The widowhood effect: What it’s like to lose a spouse in your 30s
theglobeandmail.com
theglobeandmail.com
That was throughly depressing and a little too close to home at the moment for me. I can't work out if it's better to burn out in 42 days or live for 7-10 years with a crippling immune disorder and constant care requirement which is what my wife faces.
In the space of a week you don't see a difference. In the space of a year, you realise the change. 2016 disappeared in a flash. We did nothing due to hospital appointments and illness. I have to work to pay the bills. You can't live on nothing. So it's work, care, work, care. She declines. We never get to live.
At the end we're left with nothing.
I implore anyone to enjoy life as soon as possible. Don't save it for a rainy day. It might never rain. We saved and planned and never got to fulfill our plans.
And I can't live without her.
From one internet stranger to another: I truly feel for you, and I wish you strength, courage, and ultimately peace.
I wish I could do more, but here's a poem in my native language [0]. Victor Hugo wrote this shortly after his daughter's death. I hope it brings you some comfort.
My grandparents saved and made grand plans for trips in retirement, and then my grandfather passed from lung cancer.
My parents have always said that money and retirement is wasted on the old, that whole thing should be reversed.
But.
> I can't live without her.
What does she want? Because I imagine she would very much want you to live - to live an extremely full and vibrant life. The life you two had hoped to have. On her list of wishes, I'm betting thats among the top. And I bet among them, thats the one wish you could actually make good on.
Your love is wonderful - its why you do what you do for her. I hope you spend the rest of your life celebrating it and sharing it with others.
Fuck
:(
I have a lot to say, but for now two things. One, she organised health and life insurance for both of us, and increased them before each child. She's always been the sensible one. Two, having the kids to look after has made things incredibly difficult but I don't know where I'd be without them. Children constantly pull you into the here-and-now. It is so terribly sad that they'll miss out on their mother and she'll miss out on them.
My mother died at 42, of the effects of a fall. My father remarried after about a year and a half; how heavily the care of my brother and myself weighed in his decision, I can't say. I will say that it must have been five years before he could mention my mother's name without clearing his throat.
I wish that I had something useful to tell you, but really I don't, except that I'd urge you to think very carefully before moving where you now live, at least if the children are old enough to have formed friendships.
It was incredibly healing for both of us to be able to tell stories about those who had passed, without someone going "WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR DEAD SPOUSE?"
She's still one of my best friends, seven years later.
[1] http://ask.metafilter.com/125445/How-do-you-deal-with-the-un...
"June 16, 2009: my wife suddenly passed away at home, at the age of 34.
I was the one who found her, and she'd been gone for at least an hour if not more when I did.
We'd been together for eleven years. It wasn't perfect - what marriage is? - but things had been worse, and were in the process of finally getting better. Being best friends can help you get through the worst of times. I felt guilty that one of my thoughts was "at least now we won't fight over stupid crap that doesn't really matter".
For at least six months, I was on autopilot. I went to work, did what I had to do to get paid, and just. didn't. care. Ate a lot of fast food because I didn't want to expend the energy to go to the grocery store. I bought my cats food from Amazon because they'd deliver it to my front door.
Depression is a horrible thing; only now can I look back and realize just how bad it was.
It's not every day, but there are times when I think about joining my wife, but then that would just mean an end result of other people having to deal with the aftermath of my problems.
There are days when I get home from work and unlock the front door and walk into a quiet house, where I would give up everything I own to have someone there to give me a hug and sincerely ask how my day went and honestly care about my answer.
Something so simple as human touch, compassion, and companionship is worth more than anything else in the world. If you've got it, if you have someone that loves you - don't give that up. Don't waste it. Don't be petty or throw it away because of other little things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of life.
Some of us wonder if we'll ever get to experience it again."
It's actually no surprise that I ended up meeting, connecting with, and eventually marrying someone who was widowed in her 30s. From the day we met, on the loss of a spouse (to cancer in both cases), we understood each other on a level that others could not.
> for how a North American woman
> in the 21st century mourns her partner.
In many Asian cultures, we mourn for those who have passed for about 2 weeks. Then again 49 days later, and after that at least 3 a year (once on the anniversary of their death, another during the Tomb Sweeping Day [1], and another during the Lunar New Year.)
I feel with all these rituals, where family and friends will get together several times a year, it really does help the grieving process.
I also think this might be the biggest difference between collectivist vs individualistic societies. Where in collectivist societies, family and friends might sometimes feel overbearing because they involve themselves even in the tiniest details of your lives can be a lifesaver during times of extreme grief.
Additionally, there are traditional longer term mourning customs not cut hair/shave for 30 days, no celebrations for 3 months or 12 months depending whether the lost one is child/sibling or brother, erecting a tombstone no less than 30 days but no later than 1 year after passing, and additional prayers for those who pray. These, however, are practiced to much more varying degrees - none or almost none by the anti-religious secular, to lesser degree by most people, and religiously by religious people.
Many things will still bring you down, a tactless word by an unknowing personn, a movie where suffering is used as a plot twist to make it more real by some damned scenarist who doesn't know what he/she is speaking about, the rage when friends/familly keep forgeting your suffering...
What helped me and may help you: - knowing there can be light at the end of tunnel. Grieving can be kept in check, even if you cannot right now.
- sleeping is vital, everything is uglier when exhausted.
- not expecting non-grieving people to sympathize with you for a long time, even for short period, even in your family. There're very rare exceptions, but try to avoid fighting for sustained awareness, that's a lost bitter battle. Aim for "one shot compassion".
- linking with people who are grieving for the same reasons as you, through forums, non profit, etc. They will understand you and for once you won't need to retreint yourself. Having a free speech place is instrumental !
I am sorry for your loss. I truly am
I can't imagine living through losing my wife, but if I had to, or if she has to lose me, I hope the loss and grief aren't commingled with financial troubles, legal battles, etc.
I lost my partner of 6 years about 15 months ago when she was 26 and I was 29, completely unexpectedly. Many of the stages the OP touched on are things I see reflected through my experience, both over that period and even in the present day. The part that struck me most of all is the dissonance of having life move on, somewhat without you. Parts of your life keep progressing - your career chugs along, you get older, family events still occur, friends reach their milestones in life - but despite being involved in all that, a big part of you stays trapped in this stasis of time from the death.
I have barely cleaned my house and just sort of live around our collective belongings. I still do routines in my life that are completely unnecessary now but that make me feel like a little less of my life has been completely inverted and dropped on its head. I haven't dared wipe clean the bathroom mirror where she wrote a message to me in whiteboard marker wishing me a fantastic day and telling me how much she loved me a couple of weeks before her death. I don't quite know how I'm supposed to ever wipe that off, but I will have to one day because others will eventually need to use that mirror.
Another part that resonated was the need for an alone space during familial celebrations. Doubly so for me, my partner's birthday was Christmas Day. So Christmas has now gone from a celebration of family to a weird dual-day of trying to do that whilst also mourning her life. I find myself sneaking off for private quiet time now, and I suspect I'll always need that now.
There's so many changes I never would've imagined had you somehow been able to talk to more than a robotic shell of me just after her death. I'm sure there's many things I'll still have to face yet. I just hope I can keep clinging to the progress of life forwards because it takes a tonne of effort not to just lapse back into that purgatory of constantly wallowing in it. Equally, you have to give yourself time to grieve when you need it, which is unpredictable even still. The most effective method I've found for me so far is to remind myself that I have time to grieve but I must also not waste the life I'm lucky to have that she was denied, and to live it equal to her expectations she held of me. Anything less would be the waste of a second life.
Thanks again for the great article. It articulated so many feelings I've not been able to.
Also, it seems like she purposely cut off the ending how she did so it feels like there should be something more - just like one or two paragraphs missing.
(dialogue from Fred, nephew of Scrooge, in Dickens' _A Christmas Carol_)
https://mosaicscience.com/story/complicated-grief-bereavemen...
Maybe someone will find it helpful.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/...
just seeking discussion
On the other hand, my wife and I are in our early 40s on our second marriages and have only been married five years. There are a lot of things that we still want to do together and memories we want to build. After reading this article, I just wanted to turn over and hold my wife but stopped myself because I have a cold.
So much of this resonates with her own experience and what she's told me... it's as if the article was written by her.