This is life (after passing of DH)

[Hisredipad]

I spent a while searching for a post to join in but didn’t find anything like I wanted.

I just want somewhere to pop daily and say things I can’t say IRL.

fell free to join me

today was our big anniversary and im feeling sad he’s not here to celebrate it with but I bought myself something I saw yesterday im sure he would have bought me. Bizarrely opened a drawer just a moment ago and found last year’s anniversary card and the sweet words he’d written.

Happy anniversary DH, xx years were the best ever xxxxx

I feel your pain!

The one that won't work properly was from Homebase - their own make. I think that the problem is that there's a plastic wheel for tightening the chain instead of the...thingy. Metal. Key thingy. My brain has blanked.

ETA Allen/hex key.

I did have to do a lot of the physical things and driving the last 2 years but it’s the fact that I’m not me anymore without him by my side. I don’t have the courage he gave me or the support, the feeling that someone has my back 100% you know? The conversations where I’d start one end and him the other and come to a sensible middle ground. Particularly when bringing up our son.
Listening to the way you’re tackling things makes me feel proud, even though I don’t know you, but knowing that you’re doing them despite, with no choice, what has happened.
I am trying to think what he’d say or do. I like the fact @Hisredipad that his thoughts may merge into my thoughts.
I know I’m in terrible denial at the moment.

I had the weirdest thing happening a few months after my DH died - I'd be driving, and I'd hear him telling me when to move lanes, what to watch out for etc. (Also telling me not to be so b stupid at times.)

I told my cousin...He said that maybe I could get a reduction in my insurance premium since I was getting extra help...

I definitely could do with hearing him telling me when to move lanes!
I relied on him totally for that! I tootle about our area but I think my car does that by itself. Any further and I completely depended on DH and still hated it. I’m trying to push myself more but usually end up driving with tears running down my face.

I'm mainly sticking to familiar roads.

I wish DH would tell me what the buttons on his car do. Ive now got his car because of the business. Mine has a reversing camera. His has a sensor which I don’t understand and ive twice gently hit my car on the drive.

I didn’t go to the office today, I did a fair bit at 6am but the day for a variety of reasons to do with grief and dealing with passing of DH went spectacularly downhill and by 3pm I was so strung up I took the dog and drove to aunties a good forty minutes away, then sat quietly in her garden room and had a huge sob. Im sooo tired of crying every day. It’s wearing, particularly days like today when it’s so much more than a two minutes weep. When I paid for my fuel the woman asked if I was ok and was very kind.

I'm glad that she was kind to you.

Yes, in the early days there's a lot of weeping. It still hits me sometimes, but not so often. Today's hit me quite hard for some reason - I've no idea why.

One of those care button required days! 💐💐💐

I’m sorry for your loss but glad you found a little bit of happiness in finding his card x

Maybe one of those mysterious buttons on his car is the care button! Press them all and see what happens - but probably not while in the outside lane of the M1...

Can't remember whether I've mentioned this before. We got a new car in 2017. By the time DH died nearly 4 yrs later, I still hadn't figure it all out.

Turned on the car one day and next thing, I was hearing the song "Lady, did you think I'd left you?" I hadn't realised that the car could play back music on your phone. It was very random.

That made me laugh out loud, which was good

It’s funny you should say that because I wanted to know how much fuel was left in the car and I did just start pressing all the buttons on the stick but it didn’t work
But then later on my way home I realised the stick has two buttons on the end of it and I was pressing the wrong one🤦‍♀️

Hi, can I join you all? I lost DH more than 2 years ago. So much has happened since then, but I feel like I've moved sideways rather than forward, if that makes sense.

DH was really good at fixing and figuring out mechanical things, so I've also been baffled by having to do this on my own. I'm muddling along though. Usually by hiring a handyman. Or asking ChatGPT (who is my new best friend.)

Also, I have a child with SN and I haven't yet found someone who can relate to such a lovely combination of events... Which reminds me, do you ever not tell someone about your loss because you don't want to drag the conversation down? I'm often waiting around for my son to finish a club or whatever and chatting to the other parents, but it feels like I'm introducing too much heaviness if I mention it, and it feels like I'm hiding something if I don't.

Hello @OldWave, come and join us!

I absolutely have had (and still do) the same experience of not telling people about DW's death. Funnily enough, there's a woman who lives opposite me; I don't really know her other than to say hello to when we happen to put the bins out at the same time, or pass each other on the street. About 2 years after my wife died, she stopped me in the street to say that she had only just been told. She said how sorry she was. I really appreciated her saying that and it made me feel quite teary (in a good way) - I guess because it was someone recognising my loss and subsequent grief. I felt 'seen' and that is something that grieving people often don't feel. We feel invisible and unacknowledged

@OldWave, of course, come on over and join us.

sometimes we are sad, sometimes a lot lost, but we smile too, and sometimes we are silly, but we are a lovely bunch.

I haven’t yet got to the bit where I don’t tell people about DH, it’s been eight months, but I can see at sometime in the future it will happen. I mention him if I want to, but I do try not to go on about things of grief with friends but mainly that’s because I do feel the need to be happier and they are that distraction to making me happier. I think I cry daily pretty much.

@Emptyandsad im glad your neighbour mentioned your loss but I’m amazed she took two years to find out.

Can we chat coping strategies you have, either those you’ve worked out for yourself or ones you’ve picked up?

I’m actively looking for some as so far all I’ve got really is sound distraction. We never had the radio on, it’s always on in the kitchen now, the TV was on in the lounge when it was being watched and really was only the evenings, it’s now on all day and im not in there but hate walking into a silent room. I go to sleep to an audio book or the TV set on a timer.

im still battling about going to counselling and dread the idea immensely but do keep wondering if it’s worth it, my problem is often my despair of running our business is so intertwined with losing DH, but if he were here it would still be a problem but not so difficult to solve because he would have ideas on what to do.

I wasn't able to organise counselling, but another widow told me that it helped her.

I do use tv as background noise. I also have the radio or music on in the background much more than I used to have.

I have no immediate family, so I'm probably online more than I should be - that includes various Zoom groups. I also started taking online language classes.

At one point, I did a bit of supply teaching just to get out of the house. Now I go to the gym most days.

Going to sleep with the radio on is absolutely routine now for me.

I miss DW hugely in bed. Every night we would read and she always gave up and went to sleep before me; ten minutes later I would stop, turn the light out and then spoon into the back of her. She would shift back into me and that's how we fell asleep

I read somewhere about a man whose wife had died and afterwards when we went to bed he would get a physical pain in his shoulder, where her head had always rested when they went to sleep.

In the early days, I wished I'd had more time to sit quietly and process the loss. And wallow a bit I guess. Instead, I had a lot of major distractions at that time, so there was little opportunity. But perhaps that was for the better.
One thing I did do was switch to "his" side of the sofa. I'd read that that could make things less painful. It helped a lot.

A relative told me that she falls asleep to the spoken word on radio every night.

I have a recording of my DH singing that he made for me, so I play that every night.

Aw @WearyAuldWumman , that sounds really lovely.
I still find it surprising to hear DH's voice when I watch videos of him. It always makes me think, where is he?

Yes. I keep thinking that I should be able to pull my DH back through to me.

Thank you for asking @Hisredipad . I’m afraid I am no help at the moment as I don’t have any strategies. Apart from scrolling on my phone until I fall asleep with it in my hand!
But I’m grateful to you for asking so that I too can take some tips too. It was my DH who had the TV on, who played and practiced guitar constantly, who chatted. And Oh @WearyAuldWumman exactly that. 💔

Distraction mostly for me - watching TV or a film with my dd, reading endless undemanding novels.

I moved my bedroom round a bit so it's more set up for one person than two as I felt like "his' bedside table was becoming a bit of a shrine. I had moved out of my marital bedroom when my xh and I split up and set up another bedroom which was just mine. Then tweaked things to accommodate J once it was clear that that was going to be a long term thing! So my room doesn't feel like there's someone missing any more. But I go to sleep cuddled up to a pillow as if it were him.

And I have a notebook (I hesitate to call it a journal) that I write in - at times when I've been really beside myself, writing until I'm all cried out and everything in my head is on the page has really helped to calm myself down.