I have been without Simon for 5 weeks and 4 days. I have done the walking. I have done the bereavement group. I have met friends for lunch. I have returned to work. I write a Wellness Journal. But you know what I HATE every minute of everything I do. Every breath I take I see as a complete waste of time. Every night I go to bed and I ask him to come and get me. In fact every hour I ask him to come and get me. We have no children as he had testicular cancer when we were first married. My family and his live 60 miles north and 100 miles south. Death cannot come soon enough.
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@Rammie it’s so hard isn’t it. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hopefully one day we will be able to accept this nightmare. I lost my husband 9 weeks ago tomorrow and I don’t know how I’ve got through it to be honest. I have a daughter & a step daughter in the same town so in that sense I’m fortunate. It must be even more difficult without family around. Sending hugs.
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Hi rammie and jan 7 weeks for me my family live abroad .Beleve me i feel just the same .my councillor said looking after myself is so important and i said i dont want to look after myself i just want to join him .why would i want a future that i have to spend alone no more days out or holidays just lonley days and lonlier nights .i died inside the night he died this existence is torture .And i hate every day i wake up .please tell me what i have to look forward too xx
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I feel exactly the same I hate every minute of every day it’s 8 weeks and 2 days and it’s a nightmare. I’ve just dropped my family off at the airport and that was the last route I took with my husband in the car to the Christies. I cried all the way home. Life is so cruel my house is so quiet without him c
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@Rammie - I am so sorry that Simon has died. Where you are right now, in the howling horror, in the whirlwind, I too, have stood. While all our experiences of grief are uniquely our own, I recognise your words about crying out for your partner in the night. Rather than begging Tom to come to get me, I begged him to come home. I lay in the darkness, and poured out my pain, my grief, my despair in the one way I knew - which was to ask him to come home, to come back. I said that it would be amazing if we could be together. After such a long time apart when he was in hospital ( 5 months) and then the brutal fracture between us, the two of us split apart like an axe through wood, when he died. The pain was horrendous.
I had a mass of distractions - the sheer awfulness of getting probate, his struggling business, a major property redevelopment, a place in France that needed attention, a job - there was not a moment in each day that I wasn’t juggling one nightmare or another. And so to bed, and the sorrow, bottled up like yours during the day, came out. I was lost in the ocean that is grief - dragged by its currents and riptides, with no control and no way to stop it.
I live alone - siblings a few hours away, so each day was the same, pretty much. Up, eat, work on administration, cry with frustration at the banks, the building societies, investment funds, all of it in their sheer incompetence to get anything done to help me get the information I had to have for probate, telling people “I’m ok”, then bed early and tears again.
It was horrendous. But. Inch by inch, minute by minute, things got better.
You are posting from a place of total pain and devastation and my heart goes out to you. I know that place. What I hope to share is some hope because, 16 months on, I am on my feet, I am ok.
My friend, it may not feel like it now but you have it within you to survive this time and to find, as I did today, the way back, to the moments when you can turn your face to the sun again.
Keep close to us on here, we all know and understand. We are all here for each other and we have got you x
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They say be kind to yourself. Take care. What does that actually mean?! I still have to work. I still have to get up and act nicely for other people. If I was thinking of me I would be allowed to die and go to him. And be helped so it doesn’t go wrong.
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I wish I could find the courage to end this nightmare.
I’m 52 and since losing my partner have no desire to live.
I wish someone could tell me how to live with the loneliness I feel…I’m scared all the time…I hate the way I feel now,.
I can’t see any hope.
All I do is remember about how I felt bee we fire Steve passed….please, is there anyone who can help me??
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Thank you for those words. But even if I survive this. By sheer determination, if I can be bothered. Who am I doing it for? I have maybe another 20 years of doing the same old rubbish. My job is awful. And I only used to do it so I could be home with Simon. Now I get home and sit staring out of the window. Till I can go to bed. I haven’t spoken to anyone today. I have walked 5 mile just to be able to lock the door and leave the house.
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Can i ask how did it get better for you ?
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That is how I feel. Why aren’t I allowed to end it and be with him. Because how I feel now feels like a terminal illness. I have never know pain like it. It’s indescribable 
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@Rammie me too.
Like you I’m so lonely and scared of my life now.
I don’t know how to function anymore
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Hello there, @Hope5, sending you loads of love from here. It got better in the sense that that howling pain subsided. I learned, through hand to hand emotional combat in many ways, to sort things out for myself.
I had relied on Tom for everything - and suddenly, everything was on me. I had no choice but to tackle it head on. And in the struggle, in the maelstrom, I got stronger and stronger. Grief as an emotional gym, if you will. As I got stronger, I was able to cope better. I began to sleep for hours at a time. I was no longer calling for Tom in the night, but rather, chatting to him as I went about my day. The business went into administration but the jobs were all saved. The property development not only finished, but finished well and will be sold very soon. I have found a new place to live and it is quirky and beautiful. I can live between there and the mountains.
I returned to our home in France and found the community there swept me up and took care of me while I learned how the whole apartment, French taxes, EDF and Orange sign-ups, worked. I began to see myself not as broken, but as better, much better than I was before, in so many ways. And I know Tom would be proud of me - that matters the most of all.
Now, from the perspective of 16 months in, I see that grief is part of healing. Grief moulds us into the people we need to be get through it, through to the other side. At the time, in those early, dark days of bereavement, I did not think I could survive it. Now, I know that I can survive and move beyond, bringing Tom with as I go, for I am in no doubt whatsoever that his love for me continues as does mine for him. We remain connected by a force stronger than anything else, and that force is Love.
If you have any other questions, just shout. We stand together on here, as one family, looking out for each other x
I had thought of retiring, but taking a big chance on a couple of overseas work trips made me see that I wasn’t ready and that, through the experience of Tom’s death and aftermath, I had an empathy that offered something truly valuable to others.
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@Vancouver @AlysonandSteve @Rammie @Hope5 , i too have felt all you have said. The thought of possibly 20 years with the love and unconditional suppirt of my Pete crushes me. Then i think my family still need me, Pete was always there to help the children and grandchildren alongside me so i have to carry on get each day, put on a positive face for the world. I miss him so much but i have to rise to this challenge although i don’t want to.
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@Hope5 I’m sorry you are struggling. I really don’t know what anyone on here has to look forward to. I think the best we can hope for is to get through each day with as little despair as possible. Not much consolation I know. For those that don’t have any family I can’t imagine how difficult that is. Even with family they don’t really understand the loss of a partner or the loneliness that brings. Keep chatting on here. Sending hugs.
@Vancouver i see what you are saying. You had so many things to do. I already did everything in our lives. Simon was disabled, very independent I could work. But I did all the financial stuff. All the driving. All the shopping. Taking and supporting him through the appointments he has had over the last 24 years. The only thing I now have to do is clean the bathroom, kitchen and the hoovering. Wow. The whole reason I have ever done ANYTHING for the last 25 years is now not here. I am irrelevant and needless.
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How do we get through this….I feel I can’t bear another day…x
@AlysonandSteve you have made the first step in seeking help during this awful time by posting on here. We might not have the answers but we can chat & listen and really empathise with the pain we are all struggling with. People like @Vancouver give me hope that we won’t always be in the depths of grief and total despair. Although of course we will always be heartbroken for our loss. Sending hugs
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Who knows. To me even if I get through it. It won’t be a life, life. Mine was with Simon. Not this wasteland.
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@Freefaller I have the same outlook. I am totally heartbroken, lonely, scared for the future but I have 2 choices. Fight it and try to make some sort of life or let it crush me and be in this bleak dark nightmare forever. I too have decided to try my best to get through this. That is not to say I’m strong or I’m coping, it’s just that I’m trying really hard. I know that’s what my darling husband want me to do but it is incredibly hard.
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To you all, I’m sorry you find things so difficult that you feel you no longer want to be around.
I’m 4months in and this week has been hard but I’m still better than the beginning.
Grief is hard, losing lived ones is hard. Life has changed and never to go back to how it was. Of course it’s going to be hard.
Give it time, time does help. Time will make you feel a bit lighter and able to slowly give you the tools to help yourself out of this hell hole that you are in. You will be able to take steps forward. There will be some steps back too but mostly steps forward. Small little steps. @Vancouver gives me hope for a better future.
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