No you are not the only one who felt all of this. The love was real. The confidence was real. It came out of the love you had of your wife, but it is always within you. And believe that if the right person comes along it will come out again as well. In fact, it will be better the next time because of the hardship you had gone through and the lessons you will continue to learn.

But you will need to become more expressive of your true feelings. More accepting of yourself. Put down the walls. There will be people who like you for who you are, and some don't like you. So what - you don't have to worry about the latter group.

I don't think the 43 yrs with my wife was a dream, but what I'm going through now is a nightmare. I think when your life is shattered so is your confidences and all your other strengths.

I don't know. Sometimes I'm convinced all this is impossible to figure out, so we just have to do the best we can to make sense of some it for ourselves. I was 27 when we married, she died 30 years later. Through law school, I was shy but a wild cuss. Alcohol was a crutch I used to get over my shyness. What I know about myself if I excel one on one. And in marriage, she made me. And I made her. We were a great we. When the rug is pulled out from under us, we kinda climb out of the devastation and take inventory. Hell, if you've got to rebuild from scratch, good to see what you've got to work with. And that is where a period of introspection, getting to know yourself and who this "I" is that I'm stuck with, if but even temporarily. We go so long part of the we, that we lose our self-identity. Our identity was our we. In that search, I went back to the only "I" that I'd known, pre-Scottie before age 25 (when I met her). That wild-cuss. That was my inventory of myself single. It's a different world today, and I am a more matured wild cuss :) All part of finding ourself. But there were parts of me in the we. Certain aspects of it all I did contribute which were different from her certain aspects. Then the biggy, who was I doing the contribution for? That's my stumper. Almost everything I did, I did for her. And likewise, she did for me. Now, I've just gotta do it for myself. I don't give a shit about doing for me. But I have to, because there is no one else that will. In your period of introspection, if you see aspects of yourself you don't particular care for, now is the time to change them. We can always change ourselves, just can't change anybody else. I've been going through a fine tuning. Got a long ways to go, and recognize myself as a work-in-progress, but I'm paying attention. Why do I do this? Why am I this way? What do I enjoy? What do I dislike? What are my passions? What breathes life into me? Like it or not, we are stuck living our life until our end comes. Life is a precious gift. Our choice whether to waste it or not. I know, early on all this is impossible. We have to get past the unbearable pain first. But then what? I sure the f**k don't know, but I'm crazy enough to just keep trying, day by day. And that is all any of us are promised. ~~~ Scottie

Thanks, guys. That helps and gives me lots to think about and work on. I guess I need to get out of the house and start looking at life and myself.

Well said, Scottie. There are people who I used to be able to tolerate, I choose to keep distance now. There are thoughts and decisions that I would take as a "we", I either have to change them in form, in priority, or to reverse them altogether. Shyness, in my books, is waiting for the other person to blink first, and this is a deliberate decision in itself. Not that there is anything wrong with being shy, but it is a choice and not a condition that you are being imposed on.