Hi Louise Evs thanks for your reply. My husband also was my soul mate. Are you able to look at photos of your husband? I find this too distressing at this moment in time and the familiar panic attacks kick in when I do. Like you I dread going to bed and waking to the fact my husband is no longer here. I like your advice to be ‘kind to myself’ but it’s difficult right now when all I want to do is crawl into a corner and cry. X
Hi May…yes looking at photos is very hurtful and i have photos dotted about the house in every room that have been in situ over 20 years in the house. I cant hide them and have found a degree of comfort in seeing him. I have lots of albums on my lap top and cant bear to open them and look its too painful especially the videos. Plus albums stretching back over 55 years i dont try to get them down from the cupboard. i cry everyday
I suppose in time i will but cant envisage this. Dont make yourself look at photos you have May and maybe in time you will find strength and possible comfort if you do xx
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Hi May, I do look at photos. Like a crazy lady, I talk to them. There are moments in the day where I will avoid it. My feelings are so up and down it varies. I understand what you say about crawling in to the corner and crying. I mostly crawl into the bath each night and have a good sob. My two grown up children live at home and I try to hide SOME of my grief from them, hence the bath! I think allowing ourselfes time to do this is being kind to ourselfes. We should be allowed to do whatever we need to do. I also go out in the car, to a place I feel close to mike (usually the beach) and allow myself to think about him and be sad. After a while I will have a word with myself to pull it together and try to deal with the rest of the day. We are all different and find different ways to cope, but this works for me. The periods of panic have subsided over the past 4 months but unexpected things catch me. Sometimes it still feels so surreal I just feel overwhelmed and scared. This was pretty much constant in the first 5 or 6 weeks for me but like i said it has subsided. He is always on my mind May. I am so sorry you too lost your soulmate. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Xx
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Hi, I lost my fiancé back last December and I still don’t know how to cope. What keeps me going is living in his memory. I miss him everyday, I cry every day but the thought of him standing behind me and pushing me to get on with life and do what I need to do keeps me going. Hope things start feeling better as the time goes on. Xx
Jess its early days and your loss will be raw and as the days elapse your tears will flow at any given time. Dont inhibit them even if you are in company with good and trusted friends. Whatever your beliefs spiritual or other your fiancè will be with you and feeding you his strength when you need it. My husband died 2.5 years ago and i cry at any given time alone or in company on buses and out and about. I am 74. We were wed for 52 years met as teenagers in the 60’s. His spirit and strength spurs me on to cope.
I hope you have a family and a friend/s you can confide in and trust with your times of emotional sadness.
Misty1 xx
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Hello Jess I lost my husband in 2011. I had reflexology the other day and balled my eyes out. We just got talking and oh my, she only had to scratch the surface and it all flooded out, which was good. It will get better and you will still have your ‘days’ but you will learn to live with it. Life is for the living and he would certainly want you to live it for sure. I wish you all the very best. Annette xx
Hi Jess
So sorry to hear about your sad loss. My 24 year old son was killed in an accident May this year, so like you my grief is so new and intense. I like you cry everyday, I think when you love some one it is the only thing you can do at the beginning. My son left a girlfriend that he had been with 4 years and she continues to be a very important part of our family and we look after each other as I know that is what Jake would want .
I have heard from people that it does become easier as time goes on, the grief remains the same but your capacity to cope gets bigger. You are right when you say that your fiancé is behind you willing you on, he would want you to have a life and I know my boy wants his family to carry on, we will always carry them with us wherever we go, we do it for them now and not just for us.
Be kind to yourself, we are just beginning down this path but many walk it with us.
Take care
Janet
I am lost for words at the moment. Each of these stories touches my heart. It is just under 4 weeks since I lost my wife of 24 years. Early days maybe but the flood gates never stop opening and it’s so unpredictable. Not just a tear or two but complete melt down.
Only saving grace is that now I’m back at work they have set me up an office to myself rather than our normal open plan atrangement. Just as well, a well meant email offering condolenses has me virtually on my knees.
In some ways this is getting on my nerves but I’m sure it’s part of the natural grieving process. Even our beloved dogs appear to be shedding tears as well.
Not even sure why I’m writing this, sure many of you experience the same. It’s now 3am and another sleepless night which is now the norm. I look at the empty side of the bed and it sets me off again.
I suppose I have one question. How long does this last? The occasional tear I can cope with but the soul ripping melt downs are just becoming too much.
Hi Trevor
I wish I had an answer for you on how long this pain lasts but sadly I guess it will be very different for us all.
I lost my partner 4 months ago she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in march 2016 and I think looking back i began grieving for her then knowing i would not be with her. Four months on sleep getting a little better now and having 5 to 6 hours which better than 2 or 3 in the earlier days. I can say the melt downs for me have greatly reduced but still easily reduced to tears and these can be unexpected I cried in the opticians last week because they wouldnt let me have my contact lens without a check up which i couldnt face. It was one of my first trips into town alone and just wanted to gi home. The poor receptionist didn’t know what to do with me but kindly offered me a tissue and a glass of water which made me worse.
The rawness does subside but it is only 4 weeks and i am at the 4 month stage so please take it easy. I was in such a rush after a month to get back to some kind of normal routine and trying to get all her things sorted that i gave myself a bit of a setback. I decided to be kinder to myself and just let things be and stopped beating myself up that i was not ‘getting on ’ with anything. You really can’t rush this it won’t let you and i find grief a very cunning and cruel emotion that creeps up on you when you least expect it and can rip your heart out leaving you left feeling so empty.
I will soon be returning to work and see this a sign of me slowly improving. We all will have moments when we break down especially over the first year and of coure the dreaded c word coming up where we are all expected to be full of festive spirit. My birthday is also in december so would be quite happy to sleep through december this year which i guess we all would but know its impossible and another hurdle to overcome.
I probably haven’t helped much but helped me to share this and myself had a bad night so been up since 4 (not sure why but as i said we all have setbacks at any stage)
Take it slowly and let things just be and be as kind to yourself as possible, even if this seems selfish’ it won’t be its you putting yourself first.
Kind wishes
Carol x
Hello Trevor I am so sorry to hear your story. I would say from my experience time doesn’t ‘heal’, you just learn to live with it. Six years on and like others are saying, it creeps up on you at the most unexpected time. My husband died suddenly and I was left running the business (and did so for five years - 100mph, looking back adrenalin was running me… not so now…). Time was filled completely, seven days a week. My husband passed away on Sunday afternoon and I was in the office on Monday, no-one knew what to say to me. What you will find is that if someone has been through this, they will know exactly how you are feeling and can handle it a lot better. I wish I had found this site six years ago. It is so sad to read about others, however, it does make you realise that you are not alone. Give yourself some slack, don’t give yourself a timescale, it takes as long as it takes. Don’t beat yourself up if you also do things which are totally out of character, things are no longer as they were. Back at the time, I didn’t suffer fools, I did not do anything I didn’t want to do and maybe came across as rude, but I didn’t care at the time. It’s time to look after you. You are in the very early stages so take each day as it comes. If one day is completely rotten, hopefully the next will be different.
Look after yourself. Keep writing. It helps. Kind regards Annette x
Thank you. I’ve not been on the site recently hence my late reply. Six months on and I’m still in a state of disbelief. It’s like 39 years have gone in an instant. I listen to his voice on my voice mail and look at old photos of happy times. I really can’t see a life without my husband but know I’ve no choice. I miss him every second of every day.
Hi May. I feel exactly the same as you. Losing your husband is like someone has just ripped your world apart. I hate night time when I’m alone. I hate knowing I’m the one who is left. The one who has to keep her grown up family supported. I hate knowing he’s missing out on what’s been happening to the family, our pets , his friends. It’s just too much to cope with. I’ve put a brave face on for too long and now I’m a wreck who cries at the silliest of things. No one can prepare you for losing your husband but I’m determined to get through. How I don’t know …
Hi Eve, I know. It is SO hard. Its a case of absolutely awful days and some better. Hold onto the better days. It will improve, but it is just so blinking sad for all of us. You are not alone. I wish I had found this site before. As sad as it is reading about others, it is somehow comforting to know that we are not isolated, (if you know what I mean…) Keep on keeping on. XXX
Hello Eve, It’s 8 weeks today I lost my husband and it feels I’ve never had him. I still wake up with my heart beating fast and the horrible horrible realisation he is no longer alive. I live alone and have no children so life for me now seems pointless. Just how does one carry on in this situation? I have many friends but unless you have been through the same experience no one understands the emptiness we who are widowed are left with. What the answe is I do not know. I’m still off work as I break down constantly and know I’m not fit yet to return to a stressful environment. I have always loved Christmas but sadly I will be ignoring it this year.
Hi May, I can relate to everything that you say and you are not being selfish it is just the natural reaction or so my counselor tells me. I lost my wife who was only 60 just over 4 weeks ago and now also live alone apart from my two beloved German Shepherds without whom I might very well not be here. Maybe a counselor could help you, although most think that at 4 weeks it is too soon. My doctor also prescribed some pills that take the edge off. They were meant to help me sleep, but that is now a thing of the past.
I also find going out extremely difficult at the moment. Seeing couples in the Christmas isles of the stores is particularly difficult knowing that this year Christmas is essentially cancelled. I will do what I can when my son comes back from university for the break, but I cannot see how I will have the will power to decorate the tree that we did together each year, or as she became sicker simply putting on the decorations that she chose. It often takes all my will power to flee back to the car before I lose it in an uncontrollable flood of tears.
My house is like a mine field. I just need to glance at a picture or even an object that she loved and its sets me off. Even worse is that the layout of my house is such that I have to go through the room where she passed away at least a couple of times a day. Some people say
You are so right about this type of grief being different to that of losing your parents due to age, or perhaps even a partner due to age. The premature nature of it tears at the soul. Sometimes I ask what did my Peggy do to deserve this, sometimes the same question is about me. Her passing was unexpected, despite being ill for some time she had appeared to be on the road to recovery. It sometimes feels like someone is playing a cruel joke on me, after years of despair I had begun to see hope.
The crux of it is, you are not alone. We may all be strangers here but in some ways I find it easier to pour out my soul on what happened to strangers. There were complexities with Peggy’s health that I would not wish to discuss with her friends for example, just in case they didn’t know and might think badly of her.
Take care
Trevor
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