returning after a few years away

Losing a partner
1

Hello everyone, some of you may remember me. My beloved husband of 47 years died in August 2014, eleven years ago next month. I left because I honestly could not find anything else to contribute after six years of being on the forums as it just didn’t feel right in telling newly bereaved people that they would never get over losing the love of their life.

As I said, it will be eleven year next month since my husband died and to be truthful, I have still not got over it but I have learned to live with it and I now live a happy and comfortable life but he is always missed, and to this day I still shed a tear when I hear an old song from our youth or see a tv series that we used to watch together, in fact, I can’t watch them at all. I have been keeping tabs on all the new postings over the years and it breaks my heart to read about what you are going through.

I now find that eleven years later I have also lost and still losing friends of ours we used to meet with and had known since the 1960’s so the world I once knew has gone. There is no-one to talk to about our lives together who can remember our teenage years of the late 50’s and 60’s and beyond so it has become a lonely existence. I joined friendship groups to meet people, gardening clubs etc. but found that the people who attended took friends with them so they were in their own little group.

I have two wonderful sons and daughters in law and grandchildren who are now grown up and only see a few times a year and the grandchildren now have their own lives so don’t want to be bothered with an old lady. I am now 83 years old, luckily as fit as I can be for my age so count myself lucky for the comfortable life I now have.

Sorry for the long winded post but I just wanted to have a chat.

10 Likes
2

Good morning . Even though it’s been a long time, so sorry for your loss.

Mine is more recent at coming up for 19 weeks, yet I am already experiencing what you talk about.

I am moving back to where I grew up in South Wales, as soon as I get my house sold, so hopefully can reconnect with many old friends

Loneliness is a killer though, especially in our house where Jackie passed, just 8 feet from where I am sat.

You take care and chat here whenever you want. :heart:

And you take care

2 Likes
3

Thank you johnr for your kind reply. I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I do think you are making the right choice of going back to where you have friends but I know they say we newly bereaved should not make any major decisions for a while.

After my husband died I even thought about moving home but all our friends and family were here so I stayed but gradually, over the past eleven years every single one of our friends moved to either live near their own family, go into care homes or have passed away which left me with no friends near at all. Even neighbours who had lived in our street since we all moved in when our homes were built in the late 60’s also moved away to live near their families or sadly died.

Losing a partner is so life changing that you forget the person you used to be, your confidence goes, you keep to yourself as you have not the confidence to really join in with a conversation as you once had. Decision making, well forget about that, you cannot even decide what to have for breakfast never mind making a decision about changing your electric company to a different one so I made lists, I had lists as long as my arm and I ensured every single day I would finally do something on the list and cross it off. Now, nearly 11 years later, I am absolutely self sufficient, there is nothing I cannot do, I taught myself how to use computers, and now can do anything on them. I have rewired lamps, decorated, laid carpets, even plumbed in a new tap thanks toYou tube.

It all takes time but as sad and heart wrenching as it is to lose the love of your life, your soulmate, time is a great healer, you never forget, you still shed tears, you wish they were with you but you carry on. I still have my memories and can remember the clothes we wore when we met, what music was playing, what he said to me etc. etc. it is engrained in my mind.

What I did do after my husband died was start to write in a ledger, I wrote everything down, day in and day out, what I was feeling and how much I missed him and finally the book was filled as there was nothing else left to say, it took me three years and I looked and read the book the other day and there are so many blue blobs on the pages where the tears fell when I was writing and smudged the ink, it is now wrapped in blue tissue paper, tied with a blue ribbon for our sons and grandchildren to read when I am gone. I still have my husband’s ashes in the house and they will be scattered with mine when it is my turn to leave this earth. Together forever.

4 Likes
4

Such lovely words.
I know newly bereaved shouldn’t make major decisions for a while, but at my age, time is not on my side.

I have wanted to move back to Wales for a long time, but Jackie didn’t want to, so I respected her decision. Now she’s gone, there is nothing to really keep me here. While I have some friends here, all my main ones are back home. Jackie’s ashes are also interred there, in the church where we got married, so I need to be close.

You take care :heart:

1 Like
5

I totally understand what you are saying, and if I knew then what I know now, that all my friends and neighbours that had grown with myself and my late husband over the many years would move away or sadly die before their time over the last eleven years, then perhaps I would have made the same decision as yourself shortly after my husband died and moved away to the place where we spent one of our holidays every year for all of our married life, but I didn’t and I do regret it.

I wish you all the very best for the future and I know that wherever you are your wonderful memories will always be with you.

3 Likes
6

Never mind, Yorkshire is a lovely place. We were thinking of moving there when I left the RAF in 93, but we never did.

We both have memories that will last us until it’s our time.

1 Like
7

Dear Onestepatatime
Thank you for such an inspiring post. You really have filled me with hope. I have asked widowed friends and relatives about how they dealt with their bereavement and they all say that they miss their partner terribly but they learnt to live with it. You have not only confirmed this, but you have indicated how it can be achieved.
Like Johnr I have recently joined this lonely path having lost my wife suddenly to a heart attack 7 months ago, we had been married 48 years.
I have gradually found some methods of coping and hopefully I can add to them. On my down days, and there are still plenty of those, I try to think how lucky I was to have spent 48 years with my wonderful girl, some people never find their soulmate, I have indeed been very fortunate. I try not to think too far ahead at the moment, I’m just feeling my way through each day and seeing how it goes.
You have confirmed that I’m on the right path and things will gradually become more stable.
Thank you once again. Please keep posting on this wonderful website.

3 Likes
8

Hi Rjay,

I am so terribly sorry to read about the death of your soulmate so suddenly. I do think it is much harder to come to terms with when a sudden death occurs. My husband was ill for eight years before he died and I was his 24/7 carer so when he died it was in a way expected but nevertheless it came as a shock as he usually had rallied round after being in hospital and came home again.

I have a friend who rang me to tell me that her husband had died suddenly and she never got the chance to say goodbye and after two years she cannot come to terms with it as she never got to see him alive again after he was rushed into hospital with a heart attack and not being able to say goodbye to him haunts her. At least I had eight years with my husband before he died, day in and day out as we had both retired and honestly that makes such a difference because when your beloved partner has been ill for a while we start to come to terms with what may happen before it does and I do think it prepares us for the worst when it comes.

Yes, like you have been told, it is a long journey that we are on and it is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Getting up each morning and facing the day and to be honest, I don’t recommend keeping overly busy to ‘take your mind off things’ because I did that and for the 12 months after my husband died I threw myself into decorating the house, washing curtains, cleaning carpets just so I could go to bed and fall asleep without having to think about things but when everything was finished, I fell apart the following year as I hadn’t given myself the chance to grieve.

Cry, scream, throw things because you are entitled to. I spent the following two years on my knees, screaming into a cushion because I didn’t know which way to turn but there later came a time when I woke up one morning and our massive long haired, big boned German Shepherd dog was sitting looking at me with a pair of my knickers in his mouth and I burst out laughing. That, I think was the turning point.

You will never forget your wife and you would never want to but you can live a happy life, different to what it was, but you can be happy in your own way, doing the things you like and it will take time but there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.

Take care.

4 Likes
9

Hi, yes Yorkshire, in some parts is a lovely place to live.

We moved to our home when we married in the late 60’s as my husband used to live near where our new home would be and even now, I can stand on my front doorstep and see the house he was born in and the school he went to so that is why I have stayed where I am as I am enveloped in memories from the day we met in 1964.

Take care. xx

1 Like