Does it get easier?

GrannySomerset I missed in my old house all my husband's files all round his chair. He used to sit with his laptop when they came out and have a pile of files in the hearth and round his feet. Even when we had the study build he didn't always use it.

I hated ironing and after he died that's what I missed ironing his shirts . He brought so called in indestructible socks because he wore steel top capped shoes but I still darned them as with his big toes always made holes. But I did find that relaxing doing that.

I thought it was the children who made the mess but it was my husband and to this day I miss nagging him to tidy up. In the study everything was filed in order in his 2 filling cabinets. But downstairs looked like a bomb had hit it. Happy days😟.

A year after he died I decided the garage and loft needed clearing out . The children said their dad's legacy was rubbish. We had 3 medium skips for all the bits of piping and wood he kept just incase why I will never know as they were to small for anything . Even found the toilet seat that was on when we moved in 1985. We had replaced it the same day we moved. Ended up with boxes and bags of things for charity. Wasn't until I was sorting out to move and my son cleared out the loft did I realise how much stuff I had kept. I sent boxes to charity without looking in then as they had been up there that long I didn't need them.

Funny enough it's all the silliest of their habits that you miss the most.

MOnica anything can trigger a memory and can overwhelm you with grief but crying helps . You will always love and miss your sister. That's the worst thing about grief the person you are grieving over has missed so much. And you find yourself wanting to say look at that or you want just to talk to them or ask their advice . But you can't . You will always have a hole in your life where your sister should be. But I bet you can think of things that made you laugh together and times when you had fights over things both things will make you smile. I still talk to my husband out loud everyday as it helps me even after 20 years. There is no time limit on grief . It's how much they have missed makes it worse. But you still have your memories of your sister and they are precious.

Thank you Whiff

I’m with you Su22 where is everyone? I’ve had little visitors call me since the death of my husband well over a year ago

I’ve just read your poem NanaDana and cried my eyes out.

I too have only just read this, sorry Easter is long past now.

Tomorrow it will be seven months since my husband died, and I recognised all too well what you mean when you say you can count on one hand the people who have stayed in touch. I very much fear that will not change for either of us.

I have forced myself to go out - to start with, once a week, whether I felt like it or not. Forced myself (and believe me it took force) to at least go for a half-an-hour's walk every day, and to make some kind of conversation with people I saw in the shops or on my walk.

I would say, there are days were it is a little easier, and days where the whole horrible feeling of loss overwhelms you again.

I think it has to - we are not repairing something broken, after all - we are making a new epoch of our lives and a very different one from the one that ended so brutally when our husbands died.

I find practical work helps a little - to start with all the paperwork, and now that that is finished I am painting window frames while the weather is dry and warm enough to do so - not because I enjoy the work, but because it has to be done.

Perhaps like me, you can find a group you can join - my choice and possibility is country dancing - yours will no doubt be something quite different, but doing something you never did with your husband is, for me at least, easier than trying to do things we did together ,without him.

Hello Foxygloves,
Thank you for your post, and I am sorry for your loss. I just had to write because what you said was so much like what I could say. I too put a smile on and pretend everything’s ok but it so is not. The pain I feel is unbearable and doesn’t seem to ease. I can carry on with my life and put a brave face on but inside I’m screaming. It’s been four years (today, actually) and I am missing him just as much, if not more, than I did after that awful night.
I carry on for my family, who are all amazing, but inside I really just want to curl up and die.

Crossstitchfan 4 years is in what I call early years of bereavement. I found it took 10 years to get used to my husband dieing. I did all that put on a brave face and just got on with things when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and shut out the world out unfortunately you can't. I was 45 what did I know about being a widow . I thought foolishly I had to be brave for everyone else. How I wish I had someone to tell me not to.

Our children where 20 and 16 and they wanted me to go too a bereavement group as they thought it would help me. So I went it was useless. They were 20-40 years older than me . The group was run by a woman who had done a 12 week course and was married. They were nice people but they didn't understand how I felt.

Luckily my children never asked me if it helped just was it ok. I don't tell lies simple fact is a forgetful and you can see it on my face. The children left home 2 years later I wanted them to go . Wasn't until 2019 I could move over 100 miles to live closer to them .As I had both parents and mother in law to look after and my mom was the last to die in 2017.

It's been 20 years for me and as the years have gone by the grief gets worse but the love for my husband has never wavered. Like me you probably think of all the things he has missed.

You may have found this some people expect you to get over your grief in 6 months . But there is never getting over grief for the other half of yourself. It's the price we pay for love. But I look on it this way we are the lucky ones we found the other half of ourselves and they found us and together we made a whole . My husband like yours was the only person who knew the real you and you him . The moment they took their last breath your present and future died with them . We always have the past and no doubt you had planned for the future. Making a new present and future on your own is so hard. I have screamed and shouted out loud this shouldn't be my life. I talk out loud to my husband everyday day I have blamed him for dieing ,swore at him for leaving me but I realised it's normal as in the early years I thought I was wicked . But it's not it's part of grief. But when even now I get overwhelmed with grief it just hits me out of the blue I don't fight and have a good cry which makes me feel better . If I have a rant at him I see him with that stupid grin on his face and it makes me smile and imagine him saying feeling better.

I still hate the empty side of the bed. The moment my husband took his last breath at home with me and the children. Our home just became a house .

I didn't have a home again until I moved in 2019. Our house even though it was mine after he died was still ours ,still the children's bedrooms and I heard him drop his briefcases in the porch every night at 6. 30 and heard him shouted hello Whiff and I would reply hello Hubs then he would grab me and kiss me.

I lost his voice the moment he died but still hear how he phrased things. Have lots of pictures but nothing with his voice one . He died in 2004 aged 47.

When the rage and anger hit me I didn't realise it was part of grief . I still feel that rage and anger but I use it to get me through everyday especially all the things that have happened since his death. I was born disabled and yet it was my fit healthy husband got cancer and died .

All you are feeling is the price we pay for love as hard as it is we are the lucky ones to have had that love . Some people live their whole lives and never know that love . As without that true love we wouldn't feel grief it's the price we pay. And it's a heavy price. But our lives would have been the poorer without it.

Please don't think you have to be brave as you only hurt yourself I learnt that the hard way. Whatever you are feeling let it out scream,shout,swear hit a pillow anything that makes you feel better. I don't mean get blind drunk as that's not the answer. If it had been an option for me I would have done that in the early years but on to many tablets and couldn't drink on them.

I am an atheist but what gives me comfort is my husband's DNA is in the children and part in my 5 grandson's . He lives on in them .

You know what your husband would want for you so use that feeling . My husband made me promise some things and I have kept everyone but until I moved I couldn't live my life the best way I can. And I live my life to the full but the grief is still there but I would hate to lose it. I have made a new present and future but it's hard . But it's because of my love for my husband has made it me able to do it.

Don't be hard on yourself if you want to shut the world out and have a good cry or a rant do it. Trying to be brave only hurts you. And I am sure your husband wouldn't want that . I can't say as the years go by the grief will lesson as I have found it gets worse but you learn to cope in your own way. So don't be hard on yourself and expect the grief to stop. Like I have said grief is the price we pay for love . The one person in the whole world who was out other half and we where theirs . We were lucky to find that and that's why it's so hard when we lose it . Loving someone so much and it's not the big things but all the little things you miss the most a kiss ,cuddle ,holding hands,being in the same room even if you don't speak, the

I have tremors in my hands and pressed the button.

sound of him coughing ,laughing and even farting. All the things we took for granted.

Time does not heal or lesson the love or grief but teaches you to cope. But grieve still can be overwhelming just don't fight it. Hopefully one thing I have said helps you . But this is just my experience. 💐

Sending hugs and flowers to all widowed ladies on here

How blessed you all were with good solid marriages and that is something wonderful but makes the passing of a spouse so much harder.

I’ve re-read this thread that started 6 months after my husband died. It’s gransnet at its best.
I’m now 19 months since my husband’s death. I’ve had a tough year, tripped over my lab’s lead in February and fractured my shoulder. Awful pain and imobility, sling for 6 weeks, no driving for 9 and still restricted to short distances. I’m scheduled planned abdominal surgery mid June. I’d like the universe to let me have a few quiet non trauma/drama minths please

I’ve remembered Su22 OP in recent weeks, it being almost 2 years but still grief can bowl me over. Music, one of those IPhone memories that pop up uninvited and take you to happy times before he died. I count my blessings of which there are many. Today the sun is shining, even in North Manchester. I’m off to support my 8 year old grandson who is a keen Sunday morning Park runner. Then I’m taking him and his 5 year old brother to an adventure playground while their mum runs Pendle hill in training for the three peaks.
Those of us with good marriages have indeed been blessed though the absence is huge 💖💙

No. I don't think that things get easier. I think we get harder and learn to cope. The talent is to keep a smiling face and not be that grumpy, cursing old woman that you saw when you were a child. That's my goal. I don't want to be that person. I want to feel grace and happiness when everything is falling down around me. Someone has got to do that!

It’s 4 years since my husband died from early onset dementia. We met when I was 15, he 17 so my whole adult life was shared with him. There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think of him, but how he was, not how he became in those last awful months. When he died I felt relief after watching him lose every bit of the personality I had loved and the guilt was horrible as was the anger at losing our hoped-for retirement together.

I’m reminded of him every time I can’t unscrew a lid, lift something heavy, need pictures put up, need advice, worry about the car, in fact all those ‘little’ things I took for granted when he was here.

It was a couple of years before I could return to the places we loved, they were so heavily laden with glorious memories. I’m reminded of part of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay which sums up the dilemma perfectly:

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

It does get easier over time, but I think it’s more about the gradual adjustment to a new world on my own than in the grief dissipating. I’ve had to learn to live with it, to live around it. I know people who find comfort from their families, their pets, their friends, but I’ve found the natural world a huge comfort. My garden and the birds and the foxes who visit and are almost on first-name terms have been my consolation. They give me hope.

That bit of poetry was so moving Blackwit. I shall copy and keep it. I think it illustrates the panic of grief so well.

Bumping this again as old threads at top of the list as people may get comfort here.

Blackwit

It’s 4 years since my husband died from early onset dementia. We met when I was 15, he 17 so my whole adult life was shared with him. There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think of him, but how he was, not how he became in those last awful months. When he died I felt relief after watching him lose every bit of the personality I had loved and the guilt was horrible as was the anger at losing our hoped-for retirement together.

I’m reminded of him every time I can’t unscrew a lid, lift something heavy, need pictures put up, need advice, worry about the car, in fact all those ‘little’ things I took for granted when he was here.

It was a couple of years before I could return to the places we loved, they were so heavily laden with glorious memories. I’m reminded of part of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay which sums up the dilemma perfectly:

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

It does get easier over time, but I think it’s more about the gradual adjustment to a new world on my own than in the grief dissipating. I’ve had to learn to live with it, to live around it. I know people who find comfort from their families, their pets, their friends, but I’ve found the natural world a huge comfort. My garden and the birds and the foxes who visit and are almost on first-name terms have been my consolation. They give me hope.

I absolutely love that poem and keep it with me.. it completely expresses how I feel.. grief doesn't really go away we just learn to live with it I find..

Blackwit that poetry is lovely. I imagine everyone here was like me at first you counted in days hours and minutes ,then weeks ,months and you get to a point you count in years. But it's takes everyone a different time frame. Grief can overwhelm at the oddest times you think you are okay then wam it hits you still does me after 20 years.

I can't and don't want to go places I went to with my husband as those memories are precious and they are our past together. I really rarely say late husband when taking about my husband as he is still with me everyday in my heart and mind . I say he died or is dead. As the only time he was late in our 29 years as a couple was his funeral. The funeral ahead of us ran over and I said dad would hate this and the kids and me laughed . Which enabled us not to cry during the funeral . So many people came it was standing room only .But it was true he hated queuing. Remember in our courting days we where going to the ideal home exhibition in Birmingham after waiting half a hour and the traffic hadn't moved so he turned around and we went to Wales for the day. Another time in the early years he wanted to take me out for dinner but didn't book and there was a 30 mins wait so we had pie and chips from chip shop in the car. We had a favourite chip shop that sold Fleur de Lye pies 😋. That's a blast from the past as they went out of business . But we met in 1975.

Funny how thing's just pop into your head . But they make me smile.

Iam64 I hope you are fighting fit ready for your operation. I have found you probably have to especially after your accident and will find after you op the only person you want is your husband. I had never been frightened living on my own until I had jaundice in 2017 caused by 2 tablets I had been on since 1992. I needed my husband so much . For once I needed someone with me 24/7 and there was no one . I have never felt so alone or felt such fear and didn't know if I would wake every morning for 5 months . I hadn't cried so much or for so long since my husband died . I never want to feel like that again . It made me realise how alone I was . (The children lived over 100 miles away had jobs and my son had a baby . )A feeling I hadn't felt before as I always felt my husband was with me. But felt totally abandoned. I wasn't ready to die then or now. I had always looked after others . I couldn't get any help from hospital or GPs . I tried to get a short term benefit so I could pay for some one to come in and do some help me by doing housework ,cooking me a meal even just making me a cup of tea. But as I had been fighting for disability benefits since 1988 when our GP told me I was disabled but because of no name always turned down.

Must admit I raged at my husband for dieing and leaving me alone . I hope I never feel fear like that again.

My nephew and brother popped in when they could to heat a ready meal which I hated and make a cuppa. In the first few months my brother took my washing and my sister in law did it for me. I hated being dependent on anyone .

I was lucky no lasting liver damage and my gastrologist told me when he discharged me people with my bilirubin levels normally died.

So Iam64 I hope you can get some help after your operation as I would hate anyone to feel the way I did.

I know I probably have said the same thing before but I forget what I write as I write what I call my rambles but only about things I have personally experienced. And when we look back it's a shock to realise just how much that is. You all will be the same . But I know if I had my time again I would do it all again putting others first as you are who you are . Plus my conscious wouldn't let me abandon people even my mother in law who I hated for 40 years.

Anyone yet another ramble . Just take it one day at a time and you notice a week has gone by then a month and next thing you know a year has gone by. But love or grief never dies you just learn to cope with the grief .

But remember we are so lucky to have been so loved and loved in return. 🌹

Four years into widowhood, does it get any easier? for me it doesnt although I have wonderful support from friends and family. I hope you have a smoother path to tread

Can’t stop my mind thinking. I hope and pray to get through this awful pain

Doodle you have to give it time. It's been mere weeks since your darling husband died. And your grief will never end and if like me after 20 years it's gets worse with each year as my husband has missed so much. The pain you are feeling will be a constant but as the years go by you will learn to cope with it. But it will still overwhelm you at times . After 20 years my husband's dead overwhelms me at the oddest times. I can be cross stitching and watching TV and realise tears are running down my face .

Never fight how you are feeling you must let all the grief out even when the rage and anger hits you but use it to get through another day without your darling Mr D. The rage and anger had never left me but I embrace it and it gets me through anything life throws at me .

I was born disabled my husband knew about my pain and falls from the start it never phased him even when my health got worse in 1988. He just said we alter our life to suit you and the children will have a normal childhood whatever normal is! They where 4 and 6 months.

I was prepared to die first but it was my fit healthy husband who got Cancer and died. I raged at the unfairness it should have been me that died not him. But he was a wise man and knew what I needed to live without and that was a series of promises and I have kept everyone.

There is no right or wrong way to grieve . Your grief is different from your son's .

I wish I could say to you it will stop and you won't feel this hole in life but I can't . The pain will always be with you but so will the love you shared and still have for your husband. He will always be your husband and you will always be Mrs. I hate the fact I am classed as single but to me I am married .

But those of us who have lost the love of our life the other half of ourselves are the lucky ones as some people live their whole lives and never know such love. Our other halves knew the real us and us then . When they die our present and future died to and it's so hard making a new present and future.

I was 45 when my husband died aged 47 the thought of the next 30 years without him terrified me but I never want anyone else.

Billybob this applies to you too . I call the first 10 years early grief .

Every year for 14 years I relived the last 2 weeks of my husband's life it was like watching a black and white film and the anniversary of his death was bone crushing. My children never knew until the 14th year . They used to text to check how I was. I always said sad but ok. The 14th year my daughter phoned instead and it all came out how every year it effected me the same way . She said why didn't you tell me I said because of was protecting her as she had her own grief. She told her brother he said the same thing and I have the same answer. But I made a promise to myself I would never let it happen again. I could grieve my heart out on the anniversary day only and not for 2 weeks and have stuck to that ever since.

So no one thing there is ever getting over the dead of your loved one but it will take years to get used to it . But like I have said never hold it in . I thought I had to to brave for everyone else and I was a fool . But at 45 what did I know about this kind of grief. I know someone on here was lot younger than me when her darling husband died and her children younger than mine as they where 20 and 16 when their dad died. How she has coped have no idea it is bad enough for me but we had 29 years and married 22 when my husband died. It's so much worse for her.

Doodle and Billybob let yourself grieve otherwise you will hurt yourself. I would hate anyone to do what I did and the only person I hurt was me which made my life harder.

Hope this has helped a bit . 💐

Thanks Whiff yes it does. X

Glad my ramble helped you Doodle .

I find sometimes a wave of the loss too great and it overwhelmes me. I make myself pull out of it somehow and find something nice go do or plan for. Life never goes as we plan and I'm grateful for what I had but it does takes time.

Allsorts grief like love never dies. Like you I am grateful for the time I had with my husband. It doesn't get any easier as the years go by the grief gets worse as we age and they are forever the age they died. Plus they have missed so much all the highs and lows in our lives and that of our children and grandchildren and in some cases great grandchildren.

I well remember my nan saying she would never live to see us grandchildren grow up. She saw all 11 of us grow up, saw 5 of us get married and had 6 great grandchildren when she died aged 89. Still makes me smile remembering her say it.

I have said many times grief is the price we pay for love but our lives would have been the poorer for never knowing such love . We were the lucky ones to have found it as some people live their whole lives and never know such love or find the other half of themselves . I can't even imagine what that would feel like. But luckily I and all here had that love .

Went to my sit fit class this afternoon as usual . Had a great time learnt some new exercises and had a chat and laugh with everyone.

When I got home said as always to the photo of my husband I'm home. And then burst into tears. No idea why . The grief and loss just hits me even after 20 years. I wasn't feeling sad but had been talking about him at my class and on my craft what's app group this morning. And I just needed to cry.

Then I watched Moulin Rouge and as usual cried buckets at the ending . But it's what I needed .

Grief has no time limit nor any triggers it can just hit you out of the blue. But my love for my husband still is worth the grief and tears.

Whiff I can see from friends that we never get over the loss but just have to learn to live with it.
It’s really hard though.
Allsorts like you I sometimes find the grief overwhelming and that frightens me that I won’t cope.