Widowedbysuicide

Muggs,

I understand much of your pain and I feel for you.  Please, don't give up on living.

Marita

Tammy was a very fortunate woman.  You obviously we're/are crazy in love with her Mitch!  How wonderful.  To have loved and been loved that much for the time you two had together on earth is the fairytale story we all have dreamed of.  

To have lived such a blessed life to living this journey of grief is unreasonably cruel.  The deeper the love the greater the loss and pain.  Mitch, no one should have to suffer so much.  I don't know what is ahead for any of us, I truly hope that when we rejoin our loved ones we will live in paradise.

Marita

Dear Mitch,

I am so sorry that after all your positive and helpful comments that have helped me I wasn't there to give you the support and encouragement you needed and deserve.  

I know this post wasn't received when you would have benefited most but please know that you have my heartfelt thanks and my sincere apology.  My last ten days have been spent wallowing in my own grief without much concern for others.  There have been days where I haven't logged on and therefore have missed your posts.  I know that when I have been deep in my grief you have helped me see to feel better.  What I do know is that your life has been completely shattered with Tammy's death.  Your deep love for her will endure, and her love for you is missed with an almost unbearable intensity.  I wish I had the words that would lift you up, my depression isn't very helpful.

I offer you my prayers; I hope for you the peacefulness that your mind craves, the knowledge that you are the best spouse anyone could wish for, the physical health that will help you to feel better, the wisdom to help keep moving forward on this devastating journey, and the courage to keep going day by day or moment by moment, which ever you are able at the time.

Please take good care of yourself, I believe this would be what Tammy would want.

Marita

Marg, I don't think it's stupid.  These are your honest feelings, although I wish you didn't feel guilty, they are yours not anyone else's.  I really do like where you say you think Billy would have been happy.

Is it possible that Billy gently nudged the whistling out of you?  Could it be his message telling you that he doesn't want you to be unhappy?  

I hope that in time you will return to whistling, guilt free and natural and great.  

From reading some of your posts I get the feeling that you and Billy had lots of fun and happiness together.  I believe he would be relieved to know that you can find moments that are happy.  I feel that while our deep sadness is part of our grief journey, a little happiness and joy are part too.  

Marita

That is a beautiful painting.  Your courage is encouraging  

I'm just beyond the six month mark and I so agree with so much of what you have written Mitch - none of us chose this empty life.  

I miss my husband more than I thought possible.  I miss our life, as simple as it was.  I am lost when it comes to living without him.  

When I need to do the things that he normally looked after I am so ill prepared - 'bleed an injector?', where is the injector on this tractor?  I am now living a physically more challenging life on our 5 acres with fencing to maintain, animals to care for, and an adult son who is struggling to put one foot in front of the other.  I'm not receiving much money as I didn't work and my husband's employer said that I am not eligible for the life insurance benefit - the lawyer I saw agrees.  Does anyone choose this kind of life?  

We didn't think we needed many other people in our lives because often those 'people' brought trouble with them.  Almost everything we did we did it together.   

• I know he is gone and not coming back.  If that is acceptance then fine, just don't expect me to be happy about it.
• Get over it.  Over what exactly?  Am I expected to erase the memories and feelings of nearly 50 years of life?  
• Move on.  Now that's rich!!  Do you really think I have any choice in how I am going to live?  I go to bed alone every night hoping to see my husband in my dreams - and that has only happened twice.  Then, I have to get up every morning knowing that the person that I looked forward to being with for the rest of 'my life' ended his life.  

I think that I should have a t-shirt with the above three paragraphs printed on the back of it.  Then when someone makes the seemingly, ignorant statements they can read my reply as I turn to walk away from them.  

Thanks for putting up with my rant.  But, more importantly; thank you all for sharing and helping me on this unwanted journey.

Marita

Thank you Marty.

I am still suffering the befuddled mind and I can not find the bookmarks for the previous post.  I'm not even confident I can find that post again.  Your patience and support are so appreciated by me.

I have redone the bookmarks and they are where I can find them now.  There is so much information when we know where to look.  I'm going through a grief storm right now but it helps to know that there are periods of calm weather too.

Thank you for everything.

Marita

Hello,

Like you, I feel like I'm on a roller coaster ride (from hell and back).  None of this ride is comfortable.

The councellor I am seeing has been telling me that I need to look after myself and to be kind to myself.  The other thing we have talked about is being your own best friend.  She also says I need to do what is right for me... That is hard because I don't know what 'right' is.  

I hope you can find a way to prevent your feelings of guilt from stealing your energy.  My guilt has been like a cancer eating away at me.  Talking about it with someone who understands suicide is very, very healing.  

There is so much tragedy and trauma in your life and I feel incredibly sad for you.  Please know there are good people who can help you.  Perhaps you can ask a supportive person to help you find a good counsellor.  

You are in my thoughts and prayers.  If you want to send me a message just to chat I would welcome it.

Marita

Thank you to all of you that have posted here.  

I need to feel the hope of being together again, it is a desperate need.   I am hesitant to research the topic, I'm fearful that because he took his own life there will only be more sorrow...  Can someone gently tell me if there is any hope?

I feel that I failed Gord in life because I didn't give him all the love I had for him.  My fear of being hurt caused me to hold back my real feelings of love, perhaps this is why he decided to die...   I was so afraid he would leave me and I would be broken hearted.  I was so stupid to think that he couldn't hurt me if he didn't know he had my whole heart.  

I can certainly understand how terribly you miss him.  I was lucky to have been childhood friends with my husband so I have nearly 50 years of memories.  I feel very fortunate for that.  For those of us who had a truly good relationship with our partners it makes the loss that much more devastating.

In your heart you know the truth about his death and that is what matters most, not what others are saying.  Suicide is a hard thing to accept but so is an accidental death.  I'm sorry that you lost him and that you are having to cope with so much.  I am glad that you had him and his love in your life and that your daughter is a big part of that love.

I hope you will soon find the support and care you need and deserve.

Marita

Dear JJ660,

I'm so very sorry for your loss.  For you to not have a believable cause of death must be excruciatingly painful.  I understand the complications of dealing with more than one coroner and waiting for information and paperwork.

My husband died (of suicide) January 5th this year so I can understand some of your grief.  Even with my husband's cause being very obvious everything with the funeral home was delayed because his body had not been released in the time (7 days) I had expected.  I think these kinds of problems can make grief more difficult - once I was able to see a grief councellor I started to be able to accept that I needed to grieve.  Hospice in my area, Canada, have been wonderful.

Your daughter is a blessing.  She will bring you the joy that you need, and I'm happy that you will have that joy.

I hope you have had some news from the ME that has given you some peace.  You have my sincere condolences on the loss of your man.

Marita

Hello all,

This is the one place I can come to and feel the way I feel.  Everyone has described the feeling in their own way and has spoken all my thoughts.   Tomorrow marks six months since my better half ended his life.  The pain is so intense that I just want to not feel.  If I could sleep forever...

I have my adult son living with me and I want/need to be 'here' for him, but I am not being 'here' for me.  I need comfort but I fear letting him know how badly I hurt - I worry as he has had suicidal thoughts off and on since he was 7 and he is 29 now.  

In this time of my life I really need a friend.  Someone I can trust, someone who will tell me that 'it is ok to feel the way I do', to just be compassionate.  But, suicide is what no one wants to think about, talk about, or hear about.  

I honestly came here to find the answers about dealing with feelings of Lonlieness, Emptiness, Meaninglessness.

Take care all.

Thank you all for your kindness.  

Laura, I've never really been a demonstrative or verbal person when it comes to love.  Physical contact makes me uncomfortable and hurts of the past have caused me to withhold my feelings.  I'm hoping that my husband, who really was everything to me, has forgiven me for being so inattentive in the last year.  I feel like I've forgiven him for the secretive drinking that I only found out about after his death.  He was obviously drinking to feel better and his long lived addiction had once again stolen the sober him.  I knew something was 'up' but he denied his use.  He had me thinking that it was 'fake' beer which I thought was bad enough, but it was not always the fake stuff.  After the fact, I looked at the bank statements and the evidence was there.  Intellectually I know that he is responsible for his drinking and his death.  However; emotionally I have been struggling with the guilt issue.  I am saddened that he chose to end his life but I don't feel angry because I know more fully now that his life was a never ending hell.  I have been suicidal more than once in the past.

MartyT, I have been checking out the books and other resources you listed.  Thank you for suggesting them.

KayC, our 29 year old (today) gay son moved back with us about 5 years ago so I am not alone. I am very worried about him though, as he has been suicidal off and on for 21 years.  Life is complicated.

Anne, I'm not very good at being truthful about my feelings.  My desire to not offend others and efforts to seek approval have almost always come before my personal needs.

I try to deal with my emotions with humour rather than tears because I always felt that crying was a sign of weakness.  My mother is narcissistic.  My father, my hero, is dead.  I am an only child with very few close family members of my own or my husband's.

I'm off for a pizza to celebrate Reid's birthday.  I hope I help him have a good memory of the day.  Thank you all.  I will be back soon.

Marita

Hi Mitch,

I'm new here and I just wanted to say that you are giving me a lot of courage, and I want to thank you and your Tammy for giving me that gift.

My heart understands some of your heartbreak and wishes you to feel less anguish.

Hello 

I'm just so messed up right now that I don't think I can post anything positive.  I hate that when I start to try to talk about things it is like verbal vomit.  If you want to call me Marita that would be good.

I don't count the days because mostly I'm not sure what day it is.  I just know that the 5th day of any month marks another month he's been gone and that Tuesday is the hardest day of the week.

Many thanks for the replies on this post.  It makes me feel less alone.

Thank you for your kindness and your response to my post KayC and MartyT.

As you can imagine I am in turmoil.  I need to compose myself to in order to continue this discussion ...  I will be back a little later today.  

I am new to widowhood.  I am new to forums.  I feel so many things.  Yes, right now it is all about me.

January 5, 2016 - I wish I could go back for 5 more minutes so I could tell him how much I loved him.

I don't know how I found my way here; I'm so glad I did.  

I need a community that understands the trauma of losing 49 years of my 59 years of life.