Guilt is a terrible emotion/feeling, it can tear your insides apart.
I think everyone goes through the guilt part in the grieving process, it's all natural. I did and I still have to work through it. this I think just like every other emotion we have will take time to process and get past it. I found that it really doesn't matter what anyone else tells you it is just something you have to deal with, because it doesn't help me when people tell me you shouldn't feel guilty. The people we lost are most of the time the ones who make decisions that can contribute to their passing and sometimes we can't change that. When we have that guilt burden we are the only ones who can come to terms with it and we need time to do that. I am still working through it and over time ( it will be 3 months feb. 10th) I am starting to not think about it constantly like I was the 1st few weeks.
Just be kind to yourself and hopefully you will also have fewer thoughts of it as time goes by.
Take care
Peace and Love to you
Laurie

Every relationship has its ups and downs. I think everyone here if they got a do over would do certain things completely differently. I also have regrets but know my wife knew I loved her with all my heart. John knew the same thing. Be gentle on yourself. Our spouses were human and so are we. Gerald

When Sharry passed suddenly, I kept searching for something, anything, that could have been done to save her.Did I miss something that day? I spent most of the day working outside. What if I had been with her more that day, would I have seen some sign that this was coming? At one point I even wondered if I made our coffee too strong that afternoon. I learned from a fellow widower that this searching to assign blame, is normal. The brain tries to control an uncontrollable situation. We can't bring them back, so the only action available to our desperate minds, is to look for reasons for the unreasonable. After I realized that bad things happen with or without cause being determined, then I could let go of the what if scenarios. Your loving husband passed, not because of one bad moment between you,but because he had a medical issue, just like Sharry. As much as we would like to change what happened, we have to let go of that part of it. No purpose can be served by this, and you don't deserve to have that extra and unreasonable burden upon you. You were so right when you said he wouldn't want you to feel this way. You are a good person, loving mother, and loved your husband dearly, and he knew that right to the last day. He knows it in Heaven, right now.
Prayers for you and your children:
Robert

it's difficult to stop your mind wandering back to select memories where you would have done something different.

I am sorry for your struggles! However, no matter what you would of said or done differently in my opinion would not have changed the outcome. You see neither you or him made his choice to pass away, God did and would have no matter what was said or done. So please try to move on from that thought and remember the happy ones my friend!

Karatxmo I do hope you are able to move past this moment of guilt. I do understand though because those moments of 'if only I had done this' can mess with your heart and mind.

They sneak up on you so fast it takes your breath away. I wish you peace. Be blessed.

Geminii74

Hey girl, nothing is as simple as our mind's try to make it! ( btw, I can call u girl because you are younger than my youngest kid :) )

If I was going to be a good sport I would validate your justified feelings go guilt and tell u it's not your fault. But everyone else already did the supportive posts, so I am free to suggest you look at it differently:

As the other friends have posted above me, changing the past, even if you knew the aftermath, is not something under our control.

Ok, let's take your guilt and examine it with a little bit of uncertainty...

For the sake of argument, let's say you were an expert in human relationships ( btw, you have to get a masters degree for that ) and detected John had a problem and that night you were just trying to understand him and did not react like you actually did. Well what if he did not open up to you then? You don't know if he would have. Come on, he trusted you like no other, and yet he hid this from you. It's possible that he never would have come clean with you. So are you going to blame yourself for his action????

I'm saying this you you because that is what I had to do when my daughter died in the accident. I had a lot more control over preventing her Death than you did for John. I could have just not allowed her to take the trip out of town to visit her sister that weekend and presto no accident. So was I not ever going to let her drive again?

As others have said, you don't control anything other than your moral choices ( well, maybe I'm the one who said that, lol ).

An interesting movie about this is the Time Machine, 2002 version.


Stop reading here to avoid spoilers if you want to see the show :)))

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This guys fiance is killed and he goes back in time to save her. But ultimately he can't change her fate, she dies of something else he did not see. The thing is that he can only change the future, because it is subject to the choices he now has :). ( lol, succeeded in ruining a perfectly good movie )


Bob

As many members said, it is a part of grieving trying to assign the blame for the the tragic outcome.
I know your feelings intimately, because my husband died at young age, so there is that thinking that it was preventable. First of all, it is not our calendar, when we will be gone is a mystery.

Secondly, we are autonomous beings, no matter how close we are to other people, we make our choices, feel what we feel, act on our own volition. There is limit how much other people can influence our thoughts, decisions, and actions.

Lastly, I quote my therapist "a woman very often feels and acts motherly toward her husband, consequently, taking a parent role upon herself , she views his success and failures as her own. Therefore, losing her husband makes her feel as it was her failure. You were not his MOTHER, but a wife, and as a man he was supposed to hold and protect you.
This sobering thought helped me to separate feelings of loss from guilt.
Hug

Those here who know my story know that Sam and I lived apart, but were working toward the day that I could move into the beautiful house he bought for us. The fact that I was not there when he died (his brother was) has haunted me. I keep thinking that if only I had worked harder to make the move sooner, maybe things would not have unfolded that day the way they did. Surely I would have been out there working on the pool with him when he fell.

In my heart, I believe that we cannot alter God's plan, even if the plan sometimes brings us unexplainable pain. But there are days ... like today ... when these unreasonable thoughts occupy our minds. My thoughts and prayers are with you, Karatxmo.

I blame myself for the four or so years when I wasn't very physically healthy. It took a while to get a good diagnosis, then I had to get well, and live with what I couldn't change. And, the time I wasted trying to reconcile with our son. I could have had more time with Bob. His cancer was such a bomb shell, and it went so fast. I was just turning a major corner, and doing things. If I could only have those last years to do again. I suppose we all would like a do over. I said that over and over the first two weeks after he died.

It is very hard to make these thoughts go away. I had been moody with Wayne for a few months because we were together almost 9 yrs but not married yet. Even though we had built a house and raised a dog i had finally told him i was going to move if it wasn going to happen. i had no intention of ever leaving i was a fool for him, bu i wanted to give him that push. The day I lost him he had called me at work on his way home just to see how my day was going. He did this every day, but his particular day I was really busy and could not talk. I told him I'm sorry but I'm really busy today, and I would just talk to him when I get hm. We said I love you and that was the last time I spoke to him. When I got home he was on the bedroom floor and I had been a few hrs too late.
I can't stop hating myself for letting him think I was preparing to leave and for not taking 5 mins to talk to him that morning.