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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to carry on if my husband dies?

138 replies

WingsOnMyBoots · 08/02/2018 10:30

Does anyone else feel like this?

OP posts:
creaturefeatures · 09/02/2018 10:42

I'd be terribly upset obviously but no, I can't say I feel like you.

There's lots and lots and lots of things worth living for. DP is one of them, a very significant one since we don't have DC but by no means is he 'everything'.

I think it's very sad to feel that one person is your whole world. What happens if they betray you or leave?

creaturefeatures · 09/02/2018 10:48

I had a lot of crap relationships before DH but that doesnt change my opinion. TBH I think if DH died I wouldn't be bothered about another relationship.

I'd fill my life with friends and family, perhaps the occasional casual lover, with work and learning new things and animals.

JustMarriedAndLovingIt · 09/02/2018 11:25

I know what you mean OP. I adore my husband and hope we have decades together. Frustratingly, he was my first boyfriend and I finished with him when I was 18 to go to uni. We both married vile people and had kids. When I think of the 14 years we wasted I could cry. We will also never have kids as DH has had the snip 😭

SpitefulMidLifeAnimal · 09/02/2018 11:41

OK, so if your DH dies first, you want to die too. The only way to ensure that is to commit suicide. How do you think you'll do that?

See, you won't, will you? What you need to do is stop standing with one leg in the past, one leg in the future and pissing all over today. You're just ruining things for yourself with these thoughts and whilst we may occasionally think "I really couldn't manage without you", most of us are not preoccupied with this to the point where it interferes with the current.

orangewasp · 09/02/2018 11:43

I think you should focus on and be glad of what you have with each other now. I'm a similar age, single and have never felt that way about anybody and doubt I ever will now.

n0ne · 09/02/2018 13:00

I love my DH dearly but I had a happy life before I met him, so I'm sure I could have a happy life again after him. I bet I could even fall in love with someone else, after time. My DH doesn't define me. He makes my life fantastic, but life without him wouldn't be unbearable.

Somerville · 09/02/2018 13:06

I feel humbled and somewhat shame-faced and indulgent when people tell me they have lost their partners/husbands etc. and even their children, which I cannot imagine, and DO carry on.

You hadn't thought about that before posting?

I don't want people to feel I am insulting them by implying that somehow they must be stronger than me or don't feel how I do etc.

It is insulting, though.

That most definitely is not the case but I apologise if anyone has felt that

You apologise for how I feel?

daisychain01 · 09/02/2018 13:10

Life without DH2 would be unbearable, no denying that.

I wouldn't end it all but it was absolutely indescribably shit without DH1 but I limped through.

Mercurial123 · 09/02/2018 13:11

Haven't read all the responses but I have to agree your post is extremely self indulgent. My brother was involved in a car accident and died when he was a teenager it destroyed my mother and of course life was never the same again. Life can change in a second. Appreciate your loved ones and cherish time with them.

NoqontroI · 09/02/2018 13:16

Yvest Flowers

Lettucepray · 09/02/2018 13:16

Deeply disturbing and unhealthy view op. No 1 person should be your be all and end all, sounds very co dependent.

ConciseandNice · 09/02/2018 13:26

This is a hard one. On the one hand I think, well no kids, no one you owe anything to and it is your life so of course YANBU. On the other hand if someone is so central to your very existence then this isn't healthy. By our very nature, we are temporary and our mental equilibrium ought to reflect this, when it doesn't, something is off-kilter. If I were you I would want to search and find meaning beyond that one person.

When I was in high school a friend of mine lost his mother to cancer (we were about 12 at the time), within a couple of months his father had killed himself. Now, apart from the fact that he left a teenage son all alone and committed one of the most selfish acts I'd ever seen, I remember not understanding how the man's mind was working to not see beyond both himself and his wife. To put it into perspective, I had lost my brother a few months previously and seen the grief of my parents and grieving myself and that pain is pretty indescribable. But I also saw that the world turned and somehow my parents had tojust deal. It was terrible.

Death is a hard thing, the hardest. But our relationships need to take the inevitable end into account. It is a short life we have, let's make it a good one. I don't think your husband would want you to die after his passing. If he loves you, which I am sure he does, he would want you to live and experience and enjoy the time you have left.

QueenAravisOfArchenland · 09/02/2018 13:26

stop standing with one leg in the past, one leg in the future and pissing all over today.

Consider this expression stolen.

ReanimatedSGB · 09/02/2018 14:15

I don't think OP deserves a kicking for starting this thread - loads of threads are started which are self-indulgent/silly/might upset other posters.
Grief is not a competition.

Somerville · 09/02/2018 14:18

I don't think OP deserves a kicking for starting this thread - loads of threads are started which are self-indulgent/silly/might upset other posters.

And those OP's are often challenged, too.

Grief is not a competition.

What grief? OP's husband is alive.

Mercurial123 · 09/02/2018 14:50

Reanimated you are allowed your opinion just as everyone else is entitled to theirs. The OP has lost nothing and is being self indulgent and immature . She needs to appreciate what she has and enjoy life with her loved ones.

G120810 · 09/02/2018 15:04

You are thinking of something that hasn't happened at its making you anxious but speak to him about it we don't know who will go first but I wouldn't want my partner to go t that grief I would take it for him but it's not the end of you it will be different but get things to do other than husband you are going to ruin things right now worryy about something that will happen whenever ever it does x

G120810 · 09/02/2018 15:12

Please don't diss the post she h a fear and asking for help I don't see her saying she will end her life but I do see her admit she is dependent on her husband and want to do something about it she reached out now feels stupid for this she possible have mental health issues and we are bashing as it's her fear what if she can't speak to him hug him she fears this and we can't say it's daft but she needs to get help about these feelings and thoughts xx

NoqontroI · 09/02/2018 15:18

Grief is not a competition

Indeed it's not. But her husband is alive. Don't be so bloody offensive.Angry

minmooch · 09/02/2018 17:40

You say you 'genuinely wouldn't want to carry on' but that is so very easy to say when your dh is fit and healthy. You have had many people share their heart breaking stories about continuing (my own included) but you still are being self indulgent. You have absolutely no idea how you would should you be faced with that reality.

It's a waste of energy, you don't know who will go first, in what circumstances. If your husband were ill I can imagine these would be your thoughts but to be thinking about this now is just a bit weird.

Teawaster · 09/02/2018 17:43

Mine died a year ago next week. Together for 34 years. Mid fifties now with 2 teens. .
Life goes on for me and my children . They have their lives ahead of them and I owe it to them to be there for them and not to fall to pieces. I have been able to find pleasure in some things but not everything and I've managed to do things in the last year that I never thought I would

Oblomov18 · 09/02/2018 17:48

Yes. Yes, actually I do kind of feel that.

BakedBeans47 · 09/02/2018 17:49

I see where you’re coming from OP but to be blunt many (most?) people have to face life following the death of a partner at some point, and I am sure they loved their partner as much as you love yours. Most people still just get on with it though.

BakedBeans47 · 09/02/2018 17:52

In reality you find a way. I haven't lost a partner but I have lost my eldest son to cancer. It pisses me off when people say "l don't know how you cope, I'd die if one of my children died." As if I loved my son any less than they love their children.

I don’t know why people say things like that minmooch it’s just awful and very hurtful x Flowers

Oblomov18 · 09/02/2018 17:56

I don't understand the hostility.
Many mn'ers love their children and their children are the centre of their world.
But some people do actually care about their husbands.
This goes against the grain on MN. But it is actually true.