This is my 1st post and was a bit apprehensive but have read others posts and I hope it helps me because at the moment I am really struggling.
I lost my partner/best friend of 14 yrs 3 weeks ago, unexpectedly. We didn’t live together, miles away from each other, we never had a normal relationship due to other family factors but it worked for us. He died suddenly and alone, its breaking me apart, we had just spent the previous week together.
I lost my mum and dad 12 and 10 yrs ago, we knew they were going to pass and we got to say goodbye, not that it hurt any less.
I can’t cope with that I didn’t get to say goodbye and tell him how I really felt.
I am due back to work tomorrow, having not had the funeral yet, its in 2 weeks time. I am actually having anxiety about returning to work, I went back for 2 days previously and couldn’t cope and I feel no different, if not worse. I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Sorry you are having to go through this. Being a partner is unfortunately treated by others differently to being a wife, even though your love is just as strong.
If you can get more time off it would be worth trying to. My GP signed bereavement certificates for me after my partner died. I went back to work after 2 months, but had difficulty coping so then negotiated a phased return, which eased me in gradually.
My husband died without any warning so I know what you mean about never being able to say goodbye. I sometimes think I am being selfish wanting that as he didn’t suffer with it being sudden and he would have been so scared and upset about leaving us if we had had the time to say goodbye. When it happens suddenly it is hard for those left behind but at least I know he wouldn’t have known anything about it. I also told him how much I loved him every single day and hardly ever argued so I know he knew how deeply he was loved. As for work, it has taken me a long time and I feel so exhausted even now 5 months on.
Thank you for your reply. Sorry you lost your partner too. Because of the situation we were in still, being the partner has resulted in me being shut out of all decisions. Its a long story but I am so thankful for family on his side that are supporting me or I’d be a complete mess, not that I’m not anyway.
I have spoken to my GP this morning and he has signed me off which is for the best, how can I go to work and put on a happy smiley face for the patients when I’m dying inside xx
Hello Jules, so sorry to hear about your husband.
That’s exactly how I feel, selfish because I didn’t get to say goodbye but I have to tell myself he didn’t suffer. I guess we will never know as he was alone but I pray and hope it was quick as if he was feeling unwell he would of called for help.
I hope he knows he was loved, as his sister said it doesn’t always need to be said, and how much he loved me. Its not being able to ever say it or show it again that’s so hard x
Dear Lost48
September last year I lost my husband suddenly through a road traffic accident. Not getting to say goodbye causes me the greatest pain. A passer-by, a witness to the accident, stayed with him until the emergency services arrived and for that I am grateful but it still breaks my heart that I could not be there for him. I no longer work and just count the days until I am reunited. We have two little grandsons (both under 2) one born after my husband died. They bring joy into the house but as soon as they leave the house returns to the empty shell it has become since my husband died.
I am sorry that you have been shut out of things by others. Family reactions can be truly unbelievable, hurtful and insensitive at a time when everyone should rally together and give you the support that you need.
Take care.
Hello Sheila,
So sorry to hear of your loss, it is truly devastating to lose someone and not be able to say goodbye.
We didn’t live together but not getting that good morning text, that phone call to see how your day was or if I or him needed to talk, is so hard that I feel so alone and I’m missing him so much and knowing I won’t see him again.
I just need to get through the funeral next week as much as I’m dreading it, I think it will become all to real then.
Take care Sheila xx
Dear Lost48
I really am sorry that you are on this same journey. Eleven months down the road I am no further forward to getting over his loss.
Will be thinking of you next week.
Thank you, there is no time limit to grief despite what people say, One day I hope I will remember the good times but for now all I have is complete and utter sadness x
hello @Lost48 I am so sorry you are going through this. The loneliness in my opinion is the killer and your situation sounds extremely difficult.
Is there any way you can get signed off sick to enable you to have more time off? I tried to go back to work after 4 weeks and that already broke me and I had to then get signed off sick for another 6 weeks before i felt able to try and hold a conversation about the nonsense of life/work without crying profusely. I was lucky enough to have a supportive workplace and financial help though and i know that is rare… I hope you can think of a way to get more time if you need it.
I did get to say goodbye to my husband , although he went from perfectly fine to dead within 10 minutes so i didnt know it was goodbye at the time, i was with him. However I am haunted by those final minutes and trying to do CPR on him. For many months I could not imagine his alive face, only that dead one and even last night (almost ten months later) I was having repeated flash backs of that, that prevented me sleeping. I know it’s easy to say though when I was with him but I am not so sure that it was such a benefit to be there… as i still felt i was personally responsible for not saving him or being kinder to him as he was dying (i told him he was going to be fine which turned to be 100% factually incorrect).
The period you are in now feels never ending and like the surface of the world has opened up and you are swept into an alternative awful world swirling underneath it and you will never get to the surface again… nothing lasts forever though not even this period but it is pure hell, i am so sorry and i still wouldn’t know what to do if it would all happen to me again as there is no answer but all I can say is that although it feels like this will be your life forever now… it won’t … things will get imperceptibly easier somehow as you solve the problems one by one in the future but now is not the time for solving problems… now is the time for surviving. Try to get help from the doctor (i was put on Valium, i never thought it could help but it did)… then anti depressants). Try to keep eating and looking after your body as best as you can in this horrific time. I am sorry we can’t fix this for you. Take care and keep letting us know how you are doing x
I’m so sorry for your loss . My partner died suddenly and alone 7 years ago . We never lived together either as it what suited us due to family etc . We had been together 9 years but had known each other over 20 yrs . We had had a but of a row about 6 weeks before but I saw him after that and was getting on OK. I also lost my dad in May. I managed to say goodbye to my dad but not to my partner , I’m still trying to work out what is worse goodbye or no goodbye . My partner was only 54
Hello FleurDeLis, I am so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you.
Thank you for your reply. I am signed off work now for 4 weeks, at the moment just getting through each day is a struggle. The overwhelming sadness is excruciating.
I’m not completely alone here, my niece lives nearby and my sisters are both down at the moment but they will go home soon.
You are right, its the loneliness, though we didn’t live together, we were always in contact, his visits down to me meant so much, we were far from perfect but now he’s gone and I do feel so alone. He was always there for me no matter what and the future I always saw for us and been taken away so cruelly. He was a wonderful man and my life without him already is empty.
I need the funeral to say goodbye to him but I don’t want to say goodbye to him, if you know what I mean, as I can’t and don’t want to accept he’s gone.
People say remember the good memories, one day soon I hope I will but for this moment in time I just can’t because I just see him alone when he passed. Xx
Helen, so sorry for your loss as well. I understand complety where you’re coming from. We, as you know didn’t live together, we both wanted too at various times but certain family issues got in the way and these impacted on our relationship, but no matter what we were always in each others lives for 14 yrs and I had no doubts of how much he loved me and I him though I didn’t always show or say it. His family and my friends say he knew how much I loved him and I hope to god thats true. He was only 54 as well.
I lost both my parents 12 and 10 yrs ago, I was able to say goodbye to both of them and be with them when they passed, it was so hard and my world had ended, but the pain I feel from not being able to say goodbye is worse because there’s so many things I would of said and will never get the chance now x
Dear Lost48,
Similar happened to me, well it’s still happening to me as I lost my boyfriend/fiancé to be in July. Been friends with him for 17 years and we dated the last 18 months. Had to conduct our relationship via covid restrictions but it didn’t matter, something special grew. The first few months of 2021 he was complaining as he had a condition that was playing him up, he was in and out of a&e and then in and out of hospital. Was obviously by his side and he had a life changing operation and I thought bullseye, amazing news for him and then I thought recovery time for him. I knew it would upset him for me to physically see him while he was recovering so did all I could, asked to see him to which he would respond he would come to me and kept checking in on him to see if he was ok and he kept saying good and bad days but slowly improving. However he was not slowly improving he had in fact got worse and didn’t tell me. Around the time he died I was thinking of things to do and getting out and about doing things to show him what we could be doing down the road. It was the worst shock finding out he had died without having said goodbye. I do now realise it would have really upset him and caused him more pain actually saying goodbye in person so in time I will make my peace with it but it didn’t make it anymore easier.
I do feel as if I’m in No Mans Land with it all but to take some control I’m arranging to have a rose bush planted with a plaque just for me to have somewhere to go and grieve for him in peace. There are a few family complications as due to covid restrictions and Andrew getting ill, our relationship wasn’t fully public. Fortunately the saving grace for me was meeting Andrew’s best friend who was very keen to tell me that Andrew talked about me all the time and was madly in love with me. We didn’t actually get the opportunity to say the love word but I comfort myself that it was there growing in our actions towards each other.
I’m struggling to sleep, eat and I’m very vacant. I am just existing. To try and keep myself going I’m arranging a bucket list in my head of what I could do to help with healing so little by little I can move forward. I’ll never forget him or stop loving him as his love towards me was selfless. He must have been in agony at times but he was always more concerned in the trivialities of my day. I’m crying to myself and I burst into tears when in public as it’s such a shock but what’s also hurting is that time ran out before we could formalise our relationship as we wanted to get married.