Where do I begin……my wonderful husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer on 13 January they told us it would be months rather than years. He passed away on 4 March. It all seems so fast. I kept busy the first few weeks during the day with all the admin you need to do when someone passes away. I did this none stop because when I did stop and think I just burst into tears. The last week before he passed he stayed mainly upstairs in bed and I used to do thing’s downstairs and pop up regularly to see if he needed anything or do meditation. He wasn’t really eating by the final few days only yoghurt with his morning medication as these needed to be taken with food. Before the dreaded C he had a major sweet tooth and was a big man. Anyway I tell myself now when I’m doing things downstairs “he’s upstairs resting” it’s the only way I can cope during the day to be honest. The nights are the hardest lots of heart wrenching crying. I miss him so very much and I feel like I to died the day he did. Family and friends have been kind and supportive but I can’t except them to come running every time I breakdown which to be completely honest is every day. I put on a front and when they ask I say up and down but ok. Which is far from the truth. My question to those out there that have lost a loved one to this cruel disease is how do you go on each day when your life seems so empty now without your soulmate?
I now have my beloved husband’s ashes back they were delivered to me. I don’t know what I was expecting a magic wand to make me stop the uncontrollable crying, the emptiness within me but whatever I thought would happen it hasn’t but it’s just made me miss him even more it’s not a home anymore just a house empty and soulless Someone said now you have the ashes back you can start to get back to normal. I don’t think there will ever be normal again. I feel like I am getting worse with my grief I hardly leave the house I don’t enjoy sitting in the garden too many memories. I don’t cook or even enjoy food. I hardly sleep. People come visit me which I really do appreciate, it stops the house sounding so quiet but I feel like I’m just going through the motions for them. Once they leave I take my “mask off “and weep uncontrollably. Everything is a memory and it’s killing me inside. By being on here I know I’m not the only one that feels these things but it doesn’t stop that feeling of utter loneliness. My work expect me to go back soon but I just can’t face people and if I break down there……well. But I must go back I know a routine is needed but going out and coming back to my beloved husband not being here is going to tear me apart.
I feel like a lost little girl trying to get out of a tunnel but never getting to the opening. I had my name down for bereavement counselling I had my assessment one on Monday it was very difficult but I made it through now I wait to see when they will start. I feel that people that have not lost their soulmate do not understand our feelings and when they say come out and I say thanks but no in the end they just stop asking and visiting. But I don’t want to go out “enjoying myself” without him. We didn’t have children so the house is very empty. Every room holds a memory it’s killing me inside.
I long to feel more settled. We do not tell the real truth to others how we feel. I guess I feel they will just stop asking if I told the complete truth this is why I just say “Up and down”. When it is just down very very low down. I really want to say my husband is still dead so what do you think but of course I don’t. No visitors since Thursday so it has been a very long few days. The clocks moved forward last month but I did not.
I feel exactly the same. I lost my wife on the 8th March.
I’ve been crying since then, but the last few days it’s been uncontrollable. It’s so hard.
This morning I walked to our local shop for a paper, crying there and back. I could see people looking at me and was willing that no one would ask what’s wrong, even though I also wanted them to. No one did.
I’m stuck in a never ending nightmare that stops me sleeping.
When family or friends ask how am, I say I’m ok even though my heart has been shattered.
This weekend is the first that none of my family has been able to visit, so the hours seem to have dragged by. It’s only just gone 10 pm on the Saturday and I have at least 20 hours to go before I’ll speak to another person.
Our lovely neighbour has been cooking me a meal on Sundays, so I’ll at least speak to her husband, who’ll deliver the meal. He’ll ask how I am and I’ll say ok.
I really don’t know how much more my 79 year old body can take. I have to try, but it’s so bl**dy difficult.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I am 18 months since my husband of 51 years died. Yes there have been days when I wanted to stay in bed all day. I make myself get up and write a list of things I have to do each day, very mundane things. Every invite I have I have made myself accept. Some events are ok, some terrible. I still cry most days but I have moved on from those awful terrible early days, Life will never be as wonderful as it was but the pain does get easier, Takd care you are in very early days x
I dont know where to start apart from my wife lost her battle againt cancer on the 18th March. My feelings are exactly the same, i just can barely coʻpe. I couldnt remember anything until the last couple pf days, now the memories dont stop. I am numb by them tbh. And all along rhere is this terrible yearning for herand i know o cant get her. Dreams are very vivid lately tooand sometimes i dare not gp to sleep. Everything you said relates to grief and i jist hope ot releases me sooner eather than later. I hate life atm, there is no pleasure and sometimes i feel there is no point. I thought time heals but i find myself getting deeper and cant stop. God help us, its too painful, take care x
@Heartbroken12
You’re on the hardest journey you’ll ever take, and grief will be at your side.
You won’t ‘get over’ losing the love of your life, but slowly, you will adapt and change.
Try and tell some people (perhaps someone close, or on here) how you really feel, don’t deny those feelings, why should you, they are are part of who you are now.
I had counselling and learnt some coping techniques and practiced what to say to the inevitable ‘how are you?’
I also had someone at work, who I’d never met, tell me I’d get over it.
I didn’t punch her, but I sooo wanted to!
I did practice what I wanted to say to her with my counsellor, and I’m pleased I did… we talk often, she had lost her family in an accident.
I am 16 months on from N dying with cholangiocarcinoma and a liver infection. There were times I wanted to die but we had plans, and the very least I can do is try follow his wishes to do some of the stuff we’d planned and to also remember who I am.
Shed the tears, be angry, but try to find something each day to make you smile… a memory, a photo, whatever it takes.
Be kind to yourself…
Dear Heartbroken12
I am so sorry for you loss.
I lost my wife 4 months ago to a heart attack. Everything you have said resonates with me. The house is no longer a home, part of me certainly died with her and the slightest thing sets me off in floods of tears. I don’t enjoy food anymore, it just tastes like cardboard and sitting on your own eating with no one to talk to is awful.
As you say, friends and relatives are very kind. They do their best to ease the pain but there is only one thing that would do that. I’m grateful for visitors or an invitation to a coffee and a chat because it is a distraction and it lifts me, albeit momentarily, out of the dark.
Initially I thought I was sort of coping because there was so much to do in settling her estate but now, with time on my hands, I also find my mood is getting worse.
Just like you we didn’t have any children and the house is indeed very empty.
I’m retired so don’t have a job to go back to. I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing. Work can be very annoying and I’m not sure how I would tolerate it but it does provide a routine which could be therapeutic.
I have no magic solution but widowed friends and relatives say you never get over your loss but you do learn to live with it. I draw strength from this website because all the wonderful contributors show the feelings we have are entirely normal and it is okay to work through them at your own pace.
Take care of yourself.
Thank you for those kind, but truthful words. It is the most painful journey I have ever known, and so hard to see a path through the intense grief. I feel so numb, I am a lost soul without my husband, I need him here with me, but realise that it will never be possible.
There are days that I want to die, but I see the pain etched on our children’s faces, and know that I could never leave them, they are in enough pain.
I will try to follow your advice, and find the positives in each new day, it is so hard, though.
Take care, sending love xx
For me after her two and a half year fight against cancer it was the 18th of March and since then I have felt numb and empty yes I put on this act of being in control when talking to others but when alone it is a different matter I do not only cry regularly but properly weep.
She was only 66yo and we had been together for 51 yrs married for 47 and in that time apart from 3 weeks while I was working in Uganda and 6 weeks in Oman and the last day of her life (I spoke to her but she could not reply) we spoke to each other every day regardless of where we were.
The house is now empty as is in many ways is my life I find myself thinking of things I would really love to tell my wife such as how my day has gone and just little bits of gossip that I pick up during the day but alas she is not there so I talk to myself.
This good weather does not help as she would be out in the garden weeding and whenever I go out I look at the borders and imagine her kneeling down pulling weeds and removing all the dead growth from last year the simple fact is that she is permanently in my mind and will probably never leave it.
I often apologise to her for what happened to her but also realise that there was nothing I could do and to quote her “it is what it is” I only wish I could be as brave as her and live by that sentiment but I’m not so the pain will linger.
One thing that will never change is me saying good morning and good night to her for as long as I live.
Thinking about her brings real pain but also makes me realise how lucky I was to shared the majority of my life with her she was my strength and would almost certainly be telling me not to be so stupid and get on with my life.
The trouble is I fill as though my life has now to ended and I hate the thought of a future without my husband. We had also many plans and now those plans have died with him.
I hope this page will help to know I’m not alone in the way I’m feeling even though I am alone if that makes sense
Surely there is no hurry to move. It has to be right. I had to get valuations of our home for probate. It’s been 20 weeks, so confused as to the way forward, my large 4 bed house for just me, how am I meant to manage but can’t bare the thought of leaving my home built with my husband of 50 years and leaving everything behind
I won’t be moving till later on in the year. I should have said I’ve made up my mind to move.
I always wanted to move back to my hometown in Wales, but the wife didn’t want to, so we stayed here in Northants.
To be honest, there’s nothing much to keep me here. My wife’s ashes are being interned in the church where we married in 67 and most of my friends are there.
I will be a bit further away from my son’s family, but closer to my daughters.
Hi John, i lost my wife to cancer on the 18.3.25, she also had cancer. She had it for 5 month so i guess it took her quickly but those 5 month lasted a life time. It was absolute torture . She was 53 yrs old. I think im going mad with grief, i too find it so hard
