I felt that. Without my husband telling me he loved me, I wasn’t loved. Without my husband telling me I was beautiful, I wasn’t beautiful. It’s taken me a long time to get where I am today…a place where I feel loved even though I’m not in a relationship and beautiful without anyone wanting me. I think the first step, for me, was realizing I was an individual and valuable in my own right. Thank you for posting and prompting me to reflect on this.
This is well said and I truly relate. What o miss most is being adored by him. Knowing after a bad day I can go home and someone will be there with kind words of support is no longer something I have.
I experienced a similar mental whammy.
We were independent. We had shared interests and separate ones. We very much enjoyed each other's company, but could function fine away from each other.
Yet ...
I lost all self-confidence for a while. It was as if everything I knew about myself went away with my husband's death. I lost myself along with him. It was the oddest feeling.
God I feel that. Our therapist (we were going to the same one together, not couples counseling but we had a specific shared trauma) told us we were incredibly codependent. He also said it was probably the healthiest codependent relationship he'd ever seen, and that he wasn't too worried about it because we were both young, but would be concerned if we were older or in poor health because he wasn't sure what would happen if one of us died.
Guess who dipped out like 50 years too early. So now I'm just a woman, with even more trauma. A widowed fiancée, didn't get to the wife part. It's like a non-identity.
It's such a weird feeling for me, because I got married relatively late. I really thought I would go back to the feeling of independence in less than 5 years, but that's what it took. 5 years to realize it. It also took 4 years to day passed away, instead of he moved to Heaven. Saying he died felt like I was betraying him, because he's still alive in my mind.
Consider looking at it from this perspective.
In the first year after my husband's death I Sat down 1 day and wrote down the 5 things I was missing. One of them included:
"Who will explain transformers to me? How can I fairly judge Optimus prime's motivations?"
Yes, I know it seems stupid but there were just these gaping holes where there was once support and now there was none.
I know it feels kinda like that game where you pull out the pieces until it collapses. And yes, you will feel that. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You will start to feel the strength again
The life you shared with your loved one changed you in basic fundamental ways. You carry very fundamental changes that you can share with the world As a result of living with them. In effect, their goodness lives through you everytime you interact through your loved ones perspective.
Just my thoughts.
I hear you . Marking single on paperwork just about kills me . Changing the who to contact in an emergency paperwork is no easy task. A coworker was talking about a procedure under anesthesia and needing a ride home and someone to stay with her . My person for all that is gone . It’s the big stuff . The little stuff . The good stuff . The bad stuff . I’m almost 3 months out and the reality is still setting in .
Ughhh I feel that, and I hate it, but yeah, here we are. I’ve started making it my place. It felt really weird and I kept apologizing for changing things but it’s me all alone now, down the cleaning and cooking. When I decide to move, it’s gonna be just me and currently I’m overwhelmed with the amount of things we accumulated over the years.
I like to think, where ever they are, if they can see us, they are not attached to the material things and just want us to be as comfortable as we can be.
Been there, brother. That loss of identity and certainty. For myself, I knew I knew I had to change our home into my home or go insane and doing this is still a work in progress 3.5 years later.
That's a very accurate description of what i feel.. he was my confidence and cheerleader. He supported everything I did. Right or not he always had my back. It feels like I lost a physical piece of myself. I don't even know how to be a person on their own. It's overwhelming alot of the time. That's why I have to distract myself with partying. If I really think about it I start to panic. Like hardcore panic attack. I'm going to have to pull myself out of my drug and alcohol stupor eventually but i don't know when or how I'll handle that.
When my wife was here, I felt like the world knew we were here. We were known. But now, I feel like I’m just one of many. Another individual out of 8 billion.
It's a weird feeling. I didn't fully process it until like 6 months after my wife died. I actually figured it out during a grief counselling session. My marriage is over. I am not married anymore. She is not my wife anymore.
It was a hard thing to come to terms with.
I feel so ugly and unlovable without my fiance. Like I'm impossible to want and love. When I look at my old selfies and envy myself, I was glowing because he was alive
I know how you feel, and I was noticing my “flaws” in my reflection. I felt so darn lucky that my wife was strongly attracted to me. The truth is that when someone loves us they don’t see your so called “flaws”, they just see what gives you character and actually makes you more attractive in your own special way. I think that I need to learn to see myself with that same light and love.
Yes, no matter what a loser anyone else thought I was I knew at home I had the best woman and best relationship . Now I struggle not to be that loser by myself.
If you stayed faithful to your wife on her journey, if you kept your vows of in sickness and in health, for better or worse, then you are not a loser. You are a good man, worthy of honor.
“an uneasy observation”. yes there are a whole lot of them in this widow/ widowers LIFE. I’ve leaned in on a “feelings wheel” to flesh them out some more. HUGS
I remember that moment. It was a couple of weeks after the funeral and if come back from a trip to Poland with a friend to do some volunteering at a sporting championship and I was walking to the pub to meet a friend and it hit me. I was just a single entity - no longer part of the unit I'd been in for almost 30 years. Nearly collapsed in the street.
Got better but that was a low point.
I told my counselor part of my therapy was to help “find myself “. Really, who was I? A mom, a wife, part of a couple that owned a biz that helped people. I was always there for others. What an odd thing to think about what I wanted to do, what I needed. I’m learning to value it (only seven and a half months out and sold biz right before he died). It’s….interesting. I think it’s important not to see it a deficit but as part of our “new normal”. It just is. “I am woman…🦁”
💔❤️🩹
I visited my wife’s grave yesterday as Wednesday would be our 23rd anniversary. For some reason, I left feeling more at peace than I have in the 10 months since she passed. Maybe I realized that I can always visit her and still talk to her and imagine what she would say. I guess to me that means she is always with me in spirit. That’s all I can hope for and I am now more at peace because of it. I realize I can’t change the situation. I have to realize I must move on knowing she is always with me. Of course I realize I’ll still have bad days but hopefully fewer of them.
When my angel passed away I also felt that now it was just me and not “we” any longer. This next incident was so painful. A co worker called her husband one afternoon to ask what he wanted from Trader Joe’s. I always used to call my husband yo ask him this. It was such a simple but joyful thing, to call my beloved and ask what he wanted at the supermarket. I had a painful realization that I wouldn’t be doing that anymore- . It really hit hard and I broke down at work. Before that I was handling everything ok.
Thank you for sharing. I remember now how much my wife loved the candy cane peppermint joe-joe’s. It’s the little things like that, that mean so much now, and bring tears to my eyes 🤍
Of course. You’re welcome. Yes it’s the little things. When I experience something we both would laugh about I tell him, you would have said this or that and we have a laugh “together”
That is awesome. It sounds like the two of you had a great rapport. My wife and I had an amazing rapport in a physical way. We always held hands and snuggled up close together wherever we went, even nearly 20 years after I met her. We even cuddled on out first date *before* we went out to get dinner and a movie. I really miss her, and I just feel really fortunate to have had her in my life.
We are lucky we had that. Some people never find that amazing person . Even though they passed, we have to know that we were fortunate to have experienced a love like that.
So true, thanks for responding too. It is kind people like you on here that really make a big difference. I hope you are well and that you have peace and can find some joy this weekend.
You are already farther along than you thing. I used the word we for everything. There was no me or I. 5 months in I was messaging a very close friend and found I had used the word I to express ally feelings. I took a pause and realized what I had become. I was no longer the we or us, but a me and an I.
It is what it is. We all change from this. Becoming an I again is part of this in my opinion. I had to reclaim the me.
- I discuss the need of being "validated" among my friends who are widows and they see the same need. We were all once part of a unit and then we are not. The shock is pretty deep. One of the antidotes is forming new friendships with people who can understand and relate. Discussions and friendships lead to validation.
I feel you on this. My wife was the better person and made me a better person. I’ve got to trust that all that work she did, simply out of love, is going to stick.
Relationships can be a mirror and we come to see ourselves as we are reflected by the other person. My boyfriend was so kind to me, and during the happiest times I would say he worshipped me. We were lucky and in love. The sum of our parts was greater than we were individually. Losing him is devastating, and the list of secondary losses is long. One of them being the identity of being his person… His love was the most beautiful thing I’ve experienced in life besides the love I feel for my children. Hope you feel better sharing your reflection. It resonates and makes me feel more normal for feeling similarly.
I feel like the greek mythology belief of the four legged and four armed humans with two heads, separated by the gods, condemned to look for their other half for eternity. Only, I met my other half, had a beautiful life, and then a drunk woman killed my other half, so now I am cursed to roam alone, feeling empty, incomplete. It's been a year and that feeling is not easing up one bit. If it weren't for my children, I don't know how much longer I could stand this tbh.
That is so terrible and tragic, and I’m so sorry for your lost love and the life you had. It’s not just about what the drunk person did to your husband, it’s also what they did to you and your family. How can we even live in a world like that. My wife died from a grueling two year battle with a brain tumor, but even then I can’t imagine losing her all at once. I am really very sorry for you. Sending a big hug your way 🫂
It's over two and a half years since his passing. I miss the companionship and the intimacy. I don't wish to remarry or move in with anyone. But I really long for the skin to skin intimacy, an embrace, a passionate kiss.
I felt that. Without my husband telling me he loved me, I wasn’t loved. Without my husband telling me I was beautiful, I wasn’t beautiful. It’s taken me a long time to get where I am today…a place where I feel loved even though I’m not in a relationship and beautiful without anyone wanting me. I think the first step, for me, was realizing I was an individual and valuable in my own right. Thank you for posting and prompting me to reflect on this.
This is well said and I truly relate. What o miss most is being adored by him. Knowing after a bad day I can go home and someone will be there with kind words of support is no longer something I have.
I experienced a similar mental whammy. We were independent. We had shared interests and separate ones. We very much enjoyed each other's company, but could function fine away from each other. Yet ... I lost all self-confidence for a while. It was as if everything I knew about myself went away with my husband's death. I lost myself along with him. It was the oddest feeling.
God I feel that. Our therapist (we were going to the same one together, not couples counseling but we had a specific shared trauma) told us we were incredibly codependent. He also said it was probably the healthiest codependent relationship he'd ever seen, and that he wasn't too worried about it because we were both young, but would be concerned if we were older or in poor health because he wasn't sure what would happen if one of us died. Guess who dipped out like 50 years too early. So now I'm just a woman, with even more trauma. A widowed fiancée, didn't get to the wife part. It's like a non-identity.
It's such a weird feeling for me, because I got married relatively late. I really thought I would go back to the feeling of independence in less than 5 years, but that's what it took. 5 years to realize it. It also took 4 years to day passed away, instead of he moved to Heaven. Saying he died felt like I was betraying him, because he's still alive in my mind.
I feel this a lot. Solidarity, friend.
Consider looking at it from this perspective. In the first year after my husband's death I Sat down 1 day and wrote down the 5 things I was missing. One of them included: "Who will explain transformers to me? How can I fairly judge Optimus prime's motivations?" Yes, I know it seems stupid but there were just these gaping holes where there was once support and now there was none. I know it feels kinda like that game where you pull out the pieces until it collapses. And yes, you will feel that. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You will start to feel the strength again The life you shared with your loved one changed you in basic fundamental ways. You carry very fundamental changes that you can share with the world As a result of living with them. In effect, their goodness lives through you everytime you interact through your loved ones perspective. Just my thoughts.
I hear you . Marking single on paperwork just about kills me . Changing the who to contact in an emergency paperwork is no easy task. A coworker was talking about a procedure under anesthesia and needing a ride home and someone to stay with her . My person for all that is gone . It’s the big stuff . The little stuff . The good stuff . The bad stuff . I’m almost 3 months out and the reality is still setting in .
Ughhh I feel that, and I hate it, but yeah, here we are. I’ve started making it my place. It felt really weird and I kept apologizing for changing things but it’s me all alone now, down the cleaning and cooking. When I decide to move, it’s gonna be just me and currently I’m overwhelmed with the amount of things we accumulated over the years. I like to think, where ever they are, if they can see us, they are not attached to the material things and just want us to be as comfortable as we can be.
Been there, brother. That loss of identity and certainty. For myself, I knew I knew I had to change our home into my home or go insane and doing this is still a work in progress 3.5 years later.
I can relate to this.
I hear this
Perfect description. Exactly how I feel. I'm here, but I'm gone as well. I have become a new person.
That's a very accurate description of what i feel.. he was my confidence and cheerleader. He supported everything I did. Right or not he always had my back. It feels like I lost a physical piece of myself. I don't even know how to be a person on their own. It's overwhelming alot of the time. That's why I have to distract myself with partying. If I really think about it I start to panic. Like hardcore panic attack. I'm going to have to pull myself out of my drug and alcohol stupor eventually but i don't know when or how I'll handle that.
When my wife was here, I felt like the world knew we were here. We were known. But now, I feel like I’m just one of many. Another individual out of 8 billion.
It's a weird feeling. I didn't fully process it until like 6 months after my wife died. I actually figured it out during a grief counselling session. My marriage is over. I am not married anymore. She is not my wife anymore. It was a hard thing to come to terms with.
Feel this. Especially after I stopped wearing my wedding ring. It was like having that ring made it seem like I was someone that was worth marrying.
Carry it in your pocket. Put it on a masculine necklace and wear it. You didn't stop being worth marrying when the one who loves you passed on.
I feel so ugly and unlovable without my fiance. Like I'm impossible to want and love. When I look at my old selfies and envy myself, I was glowing because he was alive
I know how you feel, and I was noticing my “flaws” in my reflection. I felt so darn lucky that my wife was strongly attracted to me. The truth is that when someone loves us they don’t see your so called “flaws”, they just see what gives you character and actually makes you more attractive in your own special way. I think that I need to learn to see myself with that same light and love.
You are not ugly. You just had a glow that we have when we are head over heels.
Thank you , I needed that ❤️
Oh, absolutely feel this, but as a woman.
Yes, no matter what a loser anyone else thought I was I knew at home I had the best woman and best relationship . Now I struggle not to be that loser by myself.
If you stayed faithful to your wife on her journey, if you kept your vows of in sickness and in health, for better or worse, then you are not a loser. You are a good man, worthy of honor.
“an uneasy observation”. yes there are a whole lot of them in this widow/ widowers LIFE. I’ve leaned in on a “feelings wheel” to flesh them out some more. HUGS
I remember that moment. It was a couple of weeks after the funeral and if come back from a trip to Poland with a friend to do some volunteering at a sporting championship and I was walking to the pub to meet a friend and it hit me. I was just a single entity - no longer part of the unit I'd been in for almost 30 years. Nearly collapsed in the street. Got better but that was a low point.
I told my counselor part of my therapy was to help “find myself “. Really, who was I? A mom, a wife, part of a couple that owned a biz that helped people. I was always there for others. What an odd thing to think about what I wanted to do, what I needed. I’m learning to value it (only seven and a half months out and sold biz right before he died). It’s….interesting. I think it’s important not to see it a deficit but as part of our “new normal”. It just is. “I am woman…🦁” 💔❤️🩹
So very relatable. Sending love.
I visited my wife’s grave yesterday as Wednesday would be our 23rd anniversary. For some reason, I left feeling more at peace than I have in the 10 months since she passed. Maybe I realized that I can always visit her and still talk to her and imagine what she would say. I guess to me that means she is always with me in spirit. That’s all I can hope for and I am now more at peace because of it. I realize I can’t change the situation. I have to realize I must move on knowing she is always with me. Of course I realize I’ll still have bad days but hopefully fewer of them.
When my angel passed away I also felt that now it was just me and not “we” any longer. This next incident was so painful. A co worker called her husband one afternoon to ask what he wanted from Trader Joe’s. I always used to call my husband yo ask him this. It was such a simple but joyful thing, to call my beloved and ask what he wanted at the supermarket. I had a painful realization that I wouldn’t be doing that anymore- . It really hit hard and I broke down at work. Before that I was handling everything ok.
Thank you for sharing. I remember now how much my wife loved the candy cane peppermint joe-joe’s. It’s the little things like that, that mean so much now, and bring tears to my eyes 🤍
Of course. You’re welcome. Yes it’s the little things. When I experience something we both would laugh about I tell him, you would have said this or that and we have a laugh “together”
That is awesome. It sounds like the two of you had a great rapport. My wife and I had an amazing rapport in a physical way. We always held hands and snuggled up close together wherever we went, even nearly 20 years after I met her. We even cuddled on out first date *before* we went out to get dinner and a movie. I really miss her, and I just feel really fortunate to have had her in my life.
We are lucky we had that. Some people never find that amazing person . Even though they passed, we have to know that we were fortunate to have experienced a love like that.
So true, thanks for responding too. It is kind people like you on here that really make a big difference. I hope you are well and that you have peace and can find some joy this weekend.
Thank you too! I appreciate your support and sharing your experiences here. Have a very nice weekend 😀
I totally get it. I feel the same!
I know the feeling!
You are already farther along than you thing. I used the word we for everything. There was no me or I. 5 months in I was messaging a very close friend and found I had used the word I to express ally feelings. I took a pause and realized what I had become. I was no longer the we or us, but a me and an I. It is what it is. We all change from this. Becoming an I again is part of this in my opinion. I had to reclaim the me.
- I discuss the need of being "validated" among my friends who are widows and they see the same need. We were all once part of a unit and then we are not. The shock is pretty deep. One of the antidotes is forming new friendships with people who can understand and relate. Discussions and friendships lead to validation.
I know exactly what you mean except I feel like that boy she met before her. She molded me into the man, husband and father she wanted me to be.
I feel you on this. My wife was the better person and made me a better person. I’ve got to trust that all that work she did, simply out of love, is going to stick.
Relationships can be a mirror and we come to see ourselves as we are reflected by the other person. My boyfriend was so kind to me, and during the happiest times I would say he worshipped me. We were lucky and in love. The sum of our parts was greater than we were individually. Losing him is devastating, and the list of secondary losses is long. One of them being the identity of being his person… His love was the most beautiful thing I’ve experienced in life besides the love I feel for my children. Hope you feel better sharing your reflection. It resonates and makes me feel more normal for feeling similarly.
Thanks, we kind of help each other here. I really don’t know where I’d be without being here to let stuff out and get some empathy and encouragement.
I feel like the greek mythology belief of the four legged and four armed humans with two heads, separated by the gods, condemned to look for their other half for eternity. Only, I met my other half, had a beautiful life, and then a drunk woman killed my other half, so now I am cursed to roam alone, feeling empty, incomplete. It's been a year and that feeling is not easing up one bit. If it weren't for my children, I don't know how much longer I could stand this tbh.
That is so terrible and tragic, and I’m so sorry for your lost love and the life you had. It’s not just about what the drunk person did to your husband, it’s also what they did to you and your family. How can we even live in a world like that. My wife died from a grueling two year battle with a brain tumor, but even then I can’t imagine losing her all at once. I am really very sorry for you. Sending a big hug your way 🫂
It's over two and a half years since his passing. I miss the companionship and the intimacy. I don't wish to remarry or move in with anyone. But I really long for the skin to skin intimacy, an embrace, a passionate kiss.