I had a Woman come up to me at my Husbands fumeral and tell me that she knows how I feel because she had gone through a very tramatic divorce. I responded with, at least your ex can still see his kids and Grandkids. I was very instalted and angry at the time. Now 9 months later as the shock is subsiding and the lonliness is over powering. I have lost friends I can see the comparisons.

I have had both. The loss of my husband to cancer was much...immeasurably worse than the divorce. One reason stands out...he still existed somewhere, to communicate or ignore...but alive.

Ive gone through both as well and the death of my spouse was so much harder. I took my divorce hard but got over it which I will never do with this. I will learn to live with this loss but never get over it.
Russ

I think until a divorcee goes through a death of a spouse, they believe the pain is equal. We can only speak from our own experiences. And I know no widow/widower who thinks the pain of their divorce even comes close.

A very close friend who's husband left and divorced her told me the same thing. She felt and still suffers from his rejection after many years. Personally I wasn't offended by her feelings. It's her honest pain. Engaging in who hurts more is foolish. People hurt. They need compassion. Sharon

Phyl - I've not been through a divorce, so I can't speak to that situation. But if anyone made a comparison to me, I think I would just say that our pain is our individual pain, and to compare it is senseless. With hindsight, I think people are just trying to let us know that they've been through a horrible situation, and want to relate. I say that now, but in the early days I'd want to rip someone's head off.....just sayin'. Marsha

Agree with everything Marsha said. There is no comparison.

My brother said something similar to me as well. He is twice divorced. I think that there is certainly trauma with divorce and have seen people do some pretty bizarre things after a divorce. But I do think that there is are significant differences between being widowed and being divorced, one of the big ones being what sassie stated--the children and grandchildren have not lost their father and grandfather. And for us, as spouses, I would rather be estranged from my husband but know that he is still a phone call away rather than have him forever unavailable to me as happens with death.

Your sister is an insensitive ass. Oh sorry, I was supposed to be nice about it - whoops...

Phyl - divorce is traumatic and painful but it is apples and oranges. I will give you the moment I recognized how different it is.

After Cliff died, I commuted with a girlfriend. She was trying to help me out, but she constantly complained about her new husband. I was deep in the early days of grieving. One day on the way home after work, she was busy bitching about her new husband when her ex-husband called and they got into a screaming match on the phone while she was driving me home. All I could think was, "Good grief - she's got TWO husbands she can scream at, I don't even have my one." Which was a silly and sad realization that as hard as she tried, there was no way she would understand what I was going through, until the day she was a widow, too.

I guess your sister recognizes her failures at marriage, and probably envies what you had. She doubtless doesn't recognize how hurtful it is to make those remarks.

Hang in there.

Love and Hugs,
Martha

I have not been divorced but the only thing I can say is that our spouses did not choose to leave us. But each person's hurt is theirs alone and I think saying one is worse than another is difficult except for those like Jewells who know both situations. The sudden death of my husband is the worst loss and pain I have ever felt.

I have had both. They both involve a lot of emotional pain. I didn't think I could hurt emotionally any more when my first marriage broke up. Little did I know when my second husband died.....there is some compatibles. The loss of my husband ,as Jewells1 said is immeasurably worse. Colleen

Sadly, I'm only 31 and have now experienced both. Death of a spouse is exponentially worse. I think people say things like that because they want to let you know that you're not alone in your pain. They mean well but I chalk it up to stupid stuff that well-intentioned people say.

My granddaughter recently divorced told me she had it worse than me, I was also divorced once, this is far, far, far worse.

I feel like I'm the expert since I divorced and than remarried my husband. When we divorce we loved each other but couldn't get alone. We remained friends, hanging out sometimes. My step-daughter asked if she was still my step-daughter. I replied that her father and I were divorced, but she was still my step-daughter. I was there for my ex-husband when he was sick and he was there for me. We remarried ten years later and eight years after that he passed away.

It was night and day different. Divorced meant a sense of relief--no more arguments. No more putting up with things. But widowhood is all loss. Everything ended for him. But not for me. I continued on this journey without the hope of reuniting in this life. Divorce meant the death of a marriage, but widowhood meant the death of everything we held dear. Friends, our friends no longer wanted to hang out with me. Our restaurant no longer held meaning. The places we used to enjoy, the songs we once loved died along with my husband.

We died and I lived on.

Truhal, your last words really hit me, "we died and I lived on". I couldn't have expressed it any better. It's exactly how I feel and I was never sure how to express it. Thank you.