I am nearly four months into this horrendous journey. I lost my partner aged 55 very suddenly on 1st January this year. Our bedroom is like a shrine to him and where I feel safe. I have his ashes on his side of the bed and this does not feel atall strange to me but I’m sure people would find this strange. His work top is still hanging where I left it washed and ready for him and everything else remains untouched. Just where he left it. I don’t feel in any way able to move anything and wonder how long I should allow myself to live like this I know everyone is different but does anyone have any advice. Am I just making things worse for myself long term. I can’t bear to take his clothes down or empty his drawers but I’m not sure if it’s a comfort or A constant reminder or the fact he will never need them again.
Hi Gina
I can’t touch my husband’s things and I have never even unpacked his rucksack from when he was away on his cycling tour and died suddenly whilst he was cycling through France. I cry every time I see his stuff and it’s nearly 7 months since he died. I am a long long way from being able to deal with his stuff but everyone’s different. I don’t find any of what you’ve said strange. I also keep my husband’s ashes on the shelf of his bedside table and I talk to him every time I’m in our bedroom. It’s what feels right and comfortable for you that counts. Hugs xxxx
Thank you @Penny8 that’s really helped me and I’m so sorry to you. I know I don’t really need anyone else to tell me how I should feel but it’s nice to know I’m not alone in feeling like this xxx
H, your not alone, I have my husbands ashes they give me comfort so I will leave them where they are, most of his clothes are gone except for the few special ones I kept including his dressing gown on the door next to mine, in the dining room on the table are still his book & a couple of other things of his.
I’m 5 years down the line but having a few of his things around makes me remember that he was here once and I didn’t imagine him !
When my mum died my dad until he died had my mums make up & hair brush still on her dressing table, slippers next to his etc…l think couldn’t understand it then, but I understand it now.
Thank you @Flower_garden 
xxx
My boyfriend died suddenly on 1st February last year. His sheepskin slippers are still under the hall table and his leather jacket hangs on the wall. Pics of him everywhere. And half a wardrobe of his clothes in my bedroom. I don’t notice any more
My home, if people feel uncomfortable then they don’t need to come in.
You do what you feel like doing, or not.
.
I lost my wife on the 8th March, so still in the early stages of this awful journey.
We all have our own ways of dealing with grief and whatever we each do is right for us. My wife became my girlfriend in 1965 and we married in Sep 1967, so we had been together a long time.
The best memories, for me, are in the form of photos, videos and, of course, in my head.
I don’t like seeing things like her clothes, so one of the first things I did was to take her day to day clothes, joggers, pants, tops etc, to the Air Ambulance bins. I’ve let my children and grandchildren take whatever they wanted from her smarter clothes and the rest will be going to a charity shop in the next few weeks
I intend moving/downsizing in the next few months so slowly going through the house to declutter. The main problem is most things I come across remind me of her and set me off sobbing, but I have to do it. I can’t keep everything we had and downsize, especially as the move I intend making is back to Wales from where I am now.
We’ve had her funeral, but her ashes are being interned at the end of the month in the church, in Wales, where we got married, hence the move. When I go, I’ll be joining her.
It’s whatever works best for you that counts.
I will never forget my wife and always love her.
It’s just individual. I cleaned things out w/ in 6 months, but I think I needed the distraction and to try to feel some sense of control in the situation. I have kept some clothes and other things in the dresser drawers, which I’ll never get rid of. It’ s so hard.
@Gina23 N’s belongings are still in the same place.
I haven’t the heart to get rid of anything yet, it’s been 16 months.
If it brings you comfort, it’s doing no harm.
You’ll know when/if the time is right.
It’s your journey with grief, don’t let anybody tell you how to travel that road.
In my case it has only been 4 weeks and I have already donated everything bar one bobble hat and a pair of fingerless gloves that my wife made and always wore, a pair of boots (the last ones she wore) and a pair of sandals that she loved everything else went to the Sue Ruyder shop in Dingwall the comment was “there is enough clothes her to clothe the whole of Dingwall” and trust me there was.
I have several ways of keeping her in thoughts.
Her pillows are still on the bed and the pillow she used to cuddle at night lays where she used to lay in the bed.
Another thing I have done is to have had a large print (canvas) done of my favourite photo of my wife (40cm x 30cm) which now hangs on the wall below her favourite picture (wishing on a star by Caroline Shotton) beside our bed so the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning is my wife smiling at me I can assure that the picture will stay on the wall until I go I also say goodnight and good morning to her every day.
These things may seem strange to others but they give me comfort which to me is all that matters.
Ashes not arrives yet but like many others they will stay with me until they can be mixed with mine and scattered together.
I have a framed poster of a letter I wrote to my wife, that I placed in her coffin. It’s beneath a pic taken in the wedding car on 23rd September 1967.
At the moment, I can’t bring myself to put it on the wall as I get too emotional seeing her and reading what I wrote.
As I intend moving in the coming months, I’ll probably leave it packed until I get in my ‘new’ house.
Such a beautiful picture and tribute.
I would give a billion pictures for her to be with me now. 
John, Hats off to you I could not write anything like that now it was hard enough reading some the letters I wrote to her all those years ago and to top it all I found a photo among her books of her and me sitting in her parents house when she was just 16 have to admit it broke me for a few hours and have had to put it back in a book, I can well understand why you struggle to display that I certainly would as well it does not take much to turn me into a gibbering wreck .
As I said I have managed to take all of her clothes to charity shop but packing them in boxes was hard as almost everything is a memory but good memories I still cried a lot and begged her to come back but I know that will never happen but I still keep talking to her.
thanks. I’m going to pick a couple of items to keep, then ask my daughter in law to pack them in boxes, as I couldn’t face doing it.
I seem to be sobbing a lot more these last few days. Just saying her name a few minutes ago, set me off.
Her beauty was the first thing that attracted me in 64/65, then it became her personality, but I still don’t know what she found in me.
I had a long chat with an old friend last night and even he asked what the hell she saw in me. I ended up marrying a local beauty queen and we stuck with each other, through thick and thin. Ok, only local, but she was my Miss World.
John is that Rogerstone nr Newport, H and I originally from Cardiff but have moved around a bit eventually ending up in the North Scottish Highlands but we will be moving back to Cardiff even if it is as ashes would not want to spend eternity in this heathen country 
yes it is John.
She lived there and I was from Newport. She worked in the typing pool of a company I worked for in Newport.
I also played in a Newport group and played a few times at the church hall in Rogerstone and that’s where we first got romantically involved.
I’ve wanted to move back to Wales since I retired for the last time in 2013, but she didn’t want to. I think she wanted to stay because some of the experts in sarcoidosis, which she died from, looked after her in the Oxford University Hospitals.
Now she’s gone, there’s nothing really to keep me in Northants. On the 30th April, her ashes are being interned in the Rogerstone church, where we married in 67, so I intend moving back to South Wales. Ideally Rogerstone, as soon as I can sort out the house.
England is ok, but Wales is my homeland
Some very helpful posts, obviously we are all on our own individual grief journey but it’s a real comfort coming here and being able to talk with those who understand and I never feel silly asking a question here. Thank you all and hope it was helpful for others to share. Beautiful tributes to lost soul mates. I have a photo on my bedside table that can reduce me to tears even when I think it’s a good ish day for me but it’s him in one of our favourite places so it will stay there even if or makes me sad to see him so happy because that was us and he’s smiling at me always xxx
I know of it as we lived in Caerphilly for the first 3 years of our married life and used to pick up the M4 at Highcross whenever we went east remember the Rogerstone power station as being the biggest landmark in the area.
I have a similar plan but I will be moving to somewhere like Knighton as my daughter lives in Leominster but I want to live in Wales.
Not had a great day today had to have blood taken today and the first thing the Community nurse asked was how my wife was which of course brought on the tears as I told her what had happened, unfortunately she had been away and did not know.
Hazel was one of those people who everybody seemed to like as she would do anything for anybody and did not have a bad bone in her body she was always nice to everybody the Macmillan nurses almost used to fight over who was going do her chemo she was so strong and put up with a lot, she had chemo every two weeks for two and a half years, her particular chemo meant she had to wear a pump and it took on average 60 hours per treatment that coupled with the steroids that kept her awake for 48 hours should have worn her down long before it actually did she was so strong and I am sure that I could not have put up with it as long as she did.
Why is life so unfair H never smoked never drank always ate well and looked after herself but cancer got her at 66 seems totally unfair to me as I used to smoke heavily drank like a true prop forward used to in those days have been exposed to asbestos and am on three asbestos exposure registers have never really looked after myself yes I have advanced prostate cancer but my outlook is far better than hers ever was she was only given 6 months originally all I can say is at the moment life is shit and no matter how many people tell me things will get better all I have to say is they have obviously never experienced losing a life partner.
I think that will do for tonight time to try and get some meaningful sleep and hopefully wake up to a good day.
Apparently the power station was demolished in the early 90s. Not sure what’s there now. Houses I suppose.
Yes it’s awful when people don’t know. When you tell them, they really don’t know what to say and start saying things like time will heal. It’s not their fault, I was the same, but losing a partner you’ve been with for a long time, is an awful experience.
Life is so unfair. My wife died from sarcoidosis, which only kills about 5% of those who have it. Why? It’s not fair at all.
As a child, I had every illness around at the time, including TB, for which I spent 2 periods in hospital, totalling 2 years. I should have been the one to go, not her.
Life for me and many here, is shit, but we have to try for the sake of our families and the partners we have all lost.
I wish I could sleep as well