Dear all,
Its been nearly 3weeks since telling a close neighbour who is also a widower - his wife dying 2yrs before my Anne - that its best if we just remain good neighbours and so dissolve what was for about 18months a kind of friendship. We spoke most days on the phone and visited each other at least three times a week. BUT we were simply chalk & cheese! I tried my very best through out all this time, biting my tongue on so many occasions, but in the end he was eventually driving me around the bend despite being a basically kind man. I’m very spiritual. He is very materialistic. So any conversations I attempted to raise about my spiritual beliefs and experiences were treated with embarrassment by him. He would continuously interupt any subject I raised, then snatched the conversation back to himself, and never stopped talking. And all too often he just had to contradict any points of view I had like he knew better about everything. There’s more to this but this isn’t a character assassination, it just paints a brief picture of why I took the decision I did. I was kind with my reasons to him saying I just could no longer relate to him as our life views and interests are miles apart. He took it remarkably well - at least on face value as I know he is a person who has a strong need to talk AT people with only one friend he sees once a month.
So now I have my son and daughter visit me, each on alternate weeks, and I now see another local widower once a week on a Wednesday to share a bottle of wine and have a chat about everything . Such a breath of fresh air in comparison to the other neighbour.
The point I’m making here is that despite now spending far more time alone during the day I feel a ten tonne weight has been lifted from my shoulders by the now defunct previous relationship. I’m now basically content with my new quieter life although the evenings still bring sadness as I sit alone in what is a soulless house missing the love of my wife Anne terribly.
Kind regards
James.