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Continuing bonds


Mrs. Plummer

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Fellow Bereaved,

In my search for ways to help myself, I've read a few theories of grief, and some of them have felt extremely threatening to me. I want to share in case it's handy to somebody else.

I've felt a groundedness this week though about proceeding through my grief with the model of "continuing bonds" :) I think my understanding is becoming more concrete. I can fully understand now why other models based in "letting go", detachment, withdrawal of emotional energy from the deceased (a great big neon NO flashed through my mind at that one) etc. were distressing and even offensive to me. I had feelings of inadequacy and fear of being seen to reject what is thought to be helpful - and there are times in grief where we don't know our ass from our elbow, we look for answers, and for me that means sometimes taking things on too readily. I thought my greater levels of upset might mean that I'm "not ready" for some of the steps proposed in these models, but as it turns out, they're just not right for me and that's okay - they're theories, not holy writ ;) I can't and won't do anything that asks me to let go of my sweetheart - it is completely counter-intuitive.

Continuing bonds offers me the possibility of going into the future (that sounds so much nicer than "moving on") AND still having a relationship with my Ken at whatever level I can too. It makes it possible to want to heal, because I know I don't have to leave him behind and "move on" - past and future can have some sort of continuity. I'm sure I'm not the only grieving person to feel massive relief at understanding that you don't HAVE to "let go" and if you don't, it doesn't mean you're "choosing" to remain mired in grief...

I do think that for people whose relationships with their deceased ones were complicated and abusive, continuing bonds might not be the best for them, but for me, having loved my Ken totally for more than half my life, it's the best thing I've found to proceed with.

I don't want to throw babies out with bathwater - some parts of Worden's 4-stage theory have merit. But it still implies that grief must necessarily have an endpoint at which it is successfully "completed", and I don't believe that, or at any rate, not for myself.

If anybody would like to read a terrific article about continuing bonds as a model for healing in grief, this one is great: http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/continuing-bonds-shifting-the-grief-paradigm/

I have just ebayed the book "Transcending Loss" by Ashley Davis Bush on the recommendation of others, and the blurb makes me feel like we might finally be cooking with gas:

"Death doesn’t end a relationship, it simply forges a new type of relationship—one based not on physical presence but on memory, spirit, and love. There are many wonderful books available that address acute grief and how to cope with it. But they often focus on crisis management and imply that there is an "end" to mourning, and fail to acknowledge grief’s ongoing impact and how it changes through the years"

Except for "Continuing Bonds," so much of what I read talks about "resolution" and "closure" etc. and I'm frankly a bit sick of seeing those terms - they don't at all resonate with me and it's nice to know this doesn't make me defective :) And those terrible twins, "Let Go" and "Move On" can go and do...rude things to themselves ;) On that note, don't you just love the pic below, which is now my Facebook cover page:

Three (hundred) cheers for Klass, Silverman and Nickman (pioneers of the continuing bonds model) - it's only just properly sunk in for me that their work isn't simply a book by my bedside; it is a theory that has very great application to my own journey.

Take care all,

Louise xo

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Let go and move on makes no sense to me.

I just turned 23. Some of my friends tell me to forget him, that I have my whole life, I am young and beautiful, I can get any other person in life. An out of question thing for me!!

When you fall in love with someone, it doesn't matter if it lasts for a moment or for a lifetime. Even if it doesn't last for a lifetime, you live your whole lifetime in that moment. For me, it lasted from my childhood to my adulthood, that's 14 years. That was the most precious time of my life. My sweetheart taught me life. He taught me how to be ME. He showed me the beauty of love And friendship. We had a rare relationship, sometimes so intense, other times so tranquil. For me, it can never happen again with anyone. 

I can't explain this to my friends. They would never understand it. They have never loved truly, let alone losing him. Every one around me are in casual relationship which lasts to 1-3 years. Then, they breakup and start a new relationship. And they totally move on. How can they ever understand my situation? 

I firmly believe that our love still continues. Because we are connected to the souls of our loved ones and not merely to their bodies. I remember thousands of times, when my sweetheart was miles away from me, with no communication no phones, still we could feel each other and what was going on with each other. And then when we met, we discussed it, and it came out to be 100% true. Thousands of time I remember when he was far away from me, and we had not talked for days, and I just whispered to myself 'i miss you ' and he immediately felt something in his heart and called me.

We could feel each other from miles apart. I believe it still continues that way.

Love is a bond between souls. And it continues forever. There is no moving on and letting go. Only it's form has changed. From a physical plus spiritual relationship, now it has turned into a spiritual relationship. And it takes a brave heart to embrace this.

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Louise---I admire your thought provoking post on grieving. I feel it will be more than helpful to those of us here.

I have been coping in my own way, doing what I feel is right for me. I have been researching many different articles and books. For me, there is no set model to use. But I do respect the continuing bond model. We are all unique, therefore our grieving is unique. I have had losses in my life, father at a young age and grandparents and uncles. Because I was young with those losses, I'm sure I grieved but growing up, evolving, I don't remember what I felt back then and how I coped. Life just kept propelling me forward as it is meant to do when you are young.

This loss of my husband though is a whole new experience. I lived with and loved him with my whole being. My life and his became one. I still don't know how to do the rest of this life without him. I am way older now, we were comfortable and set in our way of life, our routines. I hate the words *letting go* and *moving on*. To me, those words mean taking out the trash and forgetting about it. The continuing bonds model makes more sense. My husband is no longer physically here but is still here in a spiritual form. I have to believe he is still here, around me and seeing and hearing me. I have sensed his presence and take comfort from it. Thoughts can be so hard to put into words, but I will somehow struggle through the days with the trust and belief that my husband is still by my side. It is a different relationship, a long distance separation where I can no longer see or hear him but the love keeps us bonded. It has been and always will be the hardest ordeal of my life to cope with. I will be on this coping journey the rest of my life.

Thank you, Louise.

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Sadaf---I like your last paragraph. It speaks for all of us. Thank you for sharing in the expressive way you have with words.

While we are feeling the pain and loneliness, ( which is all consuming) it is so hard to wrap our minds around what we feel and know to be true. Love binds the souls. Just have to keep repeating the good stuff until our minds are ready to embrace it.

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13 hours ago, Sadaf Nazim said:

We could feel each other from miles apart. I believe it still continues that way.

Love is a bond between souls. And it continues forever. There is no moving on and letting go. Only it's form has changed. From a physical plus spiritual relationship, now it has turned into a spiritual relationship. And it takes a brave heart to embrace this.

Thankyou, Sadaf, that is beautiful. It makes me think of what happened when I attended my first session of grief counselling. My grief counsellor and I together, thrashed out what is the aim of healing for me: "Louise who no longer has physical Ken, can be okay in the world with spiritual Ken." Although I have as yet no idea what being okay in the world without physical Ken truly means, that feels doable since it's predicated on still having Ken in some way. "Healing" would be neither possible nor desirable for me any other way. That man was/is my everything.

I have to say too, Sadaf, that I'm sorry people are trying to predict your future for you. I am by no means a young widow, but at 50, I am considered a "younger" widow, and I really bristle when I tell people that I have no intention of repartnering, and they start saying "Oh, you never know" etc. I can only imagine what that must be like for somebody half my age. Why can't they get how deep and one-time this love is?

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Louise,

I so agree with what you've written here, it is what I know to be true for myself as well.  For some maybe they're better off "letting go" and "moving on" but for those of us here I don't think we're looking for that, we want a continuing relationship with our loved one.  We understand there've been changes in our world, much to our chagrin, and little by little we accept and work with those changes.  It's a work in progress.  For me, I will always love and look forward to the day I can be with my George again and believe with all my heart that is what will be.

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6 hours ago, KMB said:

This loss of my husband though is a whole new experience. I lived with and loved him with my whole being. My life and his became one. I still don't know how to do the rest of this life without him. I am way older now, we were comfortable and set in our way of life, our routines. I hate the words *letting go* and *moving on*. To me, those words mean taking out the trash and forgetting about it. The continuing bonds model makes more sense. My husband is no longer physically here but is still here in a spiritual form. I have to believe he is still here, around me and seeing and hearing me. I have sensed his presence and take comfort from it. Thoughts can be so hard to put into words, but I will somehow struggle through the days with the trust and belief that my husband is still by my side. It is a different relationship, a long distance separation where I can no longer see or hear him but the love keeps us bonded. It has been and always will be the hardest ordeal of my life to cope with. I will be on this coping journey the rest of my life.

Yes, KMB, exactly. I lost my father and other people, but for me this is the absolute hardest and most heartbreaking loss of my experience. We lived with our beloved men - they become part of you, and they always will be. I've started getting very snarky with people who want to tell me to "let go", particularly where that "advice" comes from women who at the end of the day still have their husbands to go home to - they have no right to tell me how to feel. I like what you call "long distance separation" - the love is still there and that's what matters. I read something early in my grief that said the goal of the grieving is to detach from the deceased because we are pouring all this love into somebody who can no longer give it back. It's better, evidently, if we withdraw that emotional energy and direct it elsewhere. Uh, NO - I HAD 30 years of love with my Ken, and like you, I know he loves me still.

I also think it's terrific not to get married to certain theoretical perspectives - I was getting far too wound up about "stages" models that propose an endpoint to grief. They didn't make sense, and I now know they don't have to :) It's a comfort - I had bought a book called Widow to Widow by Genevieve Ginsburg, and was getting so upset by her focus on "letting go" but I now understand that she wrote it 20 years ago before the pioneering work on continuing bonds had emerged. I think that in a better frame of mind, I would have discarded the information anyhow because it wasn't right for me, but I am too broken to know who "me" is. I have for the moment a much stabler sense of what will work and continuing bonds has enabled me to understand why I had such a violent visceral response to "let go and move on" oriented stuff. We cannot have whatever we may still have of our beloved partners taken away.

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Sometimes I'm glad my focus was such that I couldn't finish books cover to cover.  It took me ten years to fully get my focus back and now I read voraciously to make up for it!  But I already am well acquainted with grief and have learned so much along the way, most of it under the tutelage of Marty Townsend, a professional Grief Counselor and her website.  It has allowed me to grieve and experience my loss and aftermath in MY way and time.

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...While I say I'm too broken to know who I am, a nice thought just occurred: My violent protest against "let go and move on" theories of grief maybe WAS me being me at a most elemental level, rejecting what I know could never work for me :) And it can't be slipped past me dressed up in other costumes either, such as patronising fluff about having a relationship "in your heart" with him. One article said that the goal of the grieving was to have a relationship with the "memories" of the deceased. I immediately realised that I was being fobbed off - I don't WANT  a relationship with Ken's "memories," I want one with HIM. I feel like I can begin to go more fully into developing that. Thank you for listening to me, lovely people - I know I use this board to rant and thrash things out a bit.

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3 minutes ago, KayC said:

Sometimes I'm glad my focus was such that I couldn't finish books cover to cover.  It took me ten years to fully get my focus back and now I read voraciously to make up for it!  But I already am well acquainted with grief and have learned so much along the way, most of it under the tutelage of Marty Townsend, a professional Grief Counselor and her website.  It has allowed me to grieve and experience my loss and aftermath in MY way and time.

I love Marty's work, Kay - it's great - I wish I'd seen it first.

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13 minutes ago, KayC said:

Louise,

I so agree with what you've written here, it is what I know to be true for myself as well.  For some maybe they're better off "letting go" and "moving on" but for those of us here I don't think we're looking for that, we want a continuing relationship with our loved one.  We understand there've been changes in our world, much to our chagrin, and little by little we accept and work with those changes.  It's a work in progress.  For me, I will always love and look forward to the day I can be with my George again and believe with all my heart that is what will be.

Your belief in seeing and being with your George again Kay is something that has sustained me many times, particularly since that hasn't changed. People keep telling me that my love for Ken will become diluted in some way, and I can quietly think, "But Kay!" :)

I don't mean to imply that people whose focus is on letting go and moving on are in any way wrong, just that these models have been held up as the only way for far too long - and I know that you know what I mean xo

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I do know what you mean.  And to those who can let go and move on, more power to them!  I have a friend who did that, she's remarried and she's very happy.  I'm glad for her.  I just know the odds of finding another George...I have better odds of being struck by lightening!  I was lucky to have him in my life at all, I savor the memories and look forward to being reunited!  

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