I understand. I m also really lonely but the only company i want is gone. This is the hardest period of my life and i realized this morning it is the defining chapter of my life. The cruel irony of it being that these incredibly important lessons i am learning, that i feel are changing me, cant be shared with the only woman i would want to share them with.
I dont believe there is any hurt like this hurt. There just isnt. Its a very lonely and heavy time period for all of us here. We are all missing someone we loved completely and we have no one to share anything with anymore.
it does feel like a double life at times. Either people avoid us or we avoid them.
we mourn and we cry and we talk outloud in dark rooms.
I understand.

I am so sorry you are stuck in this boat with us...I lost my husband very suddenly less than 7 months ago. I think the hardest thing in the beginning was looking at the future and seeing just darkness, and loneliness. If you can, it helps to just try to focus on today - or the next hour..or even the next minute. Those are hard enough at the beginning, but not so overwhelming as the next 40 years. Please visit here often - we all do understand.
Hugs,
Stephane

I'm so sorry for the loss of your husband. Your statement that the comfort of others is more important than yours is admirable, but you MUST take care of yourself. At first we survivors go on adrenaline, and then the floor caves in because we don't have any reserve to carry on with the facade. Sometimes we have to veer off course, no matter what others may think. They either will understand, or will eventually understand, that the loss is excruciating and one doesn't get over it in a matter of days, months, etc. Our timetables are not the timetables of our friends or family who still have their loved ones with them.

I understand about not wanting to burden your friends with the pain that you are dealing with, but please know that it is perfectly normal to be lost in a world that is totally out of sync with what you are experiencing on a daily basis.

I hope you visit and post frequently on Daily Strength. The people here understand and are eager to be your friend while you begin this journey. Waiting until we see a glimpse of hope for our future is one of the most difficult trials you will be put through. There is a light at the end of the dark tunnel, but we all stumble along our pathway until it comes into view. It is there, we just can't see it at times. Hold on with the tenacity of a pit bull, and that light will show itself when you least expect it. TJ

Please continue to come to the forum and pour out your feelings. I've done it many times and I've always met with kindness and compassion. You will too. This is not fun what we are going through and I don't understand any of it.

I think that's the most helpful part of DS, we can discuss the innermost feelings and know for sure that we are understood. It's SO hard, like you said, trying to be two people. The one that tries to keep up with the rest of the world and the one that wants to crawl in a hole and hide.

I was very very happy being married to my husband. Was it perfect? - no, - was it good? - you betcha! He was the center of what I thought, what I did. He was the one the kept my world moving. Now it feels like I hit a wall, the impact is overwhelming and left me shocked forever.

No one understands this pain unless they have been here. It's so lonely. So much of my life ended too. When he died, he took away the sun and left only gloom. I only want to be with him, not try to become a new person, find a new normal. I have come to hate that term - new normal. What is normal about feeling like this?

Yes I understand how you feel. I don't find any comfort in bringing the people around me down so why bother they can't comfort me anyway. I have the luxury of not having to deal with people more than I have to, so I don't. It is 11 weeks today and I can't imagine another week let alone 40 years so I still go one day at a time. DS is where we need to be to vent and we are permitted to feel the pain and express our grief along this horrible journey. I loved my husband, Rob, he was the center of my world and I, his. I know it will be a reinventing of myself but I can't deal right now. Peace and Hug, Donna

It does amaze me how I can do the same things that you mentioned every day over and over and everyone would say "Oh, she is doing fine." But like you they wouldn't want to follow me into my house or see me when I crawl in my bed at night. I have begun to think that is what most of us do to just make it through. I agree with you about not wanting to be alone for the next 30 years yet on the other hand I know I can survive alone. Just the other night I came to the realization that my life will never be the same as it was. I need to make it something different and new..what I haven't figured out yet and without my husband I know it will be so very difficult. He brought out the best in me and I in him. Venting is good and that is why we are here...hugs

I went back to work 2 weeks after the passing of my husband.I thought it was to soon at that time but as I look back I see where it was the best thing. Although I had trouble staying focused and sometimes I couldnt stop the tears when my co-workers would speak to me I did find there strength helped me get through the days. In the evenings I wandered through the house alone for no reason. The weekends was the hardest,couldnt hardly wait for Monday so I could get back to work and be around other people.
With each passing day I realize I was healing in a small but gradual way. I couldnt see it as much then as I can now.
It didn't take long before the people we knew as a couple stopped dropping by or calling. I found this to be so sad. And wondered if they were really ever a friend.
A new life emerges without ever asking for it.

I am so sorry that you feel this way, but can say to you honestly, that I understand your feelings completely. When we are coming to the home we used to share with our husbands, and we realize that he is no longer there, it is indeed very painful. Mine has been gone 10 months, and the minute I get into the car and leave the office, I cry, usually the entire way home. You are not alone.

There is such wonderful support and caring here at DS. You can come and pour out your heart, soul, and everything in between.

Strength to you.
lespreludes

I have terrible problems coming home to an empty house, knowing he isn't here and he never will be again. I'm a basket case by the time I walk in the door. I think I mostly pull it off at work, though now and then somebody will pop in my office unexpectedly and I know I have tears in my eyes. None of this sounds crazy to me at all. Don't let others dictate how you feel or the path you take in healing.

Yes the next 40 years is the scariest part of this whole nightmare...I just can't bear the thought of all that loneliness for the rest of my life. I hate the thought of having more years left without him than I had with him. And I sure don't even want to consider anyone else but him, so I guess loneliness it will be.

Sometimes when asked that never ending question, I just want to say, "a miserable wreck, can't stop crying, can't find a way to grow my missing half back, have trouble sleeping, mad at the world, can't concentrate, stay in a fog day and night, cry myself to sleep......" But, like you, I know all they really want to hear is "fine" so that's what they get.

Come to terms with the situation??? I don't know if we ever will or not. I don't want to come to terms, move on, get on with life, carry on or any of those other things people tell us to do. But I have came to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do to change the fact that he is gone, so I have to accept it and adapt to it.
Best wishes to you

I'm sorry you're going through this - and I do understand it. We all get to be so darn good at fooling everyone around us that we should get an Academy Award for the acting we do! None of us can change what has happened to us, but somehow we have to find a way through it. I know the fear of looking at an unending empty road - one of my grandmothers lived to 108! the thought of 50+ years on my own and suffering in so much pain was overwhelming.

I had to put that part of it - the worry about the future - to one side. I had to start concentrating on today, doing what was in front of me so to speak. I got used to saying "fine" to my coworkers, but I would go to counseling and let it all out there. If you are not already doing so, and if you can, I would definitely recommend getting counseling - it can really help.

Don't look at your life as nothing but a bleak horizon. It's not. It just feels like that right now and, yes, may for some time, but that's not the reality. Try to take it one day at a time. None of us knows whether we have a tomorrow or not - a lesson brought home harshly by our experience of loss - much less whether there is another 40 years for us.

The future holds unknowns - but some of those unknowns are good unknowns, just as our pasts had both good and bad.

Try to release your worry about the future - sometimes journaling - writing it all out - helps. One day at a time, one moment at a time if you have to. Hang in there, you can get through this.

Love and Hugs, Martha

I am sorry for your loss. This is a good place to say what you really feel. Nobody wears the mask any better than me. So I do understand. My beloved husband, Skip, has been gone 6 months and 3 days. I work at a large church and spend most days telling my friends and the members a lie, "I'm ok". I feel so hollow and still lost and alone. I sleep and eat little now and when I'm alone I cry so very much. So don't beat yourself. They tell me it will get better with time. I pray that that time comes soon for us all. But for now - "I too wear the mask". Keep coming.
Neicy

I wish I had stock in Kleenex. It is hard to believe how much I go through on a daily basis! Looking at another 40 years is something we will have to do the same as we did for the first 30+ years before our spouses passed away. One minute or one hour or one day at a time. I can get through a 24 hour period easier than 350400 hours. :)

((((HUGS)))) Karl

At 2 yrs. I don't believe time heals all wounds but it eases them. I still miss and love my DH terribly and still have those days or moments, but am able to dust myself off and get back up sooner. I can't let myself think very far down the road now. Just day to day and I don't think that will ever change. During the days of DH's illness I worried so much wanting him to get better when I knew it was not to be. I would tell myself, "it is what it is so do what you have to", just to get me through those days, along with anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications. After his death this saying did me no good at all. In the earlier days after he passed away, I grieved terribly and worried about anything and everything that could happen in the future with him gone until I almost drove myself crazy. I'm a worrier anyway so it was awful. DH was not a worrier and said I worried enough for 4 people so he didn't have too. I have found, for the first time in my life, I can no longer worry like I always have. I just don't have the energy to do that anymore and after 60 yrs on this earth have finally realized it does me no good and doesn't change anything. I just had to be hit in the head to realize it. With time, I just got tired of being tired and upset constantly. Now that I've been on this road awhile I can sometimes say to myself, it is what it is so deal with it. But it is just so sad. I'm rambling so I hope this makes sense. Take care.