All in my head, but still uncomfortable

[4Hdad]

Hi all,

I've been wanting to talk about this, but I'm not comfortable talking about this stuff with anyone close to me. I've been dreaming of my late wife lately, and they are never pleasant dreams. Not nightmares, but still unpleasant.

This started off with a dream of her sitting in a chair in our bedroom. In the dream I woke up and she was there, but she was slumped back and unmoving. In the dream, I realized it was only her corpse sitting in the chair right beside my bed. I got up to check on her and she was exactly as I'd found her that morning, only in a different position. She was completely unresponsive.

In other dreams, she is alive, but doesn't seem to be interested in me at all. I can't recall what it is we were doing, but what I do remember is the feeling of being ignored or unimportant in the context of the dream. It's the nature of dreams to be fleeting, as in we start to forget them as soon as we are awake, and without some kind of effort to recall them, the memory of them soon dissolves. I also understand that it is the nature of dreams to be a place where we work through and process issues in our lives, and I can see how this translates into my own feelings of abandonment. Not only did she pass away and leave me holding a bag full of surprises whose contents I'm still unpacking, but we'd also drifted apart somewhat these last few years. When she got the horses, she was spending every night with them. By the time she got home, she had schoolwork to do as she was close to attaining her degree from an online college. Weekends were spent with the horses. This left very little time for just the two of us - I went to bed alone just about every night for the past few years.

I mentioned that I came to find quite a few surprises after her passing. She was behind on her truck payment. She was two months behind on our mortgage payment and getting pre-foreclosure notices. She had opened lines of credit that I knew nothing about. I had a lot of work to do just to figure out how I was going to make ends meet, and I ended up hitting up my retirement to pay off a bunch of debt just so I can make all of my bills and keep the horses (my daughter truly needs them, and I'm growing closer to them every day as well - they are amazingly therapeutic). While things might seem to be working, I guess I am holding on to some resentments.

I made it a point to not be angry or upset with my wife for leaving me in the dark for so much of this stuff - I mean, how can we be angry with the one we miss so much? I couldn't make sense of that, because it didn't seem right to feel this way. But, I guess I'm going to have to face the fact that a lot of this is truly frustrating, just so that I can move on from it. Denying that it hurts being left so in the dark about what was going on in our lives does not seem to be working for me. I can understand and rationalize where she was coming from, and I can wonder futilely if stress from all of this subterfuge may have been part of the reason for her passing so suddenly (she passed from a burst cerebral berry aneurysm; I have no idea if stress can be a trigger for that). At this point, all I want to do is remember back to when we were happier, especially in my dreams. In my waking hours, that's what I do - I remember her happy. I recall her voice in my mind to help me with the kids, on what I think she would have to say on a variety of subjects.

I guess admitting it is the first step towards fixing it.

[KMB]

4Hdad, You have my empathy on everything you are dealing with. You are right. Admitting to issues is the first step in solving them. You are on the right track. Our minds are so confused, lost, and on top of it, so many more issues pop up to be dealt with. I'm sorry that your wife kept you in the dark with some things. It sounds like she had a lot on her mind, a full plate, and she maybe didn't know which direction to go.I'm sorry she couldn't find the confidence and trust she needed to share her thoughts,issues, with you. Feeling some resentment is only natural and in time, your love for your wife will override that feeling.

Finances, debts, are terribly hard to deal with during this time. It isn't right for you to have to dig into your retirement fund, but it shows your strength of character in wanting to do right by your wife and hers and your name. I don't know if the laws are the same in every state, but in my state, debts in spouses only name are not the remaining spouse's debt to pay. The state writes it off as a loss.

I wouldn't pay attention to the unpleasant dreams. I consider them a byproduct symptom of our minds trying to process what we are coping with.   Peace and comfort to you.

[4Hdad]

Thank you for your words, KMB. I think it is as you say, my mind trying to process what I avoid in waking life.

[KayC]

4Hdad,

It's not uncommon to find "surprises" when they die...some people keep secrets for whatever reason...perhaps they think they'll figure a way out of it, perhaps they're afraid of upsetting us, maybe they're ashamed they didn't handle things as well as they could have.  I learned things after my husband's death, was still learning things a year later.  I went through an anger period.  It took a while to process it.  I finally came to the place where I took the whole of him, not the part, and realized that even though he wasn't perfect, he was perfect for me.  I didn't saint him, I looked at everything realistically, because that's who I am, but I also had to forgive his shortcomings.  Like you, I wish he'd come to me and told me everything candidly, but he was beginning to, trying to, in his own way, but his life was cut short unexpectedly, he wasn't finished dealing with everything.

Your wife may not have been good at finances (neither was George), and maybe needed help with priorities, but you have no doubt she loves you and if she could tell you how she's feeling right now, she probably wishes she'd spent more time with you, she just always thought she'd have tomorrow.  

It does take a while to process this.  Sometimes we can be left with a little murkiness, not all perfect, but it doesn't tarnish the love we shared and what we had together, it just means we're all human and doing the best we can.