You're very right. Some people go most of the their lives in horrible situations. Life is about looking back on your whole life - not just defining it by one part. If most of our lives has been happy/good then we should be grateful. My husband said one night before we even got married that he thought there was something wrong with him. (He had hepatitis C but it wasn't even discovered till yrs later.) If someone had asked before we got married if I would rather have him and have him die young or someone else and be married for 50 yrs I wouldn't have had to think for a second. The last few years were very tough but I choose to remember the happier times.

You can only speak for yourself. Some of us had far from ideal relationships.

Everyone grieves, whether the relationship was "blessed" or not.

Sometimes the grieving process is more difficult, more painful for those whose relationships were not the "ideal".

I have a friend who lost her husband before I did mine. They had a very rocky relationship with him drinking, threatening them, etc. Yet, she was very sad and blue. We agreed that it was the worst thing we had ever experienced.

Rob was my 2nd. husband so I always had the advantage of and appreciating the difference between a good and bad marriage. Good meaning being with someone who could actually be committed to a person, a relationship, the same set of values, a person who would compromise to make a safe and comfortable environment for people to share their lives not control each others, After my 1st. marriage I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. Rob taught me that I was loveable, likeable, strong, smart. That was everything my 1st. husband undermined in me. Maybe it just the combination of 2 people. I do think if my 1st. husband had died, and maybe when he does, I would feel just awful for him and what he missed. Right now I feel awful for me because of who I miss and missing us together but I do have the entire spectrum of emotional memories. Memories just aren't enough right now. Peace and Hug, Donna

I didn't have a perfect marriage and I usually refer to it as my "past imperfect." My husband and I stuck it out for 30 years through countless changes and disappointments. I had been grieving for the man I loved and married for years before he died, so I can't honestly say I've only been grieving for the 29 months since he died because it sure felt like grief for years before that. My grief since he died just became even more so because I have had to grieve the dreams I had of things finally come right between us - which they seemed to be on the verge of doing. Years of hard work and sacrifice all amounted to nothing. My grief has had more layers than an onion because of it.

I do try to hang onto whatever goodness I can out of it. Our friendship was perfect, but our marriage was far from it.

Grief is still grief when you lose someone you love - even if they don't love you back.

I had a horrible first marriage (except for my wonderful kids) that lasted 31 1/2 years, then I had a perfect marriage with Jim that (living together two years and married a little over four) was not nearly long enough. Would I have grieved the death of my first husband in the same way.....no but I would have grieved for the children's loss of their father. With Jim ....... everything was perfect. My grief is a billions of times harder. I was very blessed to have had that kind of love but, oh so sad, not to have had the gift of time to go along with it.

I did not marry my husband and father to our son until 4 days before his death-- it was one of his hospice goals. We were together-- on and off-- for 12 years. I grieve for the wasted times apart, the anger and defensiveness, and for finally, finally coming to terms with our committment and love for each other when faced with his death. I was his caregiver for the last year of his life and he used to tell me how "lucky" he was. I grieve for the good and loving people we were but just not always able to feel safe and show that love for each other. I do feel blessed as well as angry that we cheated each other out of such goodness.

To Acuriousfish. Of course I can only speak for myself. I wasn't implying otherwise. I was just commenting on an article, and this woman's desire to have a husband, even an abusive one. I am seeing this from two prospectives: the woman with a good marriage, and those who have come right out and said they evied her because her husband was dead.

I didn't mention it in my post, but last week I had a woman tell me that. She's my co-worker. She had a hellish marriage: threats, kids afraid of father, etc. I'm sure her feelings are valid to her as are yours. Let's face it, grief runs the gamut of a lot of feelings. One person can hardly figure out how to go another day. Another feels as if they've escaped with their lives. And then there is everything in between. People cannot help how they feel.

A person in fear for their lives due to a spouse is quite different from someone in a more loving or safe relationship.

hi, not entirely sure why I have been specifically addressed when many other have answered in a similar vein, but to clarify, my comment "you can only speak for yourself" was in response to "We were blessed to have the spouses we had"

I was not blessed.

I'd add that if the stats are to be believed that 50% of marriages fail it follows there will be a significant minority of bereaved partners whose relationships were not only not blessed but actually coming apart.

Then there are those people that discover things about their partners after their death.

I guess my point is that it can be slightly daunting for new members to come to this community where apparently the relationships were universally blissfully happy when that is not your experience. Certainly that was mine several years back when I came here and so I very shortly stopped posting. That and feeling excluded because I was an atheist.

But I suggest we leave it at that.

My husband and I were married close to 23 years and together for 27. Our marriage wasn't a perfect one either. The first years were great. He then injured his back at work which led to 2 separate back surgeries during a 10 year period, the loss of a family business promised to him since he was a kid, sold by his father right when he was on the brink of a 2nd surgery and facing certain loss of another very well paying job. The 2nd surgery they fused his back, making him unable to twist, bend, kneel, lift, stand or sit for long periods of time. He became very depressed, the second job let him go because he wasn't 100%. He was once a very happy, outgoing person. I watched him go downhill before my eyes over a 10 year period, there was absolutely nothing I could do for him he became very depressed. We had a lot of issues during that time. Like Cliffscat my marriage had many layers, complicating our relationship in the end. I tried everything. Losing him that night in a car accident was such a shock to me and the kids. His accident left us with so many unanswered questions, heartattack, mechanical failure in an old vehicle he was fixing for our son's first car? This has all complicated mine and our kids grieving. I still love him very much and I know that he loved us too. I had dreams of things one day getting better, that he would find a job that made him happy again, that he was once again contributing to his family financially, the physical limitations would always be there, but I just held out hope that we would find the happiness and spark that we once had. That was never to be again. I think the more complicated things get the more complicated your grief becomes. If I had it to do over again I would absolutely marry him again.

I would suggest that NOBODY had a PERFECT marriage! I often say mine was wonderful, my husband was wonderful, but that is a generalization, meaning that it was worth it to me and that I loved him, faults and all. I would never pretend that it was a fictionalized, story-book marriage because I don't think such a thing exists. And just a note about Martha's statement about greiving for what you could have had and didn't, I felt like that when I got divorced from husband #1, which is why I have always said that divorce is painful too. laurabp

Laura, you have helped me to understand that better with your comments on the subject of divorce versus death, and you changed the way I look at it. I am grateful for that and for your patience with people like me who didn't fully understand it. I know I was one of the ones who lacked that understanding ages ago when that topic showed up on the boards. So for my own lack of understanding awhile back, I apologize, and I thank you for helping me.

I know I should have divorced Cliff - but I just couldn't give up. I couldn't, I just couldn't - he was my everything and the father of my children. I tried to walk away, even filed for divorce in the 80's, but we reconciled with a fresh round of promises and even renewed our vows, and stuck it out another 20 years.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't do it all over again. And I know that it's practically taboo or sacrilege to say that here. It was a long time before I could even confide that my marriage wasn't perfect to a few close DS friends, and it took a lot longer before I had the courage to be more publicly open about it here. That doesn't mean I didn't grieve for Cliff - I did and still do.

I DO count the blessings that were within the relationship, and that is how I made peace with it. I will always be grateful for what good there was, and I envy those of you who had so much more.

Love and Hugs, Martha

I'm reading this thread, and appreciating so much everyone's very honest comments. Is there really such a thing as a story book marriage, between two flawed humans? And soulmate status? Hell, I put Joe up on that pedestal, and took him down so many times in the first months his urn was spinning...for me, it took 24 years of compromise, of growing to know and understand Joe, with many steps both forwards and backwards. Many tears along with the love, and many times wondering just who in the hell this person was (and I'm sure vice versa for him). But then I was Joe's third wife, and he had learned a little along the way - and so had I. He said to me, many times, "if you knew me when I was in my 20's, you would never have married me". We worked it out, through pure stubbornness, lol. Ok, sorry I'm rambling along here. I just want to put my thought out about this - grief, essentially, is grief. But how we grieve, and exactly what we're grieving for - that's something as individual for us as our relationships were. We reach the conclusions we do, through hindsight now - Hugs, Marsha

I think this is another of those myths that somehow develop. Some grief is more complicated than others. One woman in my support group has lost 3 husbands, one was an ex. Even though they were divorced when he died, she says she has grieved for him, almost the same as the other two.

I had a wonderful marriage - you know like "It's a wonderful life" type of life- lots of ups and downs and good times mixed with bad. I do not believe there is a perfect marriage. We all, when we are honest, had problems of some kind. But no matter the relationship, it's blasted hard to go thru this, maybe more so for those that have had more bad than good moments.