Don’t know how to adult without her

[Winter Blues]

Hi sweetheart, I was rereading all this post thinking of you then came across to your latest message this morning. My heart goes out to you totally and I so wish we could share a coffee or three and I could listen properly to your memories. She sounds a totally awesome woman. I understand your guilt feelings - they’re natural and play a huge part of the grieving process but your wife wouldn’t want you to feel that way. That lovely lady woukd I believe rejoice in any moment of pleasure or happiness you find. Please don’t be hard on yourself sweetheart. Think of her every single day, miss her like crazy, love her for ever but also remember that in her love for you she woukd want you to slowly move on, get stronger and then remember all the good times and smile at her memory. Sending you much love and always here xx

 

[Paisley]

Bad couple of days. So much guilt.

I was making lunch yesterday. And I was having a nice time. And I realized I was having a nice time. And this wave of guilt came crashing over me. How dare I enjoy anything without her here to share it. So I stood crying over the stove for a minute, then I put everything away and went to bed for the rest of the day. Been in a really low mood since.

Sorry that you're feeling so bad, Gonz. That must be really rough to have to handle.

 

[Gonz]

Hi sweetheart, I was rereading all this post thinking of you then came across to your latest message this morning. My heart goes out to you totally and I so wish we could share a coffee or three and I could listen properly to your memories. She sounds a totally awesome woman. I understand your guilt feelings - they’re natural and play a huge part of the grieving process but your wife wouldn’t want you to feel that way. That lovely lady woukd I believe rejoice in any moment of pleasure or happiness you find. Please don’t be hard on yourself sweetheart. Think of her every single day, miss her like crazy, love her for ever but also remember that in her love for you she woukd want you to slowly move on, get stronger and then remember all the good times and smile at her memory. Sending you much love and always here xx

Part of me knows you’re right. Or at least, what you said is what I’d say to someone in my position. And I’d believe it while I was saying it. But still, I just can’t. Being happy, enjoying myself, having a nice day; those are just other ways to say being okay with the fact that she’s dead. And I can’t do that. I have to stick around; there are people who’d be hurt if I killed myself. And since I need to stick around, I need to get “better,” at least to the point where I can function somewhat in the world. But I’ll die before I ever let it be okay that she’s gone.

 

[brightlight]

Underneath the grief, under the pain and the sadness and the guilt and the regret, there’s a deep and intense anger at her for leaving me all alone like this. This wasn’t the fucking deal.”

Hi Gonz
Maybe it was the deal, now you are left with your anger, you might think that you are directing it "at" her, but you are not, your anger is not leaving you, and as you can clearly FEEL yourself it is growing in intensity and has got deeper than you have ever know it. Maybe this is what it takes for you to see the depth of your anger, maybe this is the way of this world, don't blame her for your anger, own it yourself and apply the same to your love, don't blame her for the depth of your love own it yourself. this is how you will adult without her, take responsibility for your own feelings. then you can start a process to change those feelings
Maybe this was the deal, she will show you an intense love and sense of completion, or we will show each other. but underneath this is the reality of an intense anger, both the love and anger are your own feelings, not coming into you from outside but bubbling up from inside and you are the only one feeling them.
Maybe you have unfinished business on this incredible journey you undertook together, maybe there is a continuation of life and your other half is waiting for you to show her how to choose to turn anger into love, not her love, but your own love, that's all you ever can feel is your own feeling within yourself.
Maybe you are still joined together in love, I believe we are all joined in love and the grief, pain, sadness, guilt and regret removes us from it. Which would you choose to die, the anger or the love
Love and Light
P

 

[may71]

How dare I enjoy anything without her here to share it

I think if she could speak to you, she would say something like "how dare you to turn the memory of me into something that makes you miserable".

She would want you to be happy Gonz. There's no greater gift that you could give to her now than to let the man she loved live a happy life

 

[Gonz]

this is how you will adult without her, take responsibility for your own feelings. then you can start a process to change those feelings
Maybe this was the deal, she will show you an intense love and sense of completion, or we will show each other. but underneath this is the reality of an intense anger, both the love and anger are your own feelings, not coming into you from outside but bubbling up from inside and you are the only one feeling them.

I think if she could speak to you, she would say something like "how dare you to turn the memory of me into something that makes you miserable".

She would want you to be happy Gonz. There's no greater gift that you could give to her now than to let the man she loved live a happy life

How? I mean, I know you’re right that those emotions come from inside (though I experience them as if they were some outside force acting on me). But, honestly, the thought of consciously changing my emotional state, how I feel about any given situation, feels like fantasy to me. It’s a little like saying “why are you letting yourself get rained on? Just make it sunny instead.”

 

[Human Ex Machinae]

But, honestly, the thought of consciously changing my emotional state, how I feel about any given situation, feels like fantasy to me. It’s a little like saying “why are you letting yourself get rained on? Just make it sunny instead.”

If a person looks at a photo of a birthday cake, or a pretty flower, or something else positive, they're going to have a different emotional reaction than they would looking at a picture of a 10 car pile up on a highway, or an atom bomb exploding or something else negative. People can wrench their thoughts away from the negative images that depression is always showing them. They can learn how to mentally look at and appreciate and benefit emotionally from positive things.

 

[brightlight]

How? I mean, I know you’re right that those emotions come from inside (though I experience them as if they were some outside force acting on me). But, honestly, the thought of consciously changing my emotional state, how I feel about any given situation, feels like fantasy to me. It’s a little like saying “why are you letting yourself get rained on? Just make it sunny instead.”

It's not fantasy, it can be done, but it's a process of learning, not a instant fix, over time you change, first you will have to change your mind that it's fantasy and open it to the possibility of "maybe I can do this" a closed mind means you won't even try.
You use what you have already, memories and experience, and most powerful of all "Knowing", you know what love and anger feel like and there is not a force in the universe that can take that knowing away from you.
Take a few minutes with no distractions and recall to your mind a memory of a time that you felt love and gratitude rising in you, maybe one of your first meetings, it can also be anyone or anything else that brings a feeling of love, memories of pets are good for this as well, the purpose is to invoke the feeling that is associated with the memory, (we are great at doing this with the bad feelings and memories), play whatever comes to mind like a video in your mind that you can pause and play and rewind, be very aware of the feelings risings within you as you do this (this is the purpose of the exercise) feel the love you had and still have, when you feel the love, imagine you can breathe into it and increase it like blowing up a balloon inside you or a light shining brighter from you, then let whatever image is in your mind go, this leaves you here and now with your own love flowing from you for no reason except the fact that you can, if you can do this once you can do it again. It won't work when the anger or sadness is in full flow, wait for a lull.
Do you remember having anger, pain, sadness, guilt and regret before you ever met your wife?

Love and Light
P
https://www.suicideforum.com/community/threads/i-changed.127936/

 

[may71]

If you can bring yourself to at least rationally come to the conclusion that it's your duty to her to try to be happy, over time if you keep repeating this to yourself, especially when you feel guilt about being happy, you may be able to start to change.

 

[Winter Blues]

Part of me knows you’re right. Or at least, what you said is what I’d say to someone in my position. And I’d believe it while I was saying it. But still, I just can’t. Being happy, enjoying myself, having a nice day; those are just other ways to say being okay with the fact that she’s dead. And I can’t do that. I have to stick around; there are people who’d be hurt if I killed myself. And since I need to stick around, I need to get “better,” at least to the point where I can function somewhat in the world. But I’ll die before I ever let it be okay that she’s gone.

Hi Gonz - I totally understand what you say - especially your last sentence. I am so sorry .. I guess I said what we are all wired to say in such an event. And those sort of platitudes are easy to say but not what you'd follow if you, yourself, were in that position. I just want you to believe that she would want you to be happy and wouldn't want you to be sad and down all the time. It is a hard fact that life moves on - just be what you want to be - do what you want to do - but most of all feel what you NEED to feel. You sound one hell of a guy …. and my heart is with you xxxx

 

[Gonz]

So yesterday would have been our anniversary. Spent the whole day in bed holding her ashes and crying and, in between the crying fits, thinking. Trying to figure out what a life without her looks like, what I should do with myself. And, the thing is, there's nothing I actually want. I mean, there's this vague idea in my head that I need to "get better" so that no one has to worry about me and I can function somewhat. But beyond that there's nothing. I just can't find it in me to give a shit about anything that isn't her.

I talk to her a lot. I write letters to her every day where I tell her how much I love her and how much I miss her, but that's not what I mean. I talk as though she's in the room with me, and I imagine how she'd respond. Like, I'll crack a dumb joke and picture her rolling her eyes and making the "why am I with you" face. Little shit like that.

And I think that's because, like I was saying at the beginning of this thread, I don't know how to exist without her. I'm very literally not me without her and it feels like the only way I can continue to exist without my mind tearing itself to pieces is to carry on as though she were right there and I just can't see her or something like that. And it's not just that we were so inseparable for so long. It's because being with her was the only thing that ever made me feel like I had any kind of value as a person. I wasn't a particularly great son or brother. I was a downright shitty student and worker. But I was hers, and that was something I could be proud of.

I think about the things I used to want when she was still here and I realize that I only really wanted them so I could share them with her. Because I don't want any of it anymore. The only thing I want for myself is to die so I can be with her again. Whether I eventually choose to do it myself, or it just happens somehow, I keep reminding myself that every day I get through is another day closer seeing her again. I'm not religious, I don't necessarily believe in any sort of afterlife, but hoping for one is all I've got left. And if not, if we simply cease to exist, it's still better than this.

 

[may71]

I talk as though she's in the room with me, and I imagine how she'd respond

What do you think she would say if you asked her what you should do?

 

[Gonz]

What do you think she would say if you asked her what you should do?

I know exactly what she'd tell me. Doesn't mean I can actually do it. Having her is a necessary prerequisite for happiness. I'm no more capable of living a fulfilling life without her than I am of seeing without eyes or breathing without lungs. It just ain't gonna happen. Only thing I can do is minimize pain and that's exactly what I'm doing, to the best of my ability.

 

[bobbob]

I lost my wife one year and eight months ago. Before she was my wife, she was my girlfriend. Before she was my girlfriend, she was my best friend. And before she was my best friend, I was in high school. She’s been the most important person in my life for literally all of my adulthood.

We both were fairly dysfunctional. We just understood each other though. We’d been through all the same shit. Childhood abuse and neglect, mental illness, drug abuse. All the things that made us each individually felt isolated us turned out to be things we had in common. When we were together, when it was just us, we could take off the masks and drop the act and just be the broken people that we were. Do you know what a relief that was? All the ugly scary parts of ourselves that we had to hide from the rest of the world, we never had to hide from each other. We could roll up our sleeves and show our scars (I mean that both literally and figuratively) and, instead of recoiling in horror, the other would smile in recognition and show their own.

We used to joke that, between the two of us, we made one halfway-functional adult. It wasn’t really a joke though. We leaned on each other. We never had to learn how to stand on our own. Letting her cover for my weaknesses is the only coping mechanism I’ve ever learned. And covering for hers is the only responsibility I’ve ever embraced. We were each other’s crutch, only now she’s been pulled out from under me and I’ve fallen flat on my face. We knew perfectly well how unhealthy our dependence on each other was. We talked about it sometimes. Those talks always ended with “we’ll always have each other, so why should we care?”

This. This is why we should care.

Underneath the grief, under the pain and the sadness and the guilt and the regret, there’s a deep and intense anger at her for leaving me all alone like this. This wasn’t the fucking deal.

The worst, cruelest, hardest part about losing her is that the world didn’t just end when she did. It keeps going. Time keeps passing. Life keeps beating me over the head, harder and harder, with shit I need to deal with and I keep asking myself how I’m supposed to do it without her and the only thing I can do is cry and say “I don’t know.”

I just read this. She sounds like she was great and that you were great for each other. Im really sorry that you lost her and hope that things get a bit easier for you in time.

 

[may71]

I know exactly what she'd tell me. Doesn't mean I can actually do it

Ok. Do you feel like saying what that is though?

 

[Gonz]

Ok. Do you feel like saying what that is though?

To go and have the life we were planning on having together. Move back to Santa Barbara like we always wanted to. Do some travelling, spend at least a month out of each year somewhere new. Have friends, be happy.

Doesn't matter any more what she wants. The guy she loved and would have wanted those things for died when she did. It's comforting to pretend that I'm still him, but I'm not really, I just have his memories.

 

[Magree]

I know nothing any one of us says will ease the pain you are going through if there was something I would climb onto my roof and shout it from the top of my lungs so loud you would hear me and I'm so far away from you.
I just want you to know my heart breaks for you xx

 

[Winter Blues]

To go and have the life we were planning on having together. Move back to Santa Barbara like we always wanted to. Do some travelling, spend at least a month out of each year somewhere new. Have friends, be happy.

Doesn't matter any more what she wants. The guy she loved and would have wanted those things for died when she did. It's comforting to pretend that I'm still him, but I'm not really, I just have his memories.

Hi Sweetheart, I agree with @Magree, right now there is nothing anyone can say that can ease your pain - and my heart, thoughts and soul are with you. Sadly, no-one can live that pain for you - it is part of a process (a process so horrid, so hurtful, it is undescribable). My husband committed suicide and to this day I will never get over the pain, the loss but most of all the WHY and that question hangs around us and haunts us whatever the reason for death is .. why them, why me, why, why. Gonz - my heart is with you … ultimately there is nothing anyone can say that can take away the pain because YOU loved this woman you have lost but truly - she would not want you to be going through a single day's deep pain and definitely not thoughts of ending it. Live life - tell her every single day what you are doing, what the weather is like, what the day brings …. she will hear you and watch over you. Here for you every single day Gonz xxx

 

[Gonz]

I just read this. She sounds like she was great

God, she so was. Best person I’ve ever known, and the only one to ever make me feel like I was worth a damn.

Despite whatever pain I may be feeling, I know how lucky I am. Most people go their whole lives without ever feeling the kind of happiness she gave me. I could feel as awful as I do now for the rest of my life and it will still have been worth it.

 

[Gonz]

Hi Sweetheart, I agree with @Magree, right now there is nothing anyone can say that can ease your pain - and my heart, thoughts and soul are with you. Sadly, no-one can live that pain for you - it is part of a process (a process so horrid, so hurtful, it is undescribable). My husband committed suicide and to this day I will never get over the pain, the loss but most of all the WHY and that question hangs around us and haunts us whatever the reason for death is .. why them, why me, why, why. Gonz - my heart is with you … ultimately there is nothing anyone can say that can take away the pain because YOU loved this woman you have lost but truly - she would not want you to be going through a single day's deep pain and definitely not thoughts of ending it. Live life - tell her every single day what you are doing, what the weather is like, what the day brings …. she will hear you and watch over you. Here for you every single day Gonz xxx

I’m so sorry about your husband. You’re too good a person to have to feel any of this. I mean, I know that’s not how it works. I know that life is uncaring at best and downright cruel at worst, and that it’ll keep piling shit on the best and worst alike with no regard for what we deserve or how much we can cope with and, even when it gives us something good, it’s only so that it can be snatched away later.

I’ve become sort of obsessed with other people's romantic relationships. Like, just a bit ago, I spent 3 hours on reddit reading all the replies to a post that asked for cute or funny stories about people’s SOs. And it’s a comfort to see that, even if it’s not for me anymore, there’s still love in the world. But sometimes I come across people like you, who’ve had to feel what I’m feeling, and it fucking hurts.

I mean, there’s a fair amount of shit I’ve dealt with. And usually, when I find others who’ve dealt with the same, it’s nice to know that I’m not alone. But not when it comes to this. But I have to ask, how do you keep going? I mean, I keep hearing that this will get better with time, but it’s getting closer and closer to the two year mark and it only seems to be getting worse.