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AMA

I only felt relief when my DH died - I don't think that's terrible

192 replies

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 16:52

Just wanted to start a thread about spouses who died, and why I don't think that is necessarily the worst thing that can happen to you.

Why? Ask away!

I haven't even name changed....🙄

Oh bugger, cocked up thread title😳

OP posts:
Fartooold · 21/04/2024 18:08

Butterflytoast123 · 21/04/2024 18:02

I can see my DM feels this way following the recent passing of my DF and feels guilty. They loved each other to bits but towards the end neither lived. DF was always the life of the party and he hated living like a houseplant (his words.)DM was his full time carer and sacrificed her whole life in the past few years. She is extremely sad and relieved. Grief is indeed complicated.

Spot on! Love to you all x

OP posts:
tsmainsqueeze · 21/04/2024 18:12

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 17:31

In my horrible, clumsy way, I just wanted to say that it's okay to not be distraught/ inconsolable/lost beyond reason when someone close to you dies. Sometimes, it's okay to feel relief⚘️⚘️⚘️

I don't think you're horrible or clumsy , i completely agree with what you say.
I too recently felt the same relief after the loss of a relative who suffered horrifically for weeks , it was cruel and inhumane so how can it be wrong to feel relief when its finally over .

MissPearlPratt · 21/04/2024 18:12

I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry he had to suffer and you had to witness that.

63 isn't ancient!

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 18:15

Oh there are far to many wonderful, yet sad posts to acknowledge here - thank you all for understanding me and I do hope you all find peace and contentment with what has happened regarding your loved ones.
I just think it's important to remember that there is no 'right way' to grieve.
It could happen a year before their death, a year after.
Just don't feel obliged to grieve by order xxx

OP posts:
HesterPrincess · 21/04/2024 18:17

My Dad died of cancer, and the horror of his last few weeks of life will never leave me. I was desperate for them to put him onto a syringe driver at the end because I knew it would accelerate his death. And there was a real "oh thank god" moment when his pain ended.

Of course, then you come home and that relief turns to utter despair that takes you years to come out the other side of.

Death beds aren't often quiet and comfortable places, and I wish we could all be a lot more honest about that.

Wonderingforever · 21/04/2024 18:17

MeMyCatsAndMyBooks · 21/04/2024 17:04

Sorry but what a awful tasteless thing to say.

It's good he's no longer suffering, but there's other ways to say it than being so blunt.

She doesn't have to put it any other way

He was her husband. She can express how she feels about his death any way she wants.

What is stranger is random person on the Internet thinking they have the right to berate her for it.

OP don't ask for it to be deleted. Lots of people have similar experiences when they have watched a love one dying following an illness.

Remoteaccess · 21/04/2024 18:17

ZekeZeke · 21/04/2024 17:02

I'm very sorry for your loss and probably a bit sensitive. if you had mentioned all this in your OP it would have been different

Surely it was pretty obvious what they meant 🤔🙄

Comedycook · 21/04/2024 18:19

I don't think what you're describing is unusual at all. Watching someone you know suffering and in pain is absolutely awful..

BreadInCaptivity · 21/04/2024 18:21

I don't think we talk enough about death and the feelings we really experience when we lose someone close to us.

When my GF died (10 years after a devastating stroke) myself, mother and grandmother were relived and even happy dare I say it.

Truth is we had been mourning the person he had been for a decade and my GM/DM caring for a bitter, nasty,aggressive stranger and not the kind and gentle man he had been.

Truthfully he died the day he had his stoke but the medical intervention that allowed him to survive meant years of misery for him and those closest to him.

It took years for us after he died to start to remember again the person he was "in life" and not the person his brain injury turned him into.

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 18:21

HesterPrincess · 21/04/2024 18:17

My Dad died of cancer, and the horror of his last few weeks of life will never leave me. I was desperate for them to put him onto a syringe driver at the end because I knew it would accelerate his death. And there was a real "oh thank god" moment when his pain ended.

Of course, then you come home and that relief turns to utter despair that takes you years to come out the other side of.

Death beds aren't often quiet and comfortable places, and I wish we could all be a lot more honest about that.

Oh Hester, I am so sorry - I hope you have had the time and space to 'enjoy' him xx

We need to talk about death more openly, it isnt always the romantic, hand holding, gentle death we envisage.

I hope, like me, you have been able to remember the good times, the memorable moments, before the end xx

OP posts:
ZekeZeke · 21/04/2024 18:21

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

fromaytobe · 21/04/2024 18:22

It is okay to feel relief. Relief for the deceased, who is no longer suffering, and relief for their loved ones, who no longer have to witness that suffering (and who have been suffering the impending loss for some time, and that is far from easy to deal with).

ZekeZeke · 21/04/2024 18:23

SoupDragon · 21/04/2024 17:56

It isn't tasteless. I felt exactly the same when I had witched both my parent die from cancer. It was horrendous, truly awful.

Of course it was sad but my overwhelming thought when I was told they had passed was one of relief.

Again, read my next post!

Remoteaccess · 21/04/2024 18:23

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

She shouldn't have had to give background, you leapt immediately to criticise and then tried to backtrack

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 18:24

BreadInCaptivity · 21/04/2024 18:21

I don't think we talk enough about death and the feelings we really experience when we lose someone close to us.

When my GF died (10 years after a devastating stroke) myself, mother and grandmother were relived and even happy dare I say it.

Truth is we had been mourning the person he had been for a decade and my GM/DM caring for a bitter, nasty,aggressive stranger and not the kind and gentle man he had been.

Truthfully he died the day he had his stoke but the medical intervention that allowed him to survive meant years of misery for him and those closest to him.

It took years for us after he died to start to remember again the person he was "in life" and not the person his brain injury turned him into.

Absolutely spot on! This is exactly what it was like for me.
And yes, it was a relief when he went, for both of us.

OP posts:
CaptainMyCaptain · 21/04/2024 18:25

It was obvious to me what the OP meant. I felt relief when my Mum died with Alzheimers. I had been grieving for a long time before she actually died.

WearyAuldWumman · 21/04/2024 18:27

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 16:59

Really? I am so sorry. If more people feel the same, I will ask MN to delete.

I went through absolute hell for almost two years with DH, and yes, it was horrible when he died, but horrendous whilst he lived, near the end of life.

I di not think his death was the the worst thing that happened, his living in pain and despair was do much worse.

I honestly apologise for upsetting people, and will ask for this thread to be deleted.

FWIW, I was heartbroken when my husband died. However, a friend who was also caring for her husband told me that 'it was time' for her husband.

My husband was frail, but he was compos mentis and wanted to live; her husband was in the last stages of dementia.

ZekeZeke · 21/04/2024 18:29

Remoteaccess · 21/04/2024 18:23

She shouldn't have had to give background, you leapt immediately to criticise and then tried to backtrack

I didn't back track.
The OP lead me to believe she was a DV Victim.

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 18:30

The advert on TV at the moment about a young chaps mother dying again and again with altzeimers really resonated.
I doted on my husband, loved him to bits, but I was so relieved he died when he did, because liking and loving him was becoming so hard.
And again, that is a taboo subject that needs to ve more openly discussed.

OP posts:
Squirrelsnut · 21/04/2024 18:32

I felt little but relief when DM died. She lost everything she loved after a horrendous stroke 7 years previously, and her last month was truly dreadful. I am still numb.

5YearsLeft · 21/04/2024 18:34

@Fartooold I worked briefly in a hospice, doing spiritual advising, so often we handled the “bereavement before the bereavement,” which is what that sometimes protracted period often feels like (people are put on hospice when their diagnosis says they have less than 6 months, but some end up “staying” for two years).

But this is SO common, and we’d hear it from family members every single week, and in some weeks, every single day: that they were going through all the emotions that came with bereavement (pain, loss, heartache) already, ALONG with the feeling that they’d often wish their loved one’s (usually a husband, wife, mother, or father) unbearable pain would be over, AND a feeling of guilt over this feeling - which of course, we always tried to help them through. It’s impossible for someone who hasn’t lost another in such an intimate way to empathize with what you’re feeling, but there are a lot of good people out there who can sympathize (regardless of feeling language is “blunt,” or whatever - you share how you share, and people will support you).

I’m so sorry for the loss of your DH, for anyone else in this thread who has faced such a loss, or for anyone who is facing such a loss soon. Sadly the only way to get through it is through it, even though it hurts like hell.

Chattywatty · 21/04/2024 18:35

I did almost all my grieving during my husbands illness. That’s when I felt utter despair and grief. I wasn’t the wife I should have been when he was ill as I was so utterly angry and heartbroken, I used to go off in my car and drive and drive and howl to myself and scream how unfair it was that this was happening

once he died I felt I could start to live again. Never have I gone on drives, I am not sure I’ve even cried since his funeral but grief comes and hits me in waves. It hits me when we celebrate Christmas and he’s not there, when the children do something he would love and take up his hobbies. It hits me when I’m the only chauffeur and the kids needed dropping and picking up. It hits me when I drink his favourite drink or eat his favourite food or when I see his brother who looks more and more like him every day. But I don’t feel unhappiness, sadness but yet utter relief we aren’t living the nightmare of that illness and a life of limbo anymore

KezzaMucklowe · 21/04/2024 18:35

The best and worst of mn in one thread.
I'm so sorry OP.
I agree that we should be able to talk about death more openly, we shouldn't have to sugar coat it incase it upsets someone else.

AGlinnerOfHope · 21/04/2024 18:35

So, it’s good you posted and it resonates with lots of people. Those people who would be wary of talking about it because of reactions like those of a couple of people on this thread.

That said, we all read with our own context in mind, and have every entitlement to feel as we do- whether that’s horrified, offended or thoroughly in agreement.

Fartooold · 21/04/2024 18:35

ZekeZeke · 21/04/2024 18:29

I didn't back track.
The OP lead me to believe she was a DV Victim.

I'm sorry , I was happy to acknowledge my opening post was lacking somewhat in detail, but how on earth did I give you to understand I'd been a victim of DV?????
My DH was the gentlest man you could ever meet.
I have said nothing that could make you think that and I'd really like to reiterate - my late husband was a lovely, gentle man who had a dreadful painful and prolonged death.

OP posts:
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