daily to the point I feel like screaming.
Is it just me or does anyone else have this struggle?
I think everyone feels guilty about various things and all of the what ifs .Its a natural feeling and im sure your beautiful wife would be the first to say to you dont be so silly .Sending thoughts to you
@Dazzaman guilt is one of the processes of grief and I must say for me it’s one of the hardest to cope with. 4.5 months down the line now and for some reason the last few days all I have been able to do is question myself. Is there more I could have done, should I have seen it coming and made him see a doctor, on the day of his heart attack twice he refused to let me call an ambulance, should I have ignored him and done it anyway? These questions are driving me crazy, every one, including the staff at the hospital said I did all I could but if I had actually done things differently would the outcome have been different. I think we all have these questions but unfortunately no one has the answers. I miss him so much that it is like a physical pain.
I struggle in the same way. The guilt comes in waves and is really difficult to handle. I was impatient, I got angry, I missed something, I should have realised, I should have known, I didn’t do something or I did something. It doesn’t stop. I wish I had some good advice, but I do know the feeling.
Agree with everything said - for me it’s a series of ‘what ifs’ and ‘why didn’t I’. The most painful thing is I’ll never know the answer. It’s probably just me but when people say ‘you done your best, there’s nothing to feel guilty about’ I feel like screaming.
No, not just you. I want to scream too when they say that. I guess we are always most critical of ourselves.
@Dazzaman i had similar feelings. Thinking about how I forced him to go to hospital when he didn’t want to, getting cross when she couldn’t do things when he was poorly, abandoned even back to rows we’d had. And we didn’t have many.
I’m sure it’s just a natural, albeit another tough part of our grieving process
My husband went into a lake to help my dog Poppy who was struggling in the cold water. She hadn’t gone in on purpose but fell in. If any one thing on that day I’d done differently it wouldn’t have happened. He needed oxygen and his nosepiece had come out and I knew he wasn’t coming out. He couldn’t walk to the toilet without oxygen. People tell me he’d not have wanted to have a lingering death in hospital and I thank God that I think he had a heart attack and died, not drowned. I’ll never forget my hero. He always said we’d all got a date stamp on the bottom of our feet, we just couldn’t see it. My point is, I think when it’s your time there’s nothing can alter it.