Widows & Widowers Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.
There's a widow on this very popular British series called Downton Abbey. She said something that I'd been thinking for the entire time since I lost my husband.
The widow said that her husband had changed her. That she'd been a strong woman before, but had changed during their marriage. It was a great love, but she recognized that she'd in some ways had been able to handle her life better before the marriage. In other words, better off. She's alone. He's gone. And now she's got to figure out how to go it alone.
This is so much my struggle too. I'd been independent before the marriage and loving it. Then I met the great love of my life and we had a happy life. I thought that after he passed I could just become the independent woman I once was. Instead, I found myself fretting over the most mundane task. And even if I could do it I felt no pleasure in doing it. No sense of accomplishment that I would have in the past. Before I would have felt happy that I hadn't needed a man. Not anymore.
Until I saw this episode I felt it was only me that felt that way. I even felt guilty. But I had seven years of a happy marriage and now for the rest of my life I must go it alone.
Am I the better for it?
The widow said that her husband had changed her. That she'd been a strong woman before, but had changed during their marriage. It was a great love, but she recognized that she'd in some ways had been able to handle her life better before the marriage. In other words, better off. She's alone. He's gone. And now she's got to figure out how to go it alone.
This is so much my struggle too. I'd been independent before the marriage and loving it. Then I met the great love of my life and we had a happy life. I thought that after he passed I could just become the independent woman I once was. Instead, I found myself fretting over the most mundane task. And even if I could do it I felt no pleasure in doing it. No sense of accomplishment that I would have in the past. Before I would have felt happy that I hadn't needed a man. Not anymore.
Until I saw this episode I felt it was only me that felt that way. I even felt guilty. But I had seven years of a happy marriage and now for the rest of my life I must go it alone.
Am I the better for it?
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Today I feel grateful. Grateful for my dog Blue (Blue Jean Baby Queen, Prettiest girl I've ever seen). Grateful I'm still kickin'. Grateful I'm finally taking responsibility for my health. Grateful I own my home. Grateful for good friends and neighbors who watch over me. Grateful to God for His everlasting love and patience with me. Grateful I survived the 10 years since my wife of 30 years...
"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
I certainly can't say it any better!! Yes, I have lost my husband, the love of my life, but, we had some great times, some sad times, some wonderful times, some stormy times, and the best of all three wonderful children together. So, yes, I am better for it. As we all know, each person sees things a little differently.
Only you know for sure about your own life.
Hugs, Joely
In "Jam and Jerusalem'", the character Sally, played by Sue Johnston, who has lost her husband a year before, gives her son, a doctor who has difficulty in relating to patients, a lesson in dealing with the bereaved by telling him how she still expects his father to walk into the room, and how there is a void in the house which she doesn't want to be filled, as then it would seem like he never existed. I first saw this a month after my wife died, and it made a great impression on me, and I found it comforting. I have seen it again several times since and it is still very moving.
I suspect that both scenes were written by someone who had actually lost a close relative; they could not have been so spot on otherwise.
My identity inventory, so speak, consisted of several columns, I do not recall exact wording, but something like "what has changed in me" "what is the same". I do remember distinctly the realization that my self identity loss was less than I had imagined before making that analysis.
It were as if I had found a part of me, that I was grieving before.
Another thing that helped me was seeing my friends who had known me for a long time, whose stories also contributed to a more realistic the self perception.
Sometimes putting things in perspective and using logic helps our confused and hurting mind to see more clearly that we are stronger than we think.
Hope this helps.
Roxanne
Which makes me think that many people expect us widows/widowers to recover quickly because that's all they show on television. Heck, on the Brady Bunch they never even talked about their late spouses and the kids acted as if they'd never existed. Fictional, but I sure wish it worked that way in real life.