brave, not brace
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Keeping it too a small amount at a time is a good idea, our local charity shop will only take one bag each time.
Thanks again Peaches x
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Thanks @PeachesDixon
I will take your advice on boardâ
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Thank you all for reading my thread and your responses show me my feelings having cleared some of my husbands clothes is very normal.
I still feel I am purposely abandoning him.
I understand every word you have all said how sad we are all in this grief storm albeit at varying stages.
I think I need a little for my mind to have a reset to come to terms with all these feelings coming to the fore again 
5 months is not a long time yet seems a lifetime. 
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Hi Claudie. At the end of the day we all have to find are own path. Take the time we need and feel comfortable with are decisions. I hope you have a peaceful evening and sleep well
Wishing you all the best
Tom 
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Iâm six months in after my partnerâs death. I still have all his clothes but Iâve begun sorting out his paperwork and itâs been terrible. Putting his stuff through the shredder is really upsetting me and I can only do it in short bursts. I might have to leave the house as the estateâs in probate and I donât want to leave his paperwork for strangers to sort through. Iâm going to keep his medical and training certificates though. I just canât part with them. Itâs so hard, I long for peace.
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Claudie, 5 months is not long at all. At that time, I counted the time by weeks and days. I marked the numbers on my calendar and would count it constantly. It feels like I last saw my husband yesterday or 100 years ago. It is hard to take as the bigger the number, the further away they seem to be.
But, soon it will be six months; half of a year, and you must then pat yourself on the back for making it all on your own for half of a year. It does give you confidence that you can continue to make it on your own, even if it is 6 months at a time. Some of the uncertainty and fear can be released.
Our future disappeared and we are lost in a new world. But, we do adapt gradually.
I jumped from darkened rooms and a hermit life to riding in a Mardi Gras parade at 17 months. I went to St. Peterâs in Rome on the anniversary of my husbandâs death. I was terrified of both things, but I did it. Point being, you have to push yourself forward. With each step, you get closer to âokay, I donât want to, but I can, do thisâ.
Darling Lady, at 5 months I was proud to pay the bills, take the garbage out on time, keep the pets fed twice a day, and have clean clothes. Some days I got my mail out of the box or not.
You are doing fine. You are normal. You are a widow. No more explanation is needed.
Much love and promises,
Peaches
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PeachesDixon
I too count the days, the weeks, the months feeling my husband is getting further away from me.
Everyone expects me to be doing fine, to have a constant smile on my face which I find I do though I do not feel it.
They do not realise the immense hurt in going through paperwork, personal information, personal possessions it is heartbreaking.
I will never stop loving my husband, will never stop missing him however I do understand time moves on and I too have to move on.
I do not know what I was expecting when he passed, we knew he had cancer which became too much for his body to withstand, I had told myself to be prepared for his last breath yet I was not prepared.
I still see him struggling and this image is so hard to dispel.
He is giving me strength to live my life, now solo, with him in my heart.
Thank you for your kind words - 
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Claudie, those last images are haunting and I just canât let myself think of them. When the image of my husband on the floor creep into my head, I switch to images of him healthy and happy (a favorite photo helps). After all, there are thousands of good memories and good images to recall and very few horrid ones.
I thought I was prepared as well since we got the terminal diagnosis 3 years before my husbandâs death. Not so. It was, and is, still Earth shattering. Until we go through it, we can not comprehend the horror.
Everyone hopes we are âover itâ because they donât want us to suffer, but it is never âoverâ. Only those who have walked this walk understand. Functioning does not mean we are âoverâ it, we are just surviving it.
Much love,
Peaches
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Itâs been over a month since my husband passed and some friends so supportive during that time have now faded away. Those that do keep in touch keep telling it will get better, that I should get on with my life blah, blah. It isnât getting better, itâs worse. The guilt of not realising how ill he was, because he always said he was fine and heâd just gotten the all clear of cancer, but his persistent cough worried me and when I urged him to see a Doctor, he told me to stop nagging him, he was fed up with Doctors and hospitals. I should have insisted. I should have done more to help him, instead I got annoyed. How wicked is that? Like Claudia going through his clothes and personal possessions and endless paperwork just compounds my guilt. Itâs killing me and I canât stop crying. I miss him so much. The house it empty and I feel completely lost and alone. I do try to pull myself together and I read the reassuring post, but still the tears stream and the guilt envelopes me. I should have done more.
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Iâm so sorry youâre feeling like that. Have you any family close by that could help. Sometimes you have to reach out to people as they feel they donât want to keep bothering you. I know I have reached out recently, Iâm 3 months in to this awful situation, having lost my partner very suddenly to a cardiac arrest. Iâm in turmoil at times, canât work at the moment, Iâm hoping to go back soon, I need to try to get out the house more. Have you spoken to your GP at all. My GP is very good. My thoughts are with you, keep trying to eat and rest when you can. Hugs to you
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Hi TessieH, Iâm sorry you are feeling so upset at the moment. I really think itâs important to deal with issues of guilt etc for however unfounded as they tend to cause a lot of pain. Talking with a therapist about these feelings will help. Over the two years of my wifeâs cancer journey we met so many people who things seemed to be going well month only to hear that the next they were dying. It brings me to tears remembering how many people we met who have died, so many, so young. Your husband was tired of doctors, who can blame him, you got annoyed because he didnât want to go, who can blame you. You loved him and thatâs all that matters. He loved you and the last thing he would want is to see you beating yourself up. Just remember how much you were both in love nothing else matters.
Wishing you all the best
Tom
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Today I have arrived at the 6 month period since my husband passed away due to dreadful cancer that took his life.
Does this time without him get any easier?
Some days are not as tearful as others.
Today is a tearful day when I can still clearly see him lying in bed here at home knowing his life is about to end. Absolutely heartbreaking. I remember it all.
I am thinking of him today as I do every day and every night. If only I could hold him one more time if only.
Contact from others has diminished as I fully understand their lives have returned to normal. Am I supposed to be âbetterâ now as someone said to me I should be feeling better. Excuse me.
Time moves on I am still adapting to my life alone hoping and praying my husband is here guiding me supporting me through all this with all the love we shared and still have.
We all have to think there is a purpose to life I just I could feel what that was right now.
6 months
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I am sorry youâre having such a difficult time . I think we can all feel guilty about something. Itâs 7 months since my husband died suddenly following a heart attack. My husband wasnât a great one for going to the doctors in fact he wouldnât go . My husband was really ill the night before he died , he was adamant the I didnât ring 111 are call for an ambulance. He hadnât been ill before was fit and healthy . The paramedics told me if I had have rung for an ambulance the outcome would have been the same which gave me some comfort. There are many emotions we experience in grief. Feeling guilty is just one of them . Look after yourself
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Tessie, you should not even think about feeling better at this time, it is only a month. Darling, you are still in shock and have a long way to go before things are better. It will get better, just not yet.
Everything you are feeling is completely normal under the circumstances and you can expect to be this way for while. I started coming around to being able to function after 4 months although it was a battle every day. At 6 months, it was better, now at 19 months I am almost back. It takes a long time.
Force yourself to eat, feed whatever depends on you for food and pay the bills. Everything else can wait. Everything.
It is okay that you couldnât force your husband to return to the doctor. It is okay to have gotten annoyed at his refusal. It is normal. It is understandable that he wanted nothing more to do with hospitals and doctors, mine was the same.
You are not responsible for your husbandâs death. It was his decision to refuse medical treatment and we all get to make that decision for ourselves.
We have all suffered the âshoulda, woulda, couldaâ thinking that we had a magic wand that would have fixed our husbands, but there is no such wand and blaming ourselves is just punishing ourselves for not being miracle workers.
You are guilty of nothing. You are not wicked. My husband had a terminal condition and I, too, was often annoyed - even the day he died I was annoyed. My BFF was actually mad at her husband during his last days. It is just an emotion when we donât know how to feel coming out sideways. Fear, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, sadness all boiling around inside comes out in strange ways.
For the moment, leave the clothes and personal items alone. Set a timer and do 30 minutes of paperwork at a time. We do not have to do it all at once, there is plenty of time to do it all.
Right now, you should be crying and feeling lost. Everything is overwhelming. We have taken on the responsibilities that once took 2 people to handle, plus we have been thrown into depression and a dense fog of despair on top of it all.
I canât remember the first 4 months other than I was lost and confused. They say âit will get better in timeâ and it is true. It will. I didnât believe it would ever get better, but it has.
As for friends, yes, they seem to disappear. They do not know what to do or say. It is also normal. One thing I learned is that unless they have walked in these widowâs shoes, they have no clue about what we are going through.
Our lives changed forever, theirs continued. Itâs okay, that is how life works.
Be kind to yourself. You did nothing wrong. Donât add guilt that isnât yours on top of your grief. Cry your eyes out, scream into pillows, be angry, but not at yourself.
Eat, pay bills and rest. Everything will fall into place. Just not yet.
I made it, you will too. I promise.
Peaches
Take it all hour-by-hour. We are all going to miss our husbands for the rest of our lives, but we wonât always cry with the memories.
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Oh Sherbet! My husband began compalining of abdominal pain/ diarrhea the night before he died. We thought it was a gastrointestinal issue. He was even driving 30 mins before he died the next day. Then fainted and died and could not be resuscitated when the ambulance came. It was a heart attack! how could we have known? I keep wondering what could I have done differently but none of those thoughts or feelings of guilt will give me back one minute of my husbandâs life back.
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My husband had a sore left arm he thought heâd pulled a muscle due to using that arm for walking our young dog with a harness. He also thought he had indigestion. The morning after he had been ill . He wouldnât listen to me about going to the doctors instead he drove to the local chemist. We had to google it to find it as we were on holiday in Scotland. The chemist gave him muscle rub and indigestion medicine. He died that night , from a heart attack.
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Hi Sherbet, thatâs the problem with men, they donât listen. Many years ago I had arrhythmia from low blood pressure and I didnât listen to my wife about going to the hospital.I decided to see if it was a heart problem by running up four flights of stairs. I ended up in hospital. It turned out to be only low blood pressure but I could have killed myself if it was a heart problem.
Wishing you all the best
Tom
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Oh Tom you have made me laugh 
my husband never listened to me . And to hear you say just made me smile. When the pandemics were attending my husband. One of them kept coming to me asking me what medication he was on . He wasnât on any, they must have asked me at least 3 times . They thought because I was in shock I was misunderstanding them . When the pandemic came to tell me they tried everything and couldnât save him . She said to me he was a classic case of a man who wouldnât go to the doctors.
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But when itâs the other way around we donât listen either just rush the wife off to the hospital. 
All the best
Tom
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