The death of my partner, Shaun

[robm447]

I lost my partner and soulmate on December 21st, 2013. His death was unexpected and sudden in hospital. We had been together 22 years and he was my universe and I was his. His death could well be due to medical negligence and I am going to pursue every avenue of redress. He needed me and I needed him. I have no desire to carry on living. Neither of us had family -we have friends in common, but at the end of the evening, there was just us two together with the dog and that is all we wanted. I do not want to leave a legacy of intense grief by committing suicide, but I really want things to end as soon as possible. I have already got a promise from someone to look after the dog.Some grief is insuperable - broken heart syndrome. I am a young 65 but feel that I have lived long enough and hope that I can just go and with it will go the unbearable pain. I do not believe in God and the afterlife – my partner did – so I can find little comfort in any words about reuniting with him for eternity. His life came to end prematurely -he was only 43 – and with his passing, my own story is at an end. No, it’s not a question of my grief being at an early stage and I’ll feel better later. I have lost all my family:my two sisters in the last two years - as well as my best childhood friend and my only cousin this year. All of those deaths resulted in a grief that was an expression of love, regret but measured sorrow. This is totally different: it is like comparing a bee sting with decapitation. It is a feeling that allows no joy or smiles to penetrate, it is a feeling that will not allow me to eat almost as if the resulting weakness will make me gravely ill. I am not sorry for myself, I am sorry for little Shaun who had many years of happiness before him. Memories of happy days and love bring no consolation only tears. I hope I am not upsetting anyone with my negativity, but I look upon this forum as a chance of telling the ethernet exactly how I feel without any attempt to put a brave face on it. Thanks for listening. Robert

[backyarder1]

Hi Robert. I am so sorry for your loss. And you may not believe me when I tell you that I felt exactly the same way two months ago when I lost my husband. He was more than my husband. He was my whole family. Almost my whole world. The grief was unbearable. I would wake up in the mornings and wonder what in the world I had to keep living for. Deep in my heart, I knew that I wanted to keep living. I got rid of all of the things in the house that would make it easy for me to end my life. And I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. I called around and found some grief counseling and went to grief support groups. And I got a lot of support from this group, too. My husband's body is gone but the love that we shared is not gone. But I knew that if I died, that love WOULD be gone. And then our whole life together would have been for nothing. Now, as long as I am alive, I can carry that love with me and share that love that I learned from him.

Please don't give up on life yet. Yes, it is difficult right now but just give it a few weeks. Allow the grief to come and experience it and feel the strength of your love for Shaun.

[Silvergirl61]

Robert-

Iam so very sorry to hear of your loss. By your words, I can see how much you cared for Shaun, and I cannot presume to tell you what course to take with your own life, but, I would like to pass onto you a couple of things that resonated in me, when i lost my Dennis. We too, were inseparable, and it was all about each other, for us, too. For the last years he was here..I was the person he spent the most time with, told his thoughts to, and the person who knew him best, like he did me. We could talk to each other about any subject, at any time..and his loss has left such a deep void in my life...and I am so weary, and miss him so much...however

He made me promise him, that i would do my best to live for us both, if anything ever happened to him, just like he would be here to do the same for me. He felt that as close as the two of us were...that somehow, as long as one was here..we both will be. I knew his thoughts and feelings..and I will remember him, as long as i live..and through me.. others may know him , too..and what a beautiful soul he was can be felt, through me. Nothing and no-one we love is truly gone, until they are forgotten...and that may be the only immortality we have...to be remembered by those we love. Who can remember Shaun as you do?

[robm447]

Thank you both for taking the time to be kind and I am glad that you both have emerged from the gloom. For me hearing the experiences of others is a bit like toothache: knowing that someone else has toothache means that it is a shared and common experience, but that doesn’t stop your tooth from hurting. It sounds horrible, but seeing some awful tragedy on the news does not put my own pain into context and proportion. The pain just continues. Today is only day 6 and it is the worst day ever. For some, good advice may work, for others grief is just too overwhelming. We can read or learn of many who have died quite soon after their spouse or partner has passed away. I believe that this is referred to as ‘broken heart syndrome’. My mother committed suicide and left me with a terrible legacy. I could not wish that on someone else. My greatest hope, however, is that this grief will consume me naturally, so that with my last breath goes the last remnant of pain. This may be selfish as I will be inflicting the awfulness (however natural) of grief on other people -passing on the burden, as it were. However, one has to be realistic about just how much one can bear. Last night, I watched ‘Mr Bean’ on TV and started laughing and then suddenly, the tears came like never before and my desk at the moment is wet with my tears. There is part of me that craves to accept an afterlife and the prospect of reunion, but my intellect prevents me from accepting such a concept. Someone said to me that I should contact a psychic medium as it had helped him, but such people, however well-intentioned, do not belong in my world. I almost feel envious for those who genuinely believe that there is something else as it must make grieving a bit easier, even if it is a minute percentage. Yes, I have lots to offer. I am well-educated and articulate and am considered, by others, to be a good person, but all that does not help me tackle the worst ever feeling in my life. My main concern is not for myself, it is for my partner, Shaun. He had a few mental health issues and I had been his rock for 22 years, caring for him, hugging him and assuring him that everything would be all right with the world. During the last couple of years, he has had a lot of pain, but he went from hospital to hospital, doctor to doctor and no diagnosis would ever be given that was commensurate with his constant pain and infections. It was almost as if because of his mental health problems, thought he was making it up. All the time, he would say: 'Will someone please take me seriously'. We never got round to discussing the consequences of his dying. It was always assumed, because of the age gap, that I would go first. In the last six months, our relationship became very tense at times because he would cry with pain and for the first time ever, I couldn’t help him. I feel so sorry for him because he was only 43 and should have had -with proper treatment – a good life ahead. Now he is a cold, empty shell. His beautiful smile will never again radiate any room into which he walked. People will remember it and hold memories dear in their hearts, but for me, memories are of as much comfort as the smells coming from a kitchen would be for a starving man. Grief and the capacity to cope with it varies from person to person. Some people are naturally courageous and strong. Others have their children to care for, so that for much of the day, they are too occupied to brood. When there is tea to be made, no one wants tears in the soup and no one wants someone wailing at the table during the meal. Intense grief goes with intense love and the fact of loving brings with it the risk of losing. For some the old adage, ‘I cannot live without you’ sometimes, with time, becomes ‘I have learned to live without you’, but for others it remains a perpetual truth.

[backyarder1]

Hi Robert. It's difficult to respond without just sounding like I am offering platitudes. But I DO know how you feel. I just wish there was some way for me to help you QUIT feeling it. I, too, feel sorry for my husband because he didn't get to live longer. But I also know that he is past the point of caring about that or realizing that he is no longer here on earth. Either he is in "a better place" (some sort of Heaven) or he is just gone. I choose to believe that his energy is still here with me. Since none of us really knows what happens after death, we really can choose to believe what we want. And it has helped me to put up lots of photos of Tom around the house. I still talk to them and kiss them every single day. And I try to focus on the love that we got to share and how blessed that I was to have him in my life.

Have you spoken to a grief counselor?

[frankly]

Robert.....I guess this isn't your typical answer, but I agree with you. I do not want to offend anyone, I'm just speaking my heart. I've been afraid to post something similar to what you posted Robert. I'm not feeding on my own grief, I'm being real about my own situation. Sometimes the pain is too much to bear. I've been the strong rock for my family my whole life, for once I would like to just think about me. I don't want to hurt any more. I don't want to be strong for others any more. I want peace. The only future I have is one for others, not myself. In all honesty, if there was a way to be able to talk to the people I would be leaving behind, assure them of my love and how much I really just want to go, and could end this without causing this same pain to people that love me, I would in a heartbeat. But I can't do this to someone else.

[Alone]

Robert, I too understand and agree with you. I feel like I lived the best life possible while with my Tom. Prior to the loss of my Tom, I would have considered myself young. Now I feel old at just 60 years of age. People tell me that I will probably live another 20+ years and should find a way to enjoy those years. I won't say that they are wrong, but I would prefer to just go to sleep and never wake up. I promised my Tom that I would never purposely hurt myself and I am trying my best to keep that promise, but the promise doesn't prevent me from praying for my own demise.

Robert - Please keep trying as I do. If we are meant to leave this world it will happen. Just as my Tom never wanted me to hurt myself, I am sure that your Shaun would not want you to hurt yourself.

[robm447]

Many thanks to those who have shown kindness and courage in their replies. 'Alone' and 'Frankly', we seem to be in the same boat and what a boat it is: full of holes, leaks and cast adrift in the perfect storm. Like both of you, I find that it is hard to live on, but impossible to leave a legacy of hurt and grief. All three of us have loved intensely and so are suffering intense grief, but all three of us have just stopped somehow from being totally overwhelmed, otherwise we would all have ended our lives without regret. We just want an end to pain, we want things back to how they were, we cannot accept and don't want to accept that our special person will no longer be coming through the door with a smile or a scowl. There will be no more goodnight kisses of peace and reconciliation. The world is noisy but silent, the room is full but empty. Memories can create a smile then a flood of tears and all you want to do is scream the name of your loved one in the hope that you will be heard. You scream and there is no answer. The odds are that we will probably survive this trauma somehow, but I can tell from your replies that you feel, as I do, that the rest of life will be an existence rather than a life. Well meaning advice like 'Take each day as it comes', 'Take it a step at a time', 'Time is a great healer', 'You should take up a new interest or hobby', 'Remember you will always carry your love in your heart and that keeps the person alive', all these sayings, however true for many people, just do not ease the pain for us. That pain is real and present. It is natural to grieve if you love, it is natural to feel as we do when we have truly loved, but some people find it easier than others and the unfortunate truth is that we are sensitive souls, too sensitive some might say, who find the prospect of moving on as attractive as being asked to climb Mount Everest alone and blindfolded. I wish you well kindred spirits.

[Alone]

Robert - here is a favorite quote that got my Tom and I through many hard days and nights during his illness. I still refer to it often.

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." Lao Tzu

I count on my deep love for my Tom to give me courage.

[obakesan]

Hi

I lost my partner and soulmate on December 21st, 2013.

oh my, that's so recent.

I was a mess for some months after loosing my wife (August 2012). Somewhat like your situation she died suddenly (from a brain tumor which was undiagnosed) and left me like a ship torpedoed in the rudder.

I have no desire to carry on living. ... I do not want to leave a legacy of intense grief by committing suicide,

reading this is like reading someone else describing my situation.

The thing I moved towards was my survival training. The stuff you learn to help keep you alive during a trauma like a plane crash in the mountains or something. Being an outdoor type that sort of survival never seemed a challenge. I never thought I'd find my training and skills being put to use in this sort of situation. But it is exactly a survival situation.

The first thing is to not plan. Don't look ahead far as you will only see things you don't want to see. Like climbing for beginners, don't look down.

I am a young 65 but feel that I have lived long enough and hope that I can just go and with it will go the unbearable pain.

I'm a young 50 and also feel that I've lived and done a lot (which I have) and so why not just die too? I thought long and hard about killing myself (and have excellent tools around to do so being a hunting and shooting enthusiast). I wrote about my feelings in this post on my blog. In the end I decided that my own mind was the most significant vessel on this world for keeping my wifes spirit alive. Killing myself would end that.

My own situation was that about 6 months before my wife died I'd had urgent surgery to repair an aneurysm on my Aorta. It was discovered as an accident and would have killed me. After she died it was found that the surgery had left behind an infection in my sternum and I had to go back into hospital for 'scrape' surgery (called debridement) where my infection was cut out. They did this twice. I felt like total crap and just kept wishing that I could die. I wrote:

My lovely wife told me that she was never happier than when I came out of surgery alive, and getting better every day.

But then she died suddenly and now I am here alone with no reason to go on living.

Frankly its a situation I'm sick of.

How the hell do I find something to make my life worthwhile again?

You go on to say:

I do not believe in God and the afterlife – my partner did – so I can find little comfort in any words about reuniting with him for eternity.

I am a science person, started in Biochemistry and moved over into my other interests of electronics and computing. I struggled with the church as a kid and found any "religious eternety" stuff vexing and at first quite offensive. I do however wonder if what makes up us just ceases when we die. I have struggled with this idea for decades and put together my thoughts recently on my post here. Essentially that post draws from ideas of maths, quantum mechanics and computational modelling to support the idea that we may be more than we seem. It is not a proof and (by definition of my humanity) it is not correct. But it perhaps provides in intriguing alternative to the black and white of nothing or "something specific".

I have lost all my family:my two sisters in the last two years

I had no brothers and sisters and my mother and father have also passed away. My father died one month before my wife. I was still coming to terms with that when her death swept away thoughts of all else.

All of those deaths resulted in a grief that was an expression of love, regret but measured sorrow.

I think I understand your situation somewhat. In the weeks before my father died, his partner of many years died too. In fact I had still not completed her will before my father died, and it was not until 6 months after my wife died I was able to complete my fathers will. Having no other family I had to do this all alone. As well as the debridement surgeries.

While having dressings changed on my (second) chest wound I began to think of the notion that like the old French Foreign Legion that being in the midst of life trauma was a way to somehow treat the grief of loss. For the stories go that men ran off to join the Foreign Legion (probably expecting to be killed) as a way to deal with their losses.

I won't lie to you and say it gets easier, because for a while it will get harder. I do say to you that you should do your best to stay alive (god I feel like a hypocrite saying that) and focus on what you have learned together.

I have been spending my time on reflection. Relearning who I was before I met her and learning what gifts she gave me. I have left my home and come to her country (She was Finnish I am Australian) in the view that IF there is anything after this that such knowledge may help us to find each other in the vastness.

I wish you peace

[Kurtybearhugs]

Kudos to all who responded to this thread.... For your courage, your honesty, and mostly for your love and compassion. It is always so inspiring to see others who are themselves hurting so much, reach out and try to help others who are suffering. I know how hard it is to bring up this, and other very negative or taboo subjects, as I am no stranger to this subject myself. The worst thing we can ever do in regard to suicidal thoughts, is not talk about them. You all did good. There are no cures here, but there is good medicine. Kurt

[Silvergirl61]

The difference between us, my new friends, is time. After all those months of wishing for death, I no longer believe that it will come to relieve the pain of this existence without the other part of my heart, until it chooses to do so, and I'm afraid i gave my word to not deliberately hasten it. Yes, I have children, adult children, and now I force myself daily, to think of the good things that I have left, my first grandson being the chief among those. Yes, i still cry for him. Yes, i still miss him terribly, and considering the grief I feel at the long ago passing of my father.. I probably always will. ( That is the only other life altering trauma I can draw on for experience, and the only other time I wanted to die to stop hurting.)

This is a terrible , life shattering thing that has happened to us all. Nothing will ever be the same. You can choose to end it, you can choose to pretend it didn't happen, you can find a positive way to move forward, or you can remain mired in the depths for as long as you live. I have no idea yet, what my final choice will be, whether i can live and go on or be happy again. I have chosen for the moment, to simply see whether i wake up each day, and proceed from there...and see where the road takes me.

Perhaps that makes me a coward, or seems to say that my love was less than it should have been, to some. I am not completely certain every day, all the time.. if there are gods, an afterlife, or anything but this. However.. on the chance that this is not the end.. I will not break my word to him..in spite of the number of times I have cursed myself for giving him that promise....

and maybe some low sad day, it will suddenly seem that there is no reason to keep that promise. In the end, it's all about how you choose to continue, isn't it?

[backyarder1]

So today, for the first time in a long time, I feel the same way as some of the others here....like I just have no reason to go on living. I have no idea why the thought is so strong today and I know I won't do anything WITH the thought. But the pain is just so deep today. Not just the pain and the hurt and the heartache but the ultimate fatigue of thinking of how hard it is going to be to go on and start over. I know I shouldn't be posting this here. That I should be trying to encourage everyone else. And I also know that by tomorrow my grief may subside and I may be back to a kind of normalcy. But for now, for today, I just wish I could lie down and go to sleep and never wake up.