Widower at 26

[RaedwolfDelaroca]

My wife died on the 15th. We've been married 6 years and together for 11 yeats. Absolutely, we were high school sweethearts. In therapy, they described us as codependent.

Over the course of just a few months she went from looking a little off-color to needing to pull the feeding tube to let her stop suffering per her wishes.

I feel like my life has derailed into a fireworks factory. I quit my job and moved back in with my parents. I don't know how to live without her.

I just can't believe this is my life. And that was hers. I always assumed I would die first. I don't know why. Her dying first never even entered my mind.

What the actual f***.

Everybody keeps telling me "you're not alone, we're here for you." But they don't understand that the loneliness is on the inside, not the outside.

My soul is unshareably alone.

I don't know what anyone can effectively say or do or respond that will help. I'm just taking a shot in the dark with this forum.

I want to ask for help. But the help I want is impossible.

[ModKonnie]

^{I am truly so very sorry for your loss. Of course you are absolutely reeling in shock, trauma and horror over all of this. For now, just continue  to cry and grieve. Talk about her to anyone and everyone. Talk about how you are feeling to anyone and everyone. Write her a letter or dozens of them. Join a grief and loss group (many funeral homes offer them). Don't think about the future--just concentrate on getting by today. Try to eat, drink fluids, but don't rely on alcohol to get you through (that will make things far worse in the end). If you can, try to go walking or exercise. That will help release necessary brain chemicals to help you get through.}

 

^{I know it feels impossible, but it is going to get better. It is.}

 

^ModKonnie

[RaedwolfDelaroca]

Thank you for your reply, Konnie. I truly am in shock, I think. Im crying daily but I fear the wort will come after a few days from now when her funeral will be complete, and I don't have arrangements to draw my attention.

It's really hard sometimes motivating myself even to eat. Food tastes less.

I know it sounds cliche but we really were best friends, married. We talked and shared everything we were with each other. We were each others' escape from whatever crap we had going on in our lives, from the time when we were teens.

Her family disapproved of many things about her, and the arrangements and burial have been and will be extremely tumultuous.

I've never known trauma like this. I thought many many more years were promised to her and I. I was proud. I felt lucky. Now I feel utterly hapless.

It's so hard to force away thoughts about the future and the gaping hole therein. I try to stay in the present but it's so hard. We always talked about the future together.

Thank you so much for your words, Konnie.

[RaedwolfDelaroca]

Thank you for the reply, Amrit. I feel your hard-to-answer questions. I think your suggestion is a very spiritual one without being overtly religious and I appreciate that. I may even try the ritual. I don't know. I don't believe I am able to block away the sorrow in the space I am right now. I think the sentiment is pleasant and I understand how it might feel cleansing and meaningful if done with the proper focus. For now it just hurts too unignorably. Thank you.

[nicnocx90]

I am so sorry for your loss, my heart goes out to you. You and your wife were together for a while and you will always have that bond with her.  It is incredibly hard, I am not going to lie and it only gets more difficult as time goes by.  It is almost 2 months since my boyfriend passed away and it has been the hardest 2 months of my life.

 

People don't understand, but they are trying to help.  You have to accept that they are trying to make you feel better, even though nothing can make you feel better.

 

It is okay to ask for help... I understand quitting your job and moving back home will make things a bit easier... i don't know your situation, but I am implying. I currently live with my parents and I am taking some time off from work after an incredibly busy month at work.  It took my mind off all the craziness a bit after my boyfriend passing, but now that I am off of work I think too much. I cry everyday and little things trigger me... I could be watching tv and just start crying.  

 

I want answers, but I will never get those answers.  I can beat myself up till the end of time and still won't know why my boyfriend got so sick.

 

I try to live everyday like Chris would want me to, but it's so incredibly difficult.  He wouldn't want to see me so sad. He was so full of life and happy all the time.  Now all I have of him are memories, memories that I will cheerish forever.

 

Again, so sorry for you loss.

[RaedwolfDelaroca]

Thank you, nicnocx90, for your words. I appreciate your honesty. The feelings you describe, they seem ripped from my thoughts.

I'm so sorry for your loss as well. It makes me tearful but it also helps me to feel less alone. This all feels beyond normality and possibly, what we're going through. But knowing it is happening to someone else humanizes it. It still feels like *this can't possibly be real* but at the same time how real it really is is soul-crushing.

I wish I could offer you some advice. Some good words I've read in a book, not my own: "Do not wait for the healing to arrive. It will never come. The holes will never leave or be filled with anything at all. But holes are interesting things. As it happens, we human beings are able to live just fine with many holes of many shapes and sizes. And pleasure, love, compassion and fulfillment--these things do not leak out of holes of any size. So we can be filled with holes and loss and wide expanses of unhealed geography-- and we can also be excited by life and in love and content at the exact same moment."

[HeyJude]

I remember all too well being in exactly the same spot your in.  I'm coming up on the 3 year anniversary of my husbands death.  We were married for 32 1/2 yrs.  I also found my saving grace in this forum.  I haven't visited for quite a while now but something made me come here this morning.

 

Someone said in one of the replies that it is only going to get worse.  That is true.  It is going to get way worse before it ever starts to feel any type of resemblance to normal.  In fact, there will be no normal as you knew it.  There will be a new normal.  And it is going to be a rough road to get there.  I can't promise that you even will.  But considering how I felt in those first days I sure didn't think my life would ever be even remotely what it was before.

 

What helped me was diving head first into any thing I could get my hands on regarding life after death.  I joined Audible and listened to audiobooks on the subject.  I feel, without a doubt, that death is not the end.  I had to have proof and I found my proof amongst the many books I listened to on the subject.  Studying Life After Death opened my like up to a whole new experience, Spirituality.  I'm not a religious person, I am very spiritual though.  I love what I've learned and a huge peace enveloped me and brought me through those early days.  I sought out a Physic Medium who I know without a doubt connected with my beloved and gave me a peace I had never known before.

 

Things will be better.  But your going to have to work at it.  The first year is rough enough, the second, even worse!!  Find something to immerse yourself in.  Be prepared for many ups and downs.  Take whatever amount of time it takes.  There is no "he should be over this by now".  No one knows the pain and grief your feeling except for those of us who have travelled the same road.

 

I am now in a new relationship with a very nice man.  We have fun, I laugh from the heart again and life is good.  And believe me, I was one of those really rough cases who wished she was dead all the time!!  You do need to keep your mind busy.  Too much time with nothing to do isn't good.  I hated being alone with myself!!

 

Take care my dear...

 

Judy

[RaedwolfDelaroca]

Judy, I really appreciate that you happened to log back in and then take the time to reply. As I'm going through this, I've been craving understanding. And talking to people who understand the utter lack of understanding is the next best thing I've found.

 

I don't know what to say and that seems to be a recurring theme. I miss the companionship in a terrible way and I don't know how I will possibly find another soul to walk with me in life, so it gives me hope that you've found it possible for yourself. It's been about three weeks now and when you say three years, it makes me wonder how I've been able to survive for three weeks. I don't know how these three weeks have passed. It doesn't make sense that time should be progressing without her alive. I guess the explanation is in people like you, living examples that it's not impossible for existence to continue.

 

I feel like I can rationalize this all. My previous statements were all written as they came, as I thought it out. But I'm still in the most emotional duress I've ever known and rationalizing it is only a temporary mollification.

 

There is even a strong jealousy in me that you had 32 years with your husband. I had 11 with Mia, 6 married. She was 27, I was 26, and I felt like the fact that we would be one of those old married couples was a sure thing. Not the old married couples that bicker, but that inspire.

 

I fully expected Mia and I would be that couple who were married 50 years and the youngsters would look up to us they would said "how do you do it?" and we would just smile at each other with those smile wrinkles etched into each of our faces so deeply and we would say "it just happened" and we would smile and them and they would smirk and half-smile-half-laugh and keep walking with a hopeful skepticism.

 

I thought our relationship would give others hope. Maybe, I don't know, somehow I can find meaning in trying give others hope by way of our relationship in some way. I don't know what that means. It just came to me.

 

I don't know. Thank you.

[HeyJude]

When I hear about you kids losing your spouses it just kills me.  That is so damn unfair  I thought it was unfair for us!  My husband was only 57.  That to me is way to young to die.  But to die at 27???  What kind of cruel joke is the universe playing??  But it happens.  It happens to even younger people.  Life, and death, just happen.  All we can do is roll with it, kwim?

 

Three weeks is nothing in the scheme of things.  At three weeks I was still very numb.  I want to say "you ain't felt nothing yet!' but please don't think I'm making light of your situation at all.  At three weeks nothing should make any sense.  Your mind races, trying to figure out why, how, why me? why her? The real pain, the real feelings haven't even arrived yet!!  As much as I hate to say it, it is going to get way worse before it even starts to get better.  It never really does get better.  I think we just finally learn to adjust, after all, we don't have much choice.  Year 2 is worse than the first year.  Go figure?? But it is.

 

I don't know how busy this forum is anymore.  When I first came it was pretty busy.  There were a whole bunch of us who kinda struggled our way through the days and nights together.  Find friends here if you can.  They will become life long friends.  This experience, losing your wife/husband is one of the hardest things we will ever have to deal with in our lives.  Losing a child has to be worse and next is losing a spouse.  People who have lost siblings, parents, grandparents...it doesn't even come close to this.  I think the worst part of losing your spouse is that you also lose a big part of yourself.  You lose all your hopes and dreams and plans and expected milestones.  Many have said it is like having the rug pulled out from under your feet.

 

I had to really get inside myself, to find myself again after being half of a couple for over 34 years.  Kinda like picking up where I left off when I met my husband.  Who was that young girl?  Heck, I didn't know anymore!!  Here I am, going on 59 and having to reconnect with my 22 year old self...lol!!  Well, I'm just rambling now.  I guess the best advise I can give you right now is keep visiting this forum.  Make friends with others here.  It really is a huge help.  I don't know what I would have done were it not for some very dear friends I met right here in this forum.  And be prepared for the worst roller coaster ride of your life.

 

Are you still working??  It helped me immensely to just totally throw myself into my job.  Having too much time on your hands is not a good thing mentally.  And talk about your feelings as much as you need to.  Get it out, don't hold it in.  I'll be checking on you...believe it or not, you will be okay.  Oh...and some things you just kinda have to let slide.  There will be those who say "you should be over this by now".  I'd look right at them and say f you!!  They have no clue!!  Your going to find that people say the stupidest things ever.  It is asinine.  Just take it minute by minute.  Your not alone, there are a lot of us walking the same path as you.  Take care sweetie...