Dr Lenera

Now this is one thing I've kind of avoided doing. I want to go to 'our' places, it seems a good thing to do, but I just can't face doing it even though it's now over a year. Our favourite places to visit, our favourite restaurants [not that I'd want to eat alone anyway], our favourite pubs, our favourite beaches/parks etc, going to the theatre which she loved doing so much and I can't see myself ever wanting to go again...I've just avoided them. I did go away for a few days last September to a seaside town [I'm in the UK] we fell in love with and where we'd had holidays six times, but I was still in a daze from the death back then. I'm not sure I'd be able to go there now. I'm just so pleased [if that's the right word] that our favourite restaurant/bar near where we lived changed hands a few weeks before she died and had a huge re-fit so it now looks nothing like the place we used to love. Otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to handle walking past it two or three times a week [which I have to do due to its location]. It's silly really, and almost insulting to my Jo's memory. I want there to be a time when I can visit these places without fear and get some fulfillment out of it. Maybe I'm not doing so well as I thought.....

Beautiful....and despite its sadness, just about as positive as I think it could realistically be.

Coming home is still one of the hardest things isn't it? My wife would always have a cup of tea ready for me when I got home from work as she would finish earlier than me. My days tend to be a little better of late, but no matter how good a day at work or a day out has been, the act of coming home and opening the front door into an empty house is still ever so miserable, so weird, so wrong.

I think you've stated it perfectly. Many people find it hard to deal with folk like us because it reminds them of what is gradually creeping up on them though they try not to think about it. In a way I think it feels like we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. If we do our very best to get on with things and move on and at least pretend to be happy, many people seem to think there's something 'wrong' with that, almost as if it's preferable that we look and act thoroughly miserable every day, and even insulting to the person who's died [I've got that vibe a couple of times from a family member and it nearly brought me to tears]. But on the other hand....if we make little attempt to disguise how we really feel and tell it like it actually is, folk just find it hard to handle or suggest in so many words that we're dwelling unnecessarily on the "past" and the "negative"....as if there's really a positive to it all!

I still wear mine. It just doesn't feel right with it off. I did try going about my day with it removed a couple of weeks ago and it just felt wrong so I put it back on. There's something comforting about wearing it. And at the moment I don't like giving the impression to anyone of the opposite sex that I'm 'single' and therefore 'available'. I'm aware that some people I know think that this is silly but I really couldn't care less about that! I'll may very well take it off one day...or I may not. But for the time being it's staying on.

That's precisely how I've been feeling of late. I feel that I should remember the good times for the rest of my life and have been making a concerted effort to do so out of respect. But whenever I try to do it, sadness just takes over and I have to think of something happy that's unrelated, or go and do something, so my mind clears.

Yep the 'special days' certainly do keep coming. Luckily we got married on her birthday, she suggested it in case I forgot our anniversary [I think she was joking!]. But we also used to celebrate other days many others would probably find ridiculous - the anniversary of the first time we went out together, the anniversary we got engaged, the anniversary we became 'intimate', etc. That's really biting me on the 'ass' now, I sometimes just wish I could forget them but that's never going to happen.

Exactly! I do genuinely feel that people mean well and are at least a bit concerned, but that they just find it hard to deal with how things really are. I've noticed that 'pained' look quite a few times and on those occasions I actually felt guilty for speaking the truth and making people feel ill at ease or even upset....which is ridiculous really!

Same here. It's so hard to say to people how we really feel, especially as most or even all of us tend to alternate 'bad' days with 'not quite so bad' days. I have four people - my mother, my father and my two closest friends -who I feel able to say exactly how I feel whenever they ask, though they sometimes have to get it out of me as I'm not one for talking about things and don't want them to worry too much about me! Everyone else now [two people asked me how I was just today] just gets one of my usual 'semi-positive' type answers e.g. "I'm not too bad all things considered", "I possibly feel ever so slightly better". But obviously I don't want to sound too positive. It's so hard. Sometimes I feel as if I don't want friends or acquaintances to speak to me at all, it'll be so much easier then!

I had a break from here too of five or six weeks but found myself drawn back here. It's weird because I sometimes feel that I don't want to be on this forum....not because people aren't friendly and understanding [the opposite is true, and I do usually find it therapeutic to talk on here and read], but because....I don't know, I find it hard to explain....it kind of feels like there's something wrong with me. Which is kind of true I suppose. I guess I'm not making any sense, I'm just rambling so I'll shut up now lol!!!!!!!

This was devastating to read, and right now I probably only have a slight sense of the pain you must feel. I'm not sure that I could ever truly love again and that's partly because I don't want to go through losing somebody again. I hope one day you find some small measure of comfort in that you did find that love again, even if your time together was horribly brief. My thoughts are with you.

I'm not a praying man as I don't "believe" but I cannot fail to be moved by that post. The night before Jo died I did go to sleep saying to myself "please don't die", though I don't entirely know why as I pretty much knew [partly due to a premonition a few nights before] that it would happen.

Very good poem, I can relate a great deal even though I'm a man, funny [well ,maybe not] thing about the pink - we decided at my Jo's funeral that we didn't want black and that everyone should wear pink, even if it's just a tie - it was her favourite colour and she would have found the sight of us all sporting that colour both funny and wonderful.

Nightwinds: THREE MONTHS?!!!! I could not believe what I've just read. That comment just shows no real understanding or knowledge of how things are. Your response summed it up very eloquently. It's just over a year now for me now and I have been recently been asked twice if I'm feeling a bit better now and when I reply [depending on my mood at the time] "not really" or "maybe a tiny bit, but that's all" the person asking the question seemed very surprised though tried to half-heartedly conceal it. Nobody really has even an idea of what it's like until they experience it themselves. And yes, those final 15 mins or so cannot help but replay in our heads over and over again. I sometimes feel like I've just made a film and consider that the original ending is too sad so I'm thinking of a different, happier one but none of what I come up with seems right for the story I've tried to tell.

Tom PB I can relate to that coming situation you describe...have been in it several times, they exist on a knife edge don't they, they can either be really good and fulfilling, or can go terrribly wrong, especially if someone says something that triggers something else, even unintentionally. Gwenivere same here, I hated doing all the legal stuff, I was also numb during most of it which maye have been a good thing, but as you say it's really upsetting afterwards for ages, even now I stil hate looking at bank statements [thank goodness I paid off the mortgage and now own our house, so that's out the way] and the like, seeing a certain name is missing, is yet more cruel evidence that our love is gone!