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Is it wrong to consider myself widowed?


floyd11554

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Another thread on here talking about regret got me thinking how much I have regretted not ever marrying my love before she passed.  We spent eight years together but I never got the chance to be her husband.  That has eaten at me over the last year.  The day I found her the officer who was getting my statement asked if she was my fiance or wife and I lost it saying to him I never got the chance to ask her that.  We never got to be Mr. and Mrs.  I know I can't change that but it got me thinking if it is wrong to consider myself widowed.  

It seems at least in popular culture the term is more applied to when you are married and you lose your spouse.   It also seems that people have treated me like it isn't as significant a loss since we weren't married.  I look at myself as a widow since even if we never had that piece of paper declaring it she was my one and only and I know we would have been married if she was still on this earth.  

I also look at this in the eye of when I am ready to start dating again (I'm not).  How do I describe myself?   How do I begin to explain what has happened to anyone new?  People always ask have you been married.  It is so ingrained into our culture that it just feels sometimes that people look at it like a lesser event.  Like, you only lost a girlfriend, not a wife.  Maybe I am just looking too deep into it but just some thoughts that have been circulating thru my brain recently and this place is a great outlet for them.  

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Hello Floyd11554, I am sorry for your loss. Time has a way of slipping up upon us in everyday activities. It's sounds like you loved her very much. Some have time to get married but don't show love like they could. The paper is great to have but doesn't take the place of being there for her. Technically you lost a partner. Or you could say I lost my future fiance or my long term girlfriend. I myself don't care to be called a widow but I am. The word widow can mean so many feelings and definitions to the grieving. It shouldn't make you feel less a loss than mine. Since we lose someone unexpectedly, we humans are not where we want to be when everything stops that we tend to have some regrets. This is normal for grieving. Living life is about juggling so many things in a day. When that one life stops we have to reflect on what is no longer moving.  I would say you did the best you could do at that moment and had good intentions on getting married. You had no way to see into the future and what would happen later. I also wished I had tried to get him to go for health checkups more but I did tell him often. If I knew he was going to die so young I would have took a day off from work to get in to see the doctor. He was stubborn and would get upset if I tried to talk too much. He would say, "mama, go in the blue room". (That's the empty bedroom that has blue walls). God himself or the pastor would've had to tell him to go.Too busy helping others, that was him. So none of us knew anything! So if it didn't happen, it just didn't happen. Only you know what she meant to you regardless of what people say or think or didn't happen. May you find peace and comfort on this journey of grief. Your relationship is important and what was shared with the two of you! Take one day at a time. Remember people really don't know what to say most of the time and rather avoid the uneasiness of facing someone who lost a loved one. Sometimes I must admit, I too never knew what to say.

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@floyd11554,

You are a widower in my opinion.  Legally you can’t claim it, but I think that is as far as that goes. In any non legal sense of the word you fit into the category.  You lost the person closest to you.  Your plans for the future we’re altered irrevocably.  Your day to day life changed in an instant.  The fact that you didn’t have a piece of paper to confirm it is inconsequential.

The term widow and widower is painful to many that find themselves in our unfortunate circumstance.  The term I prefer, and that applies to all of us without any distinctions as to marital status is bereaved.  I’ve had a similar conversation in the past and continue to think bereaved fits us all best.

Per Meriam Webster, Bereaved (noun) - someone who is suffering the death of a loved one.  I prefer this term because it unites us all.  Age doesn’t matter, gender doesn’t matter, marital status doesn’t matter.  It puts us all on equal footing and further allows each person to apply the label to themselves based upon their own understanding and feelings of the situation.  Basically if you feel you are bereaved then you are, and no outside agency or entity can say you aren’t.

Further, there are no future occurrences that can change this status.  While I am currently not pursuing any further relationships, the fact that I may one day still fits into the equation.  If I build an identity as a “widower” and then have to change that identity based on a future relationship it could further complicate things.  Even if I get married again I would remain bereaved.  Wishing you all the peace and support you deserve,

Herc

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floyd, I agree with the others here, legally you can't check that status on your IRS return, but for purposes of relationship, status of the heart, yes, I'd say you are widowed.  Who of us needs a piece of paper to confirm what we already know in our hearts?  Bereaved is a good term.  I like that, Herc, a good alternative, also your pointing out that bereaved doesn't change status.

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@ModHerc  The way you put it makes total sense and I completely agree.   Bereaved I think definitely applies universally so it makes more sense to us.  I guess I was talking about how it is perceived out in the world of others who do not share our pain or who have not experienced any kind of significant loss.  You are right though, what if you get remarried, its not like you are no longer bereaved just because you were able to find love again.  The loss is still there and the word widow kind of pigeon holes that into thinking if you change your status then you are no longer grieving the loss.    I guess I am just wondering how to explain this about my life to anyone new down the line.   She will always be with me and anyone that I meet would have to accept that and I wonder how hard it may be to find someone who understands.  

@KayC     Completely agree about the piece of paper.  It is how we always felt, we knew we wanted to get married but if we couldn't do it right financially we felt we should wait.  To us it wasn't needed to signify or quantify our love.  We knew like you said in our hearts and minds.  

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I was lately thinking about the very same thing. I feel widowed, but I wasn’t married, even though this was a very long term relationship. Sadly, I lost another person to death (whom I felt the very same way about, years ago). Right now, I feel twice widowed. But people don’t seem to take the losses I’ve endured as seriously as if I had been married. I’ve come to realize society is getting much looser in its definitions of being single or not. I’ve decided to use the word “life partner” and find that people take my deep grief more seriously (than if I merely said I lost my “boyfriend”). It’s very important to me that people understand my present grief because right now I can barely function.

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22 minutes ago, Pmarie said:

I was lately thinking about the very same thing. I feel widowed, but I wasn’t married, even though this was a very long term relationship. Sadly, I lost another person to death (whom I felt the very same way about, years ago). Right now, I feel twice widowed. But people don’t seem to take the losses I’ve endured as seriously as if I had been married. I’ve come to realize society is getting much looser in its definitions of being single or not. I’ve decided to use the word “life partner” and find that people take my deep grief more seriously (than if I merely said I lost my “boyfriend”). It’s very important to me that people understand my present grief because right now I can barely function.

Once in a lifetime is impossible enough.  I can't imagine having to go thru it again.  I'm so sorry that you have had to experience this pain twice.   I hope the people in your life are showing you the support you need.   

I agree that people don't see to take it as seriously if you weren't married.  Family the most I feel.  I think their reaction would have been much different and there for me if I had been married for those 8 years or if we had any children.  I feel they see it as I just lost a girlfriend like  I was a kid in high school suffering a break up.   People are just conditioned to feel how they will feel and what they are taught.  I do like the term life partner as well since that is what it should have been.  Partners for life.  

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Exactly, like it was just a breakup or blip on our radar, while inside we are falling completely apart, but may feel we need to hide the suffering. Perhaps in some way feeling we don’t have the same right to express our great loss,  knowing we’re not being taken quite as seriously. Thank you for your kind condolences. Both of my relationships were 13 years, longer than many marriages. It is awful to have to go through it all over again, and I feel like I’m right back to square one and afraid to ever live this much again.

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You were married in every way that makes a marriage. Its only a oiece of paper. To be truely married is your heart. So sorry for your loss

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I lived with my wife for 30 years without being legally married. I consider myself a widowed.

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13 hours ago, Pmarie said:

Right now, I feel twice widowed. But people don’t seem to take the losses I’ve endured as seriously as if I had been married.

Sometimes we look to others to give us what they cannot give because they do not grasp it.  They cannot give what they do not have, that is understanding.  We can try to bring them to some level of understanding, but sometimes try as we might, even that seems futile.  We are looking outside ourselves for something only we ourselves can fully grasp and thus give us...the validation of our loss.  We alone, and perhaps our families, get the full extent of our loss.  Hopefully some of you have friends that get it...IDK, mine disappeared on me.  Did what many of our friends have done, run.  But no one, absolutely no one can take the significance and meaning of my relationship with George away.  Yes we were married, but if we had not yet married, our relationship still would have been just as significant, we had found the love of our life, the person that got us, the one that understood, that we related to, the person that we each complemented.  The one whose smile lit up my world.  The one who regarded me higher than any other.  I was his little one, he my Big Bear.  I felt safer in his arms, protected, him and I against the world.  No one can take that from me...or from you either.  Thumb your nose up at what others think or don't think, you KNOW inside your heart the high regard you have for each other, what you mean and are to each other, hold that in your heart, that is yours forever.

But I do understand what you're saying and it pi$$es me off that anyone should slight someone else's loss as of "less than" knowing full well the many married couples that had LESS going in their relationship!  But then I remind myself, this is not a competition, it is nothing to prove to anyone...you and he knew, that's all that truly matters.  And for what it's worth, I regard your relationship in it's utmost and I know your loss was significant, just as mine was.

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KayC, that was so-ooo beautifully and wisely written, so very kind, and every single word is true. Thank you!  We shouldn’t care how others perceive the relationship, because we know the true reality of our hearts. I will let that be my mantra. I guess I just wish I had more support right now, which I don’t. It feels like everyone has already forgotten about my life-altering event of only less than a month ago (or, that it didn’t actually happen to me at all). I think that most people just feel very uncomfortable talking about death. By not talking about it, perhaps it feels like a safe denial. They are not really in the same reality as we are right now, so how can they be blamed? Our society has not taught us how to react. It just feels so isolating, and really strange, that no one asks me how I am. And I do have many friends. I wouldn’t say they have disappeared, they haven’t, but almost all of them act like this death never happened or has deeply affected me. Except for when I first told everyone about it, and everyone felt  so shocked, I now get the feeling that most people imagine I’m doing just fine and “getting over it.” They never even ask. I think this sense of emotional isolation is also contributing to my deepening depression. I just had a very good friend tell me she couldn’t wait to see me, so we can laugh like we always used to. She has no idea I can’t even get out of bed most days. She is a very good person, but I know my real feelings make people very uncomfortable. So I’ve learned to keep feelings to myself. I sense most people believe  I should already be in the process of “moving on,” or otherwise I’m not being positive. It’s sad how our culture rushes the process of love and grief. Thanks for your understanding, that’s why I come to this site, as there is no one else to go to.

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On 1/20/2019 at 3:39 PM, floyd11554 said:

Another thread on here talking about regret got me thinking how much I have regretted not ever marrying my love before she passed.  We spent eight years together but I never got the chance to be her husband.  That has eaten at me over the last year.  The day I found her the officer who was getting my statement asked if she was my fiance or wife and I lost it saying to him I never got the chance to ask her that.  We never got to be Mr. and Mrs.  I know I can't change that but it got me thinking if it is wrong to consider myself widowed.  

It seems at least in popular culture the term is more applied to when you are married and you lose your spouse.   It also seems that people have treated me like it isn't as significant a loss since we weren't married.  I look at myself as a widow since even if we never had that piece of paper declaring it she was my one and only and I know we would have been married if she was still on this earth.  

I also look at this in the eye of when I am ready to start dating again (I'm not).  How do I describe myself?   How do I begin to explain what has happened to anyone new?  People always ask have you been married.  It is so ingrained into our culture that it just feels sometimes that people look at it like a lesser event.  Like, you only lost a girlfriend, not a wife.  Maybe I am just looking too deep into it but just some thoughts that have been circulating thru my brain recently and this place is a great outlet for them.  

No, you are not wrong.

I was with my partner 28 years. We were totally dedicated to each other and made a home together. "Married" in every sense of the word.

A piece of paper and a fee and blood test had nothing to do with who we were to each other. 

We did make private vows to each other because in 1990 that was our only choice. Later we wanted to get married by law but she was too sick to leave the house.  

I have lost my soulmate and consider myself a "widowed spouse".

Others could care less what I call myself or what our relationship meant to us.

It is what is in your heart that matters.

Lily Bell

 

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I totally relate to this.

my fiancée passed and we’ve been together almost 3 years, we were marrying on May, he passed on feb. 18.

i feel like his widow and honor that. I do remember one person telling me: “you’re not cause you didn’t got married” and besides sounding heartless, I felt furious and offended cause I was who shared his hopes and dreams, who wiped away his tears, who worried about his wellbeing and everything that surrounded him, I did everything a wife does for his loved husband, and no one is gonna tell me that, for a piece of paper I’m gonna change the perspective of what  we were as a couple.

so yes, you are if that’s how you feel at heart, cause a piece of paper won’t define what they’re for us. 

 

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