jathas

This past month has been the most difficult time I have ever experienced in my entire life. Yes, I was just a kid when I met and fell in love with my husband. Being only 18 years old and having literally just graduated from high school, the very last thing on my mind was finding my soulmate and settling down, but then along he came. I never thought that going into an AOL chatroom one day in June of 2000 would change my life forever. There he was. When we met in person and after we had spent a couple of days together, I knew that he was the one and that we were meant for each other. I did grow up with him. Over the past 22 years, I've gone from being an 18/19-year-old kid to a 40-year-old woman and have grown and matured so much since then. He played a large role in the person I became. He was there for everything, the good times, the bad times, and everything in between. The overwhelming anxiety of him not being here is overpowering at times. Just like at 18 I never expected to find my soulmate and settle down, I also never expected to lose him like this. We were supposed to grow old together. He had his flaws and I have mine, but what we had was so special and I feel impossible to replicate in another relationship. No matter how much we got on each other's nerves, what tough times we faced, or what we argued over, we loved each other unconditionally and always supported each other. It wasn't supposed to end like this. We had so many chapters ahead of us. 😥

I could not agree more with this. Until you have been through the absolute nightmare of losing your spouse, the one person who for so many years you could always confide in, lean on, vent to, talk to, be your true, raw self around, be intimate with, feel 100% comfortable and safe with, and rely on, it's impossible to understand the pain and agony that we go through with this type of loss. For me, so suddenly losing my husband a month ago was like a giant bomb going off right in my face. My ENTIRE world has changed. Losing my loved ones has always been my biggest fear. I'm now living a life that I am terrified of and that I don't know. I've never been on my own like this. For 22 years, it was always "us." I, too, am an only child and my parents are older. My mother is 76 and my father just recently turned 85. Thankfully, they are both well and my dad is VERY active for his age and still goes to the gym. However, my parents just don't get it. They try to be as supportive as possible and they are always 100% there for me, but they haven't been through this. I am SO grateful to still have both of my parents, but I know that they just don't fully comprehend the nightmare that I'm living after losing my husband so unexpectedly 4 weeks ago. Yes, they loved my husband, but he was their son-in-law. It's a much different relationship and I also sometimes get frustrated with them. I don't mean to, but it's just so hard. The other night, my mom wanted to talk about work they are having done to their house and I was just NOT in the mood. I told her I was sorry, but I couldn't listen to or talk about that sort of thing right now. All I can think about is my husband and how unfair this is. I feel like I've been robbed of my entire life and it hurts so much.

I realize that I'll be the one living in the house. It just breaks my heart because it was supposed to be OUR home and our next chapter. We had even already starting buying things for this new house before he passed. I so badly wanted to share this home with the love of my life. We've always shared a home together. He already had plans to turn the finished basement into his "man cave"/office. There is even a bar down there and he was going to deck it all out with his beer signs and shot glasses (even though he didn't even drink). I just feel deep in my heart that my husband would have wanted me to continue in the purchase of this home. I would give anything in this world to have my husband back. He has been my entire world since I was 18. Everyone in my family adored him. In fact, I just got a text from one of my cousins and his wife checking in on me and saying that they've been thinking about me (and my husband) constantly these past several weeks. Everyone is in complete and utter shock that he is gone. He was (and still is) so loved. 😥

I really don't want to wait. The seller is already staying in the house for 2-3 weeks after closing because she needs some additional time to move, so she agreed to pay me rent to stay there for 2-3 weeks after closing. That puts us into fall and since I live in New England, it starts to get cold, we lose daylight hours, etc. and I don't want to go through a move in those conditions. I really need to stick to this August 8th closing date. Also, they already had to extend my rate lock and could only extend it as far as the closing date, so waiting really isn't an option. This was house was something that was already in motion before my husband passed, so it's not like I just suddenly decided to buy a house after he passed. It took us forever to find a house we loved and could also afford in this insane market. This is something we had been working towards for the last two years and contracts had already been signed right before he passed.

Yesterday was a very rough day, being the one month mark since my husband's sudden passing. It was filled with a rollercoaster of emotions. I spent the entire first half of the day crying. Then, our best friend came over in the evening (as she has every night since he passed) and we talked about my husband for a couple of hours. She knows my husband and I better than anybody else on this planet. She's been our best friend for 21 years, since the very early days of our relationship and before we were even married. My husband and I had only been together for just over a year when we first met her and had an instant connection with her. We all used to work together back in 2001 and 2002, which is how we met her. We talked about all of the difficult times and the struggles that my husband and I had throughout the years and then, of course, all of the great times and amazing memories. Whenever my husband and I would have an argument, we would both separately vent to her, LOL. She knows us inside and out, so I am incredibly grateful to have such a close, longtime friend who has been there since almost the beginning of mine and Matt's relationship and who is more like family. She adored my husband like a younger brother, but she also acknowledges his flaws (and mine) and reminds me that our marriage was not always perfect, especially in these last several years. Even though I have our best friend and my supportive parents right here (plus our pets), I feel SO LONELY. Aside from work, there wasn't a single time that my husband and I were separated for 22 years. The longest we were ever apart was when he had to travel to New Mexico for 2 weeks for work in the summer of 2015, but that was it. We were ALWAYS together. I am terrified of being alone. I have never felt so much anxiety and fear in my entire life. Now, I'm even having second thoughts on whether or not I should continue purchasing the home that my husband and I had planned to purchase and had gone under contract on only 4 or 5 days before he passed or if I should just move in with my parents, who I currently live right across the street from. Then again, I'm 40 (almost 41) years old. Do I really want to be living with my parents and sleeping in my childhood/adolescence bedroom that I haven't slept in since I was 19 years old? The bedroom that I was in when I first met my husband in an AOL chatroom in June of 2000 at 18 years old? I've come so far in the process of buying this home, closing is on August 8th, and the house is less than a 15-minute drive from my parents and best friend, but I'm just so scared of doing it all by myself. Thankfully, my husband had a fairly large life insurance policy that he left to me, giving me a nice nest egg, which I am BEYOND grateful for (he always told me I would be taken care of in the event of his passing), but it's still so terrifying. I know (or at least I'm pretty sure) that my husband would want me to continue on with buying this house. It's our dream home and my husband was so excited about it. He was joking that he was going to put his HAM radio towers up on the property (my two uncles got him into HAM radio many years ago). It has the perfect yard for our dogs to run and play and plenty of room for our new 27-foot above-ground pool (which we already had bought) and it was everything we ever dreamed of having. It's in such a peaceful location and the backyard is almost like a private oasis. Part of me feels like I should still do it for him. I feel like I would be carrying out our goal and our dream on his behalf. I have a feeling that he will be there with me in the new home, because this was our plan and it's where we both wanted to be. We sold our last home of 13 years in 2020 since we outgrew it and we've been renting the house across the street from my parents since, with the intentions of building a new home, but COVID put a huge damper on that, so we finally decided to just purchase an existing home. We had been house hunting for over a year and we finally found this home that was within our price range and was perfect. Totally updated and in the same town as our previous home (right where we wanted to be). We even found out right after my husband passed that the seller actually was a co-worker of my husband's, who also lost her husband 10 years ago and, like my husband, her husband was also originally form Boston. Coincidence? Not sure. I'm just so confused and lost. I don't have the slightest idea of what I'm supposed to be doing right now and it's getting down to the wire. I'm overwhelmed and scared. Not that there is ever a good time to lose a spouse, but this was THE WORST possible timing for my husband to go, right in the middle of buying a new home and leaving me with some HUGE decisions and commitments to make by myself. I'm sure I'll end up going through with it. I keep telling myself that I've worked way too hard to just give up and quit at the finish line. Closing is just over a week away and I've come this far. I'm just extremely lonely and I miss him so, so much. I also relied and depended on him for SO many things. He was brilliant and could do/fix just about anything. I'm filled with fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and confusion and I need strength and guidance in the worst way right now. 😥

Having a very hard time today. I've been flooded with memories of our life together and I've been looking through many years worth of old photos going all the way back to the very early 2000s, and even some photos of my husband from before I had met him. I just don't know how I can go on. He was my BEST FRIEND and my rock for 22 years. I never wanted to share my life with anyone but him. I miss our little "bubble" that we had together so much. It didn't matter where we were or what we were doing. As long as we were together, we knew all was fine. I feel like the days are getting worse instead of better. Aside from our best friend who comes over every single night and my parents, for the most part, everybody has stopped checking in on me and gone on with their lives and I'm here trying to pick up the pieces and figure out this new and scary life. Sure, I get the little heart reactions and the "thinking of you" and "hugs" type comments whenever I post something on Facebook, but that's it. I am terrified of living without my husband and I am SO lonely. 😥

Thank you so much for this. Yes, my husband and I were EXTREMELY close; however, just like you said, our marriage was FAR from perfect. We had our fair share of ups and downs and hills and valleys. We didn't always see eye to eye on things and we would argue, fight, and say mean things to each other that we didn't really mean, simply out of pure frustration with our situation. I said so many horrible things to him that I now so deeply regret. He said horrible things to me as well. We were both guilty of it. I would regret every horrible thing that I said as soon as I had a chance to step away and cool off, but I was at my breaking point. We no longer had a life because he NEVER felt well and had so little energy. His many years of chronic health issues created a lot of friction in our marriage, which I hate. They also caused significant financial issues as a result of him missing so much work whenever he was in the hospital, sick, recovering from something, etc. As a result, I would be pulling 70-80-hour work weeks to try and compensate. I work from home and would be working well into the wee hours of the morning after having worked all day. I was beyond the point of exhaustion. I would just get so frustrated that he was dealing with one ailment after another after another and we rarely ever got a break from it. That is what our life has been like these past several years as his health spiraled out of control and he just seemed to lose all motivation to even try to improve his health. It was like he surrendered to the illnesses and he just wasn't the same person anymore. Still, I NEVER stopped loving him with all my heart and I never once even THOUGHT of giving up on him or leaving him. I couldn't imagine my life without him. He was my best friend and the love of my life and all that I wanted was for him to feel better and for us to have a life again that wasn't so limited and restricted by his health issues and chronic pain. I LOVED spending time with him and I always thoroughly enjoyed his company and companionship, but he has just been too sick these last few years to be there for me in the way that he always used to be. 😥

This is exactly how I feel, especially since I was with my husband since I was just 18 years old. I had been with him my entire adult life up until this point. I feel like he had a huge role in the adult that I turned out to be. I really do feel like a large part of me died with him. We were so connected and so bonded for over two decades. I think it's totally normal to feel like part of you died with them! When you have a deep soul connection with someone, I feel like your energy is their energy and theirs is yours. It's exhausting! I had a rough day today with a lot of crying. Thankfully, my best friend was here for me to blurt everything I was feeling out to. She's been our best friend for 21 years and she is also having a very difficult time with my husband's passing as well. I am so grateful that she has been coming over every single night for the past month since the day he passed. Then, my one or both of my parents (who live across the street) come over. I just keep wishing I could wake up from this nightmare.

I was just telling our best friend last night that I want to ALWAYS keep his memory alive. He was such an amazing guy. EVERYBODY who met him or worked with him loved him. He would give the shirt off his back if it was the very last shirt he had to someone in need. He was the easiest person in the world to talk to and everyone just felt an immediate comfort in his presence. I had that comfort for 22 years. His charisma, his charm, and his reassurance always made even the worst situations seem not so bad. He could make just about anybody feel at ease. That's why he was such a great paramedic and nurse for so many years. He died on June 28, 2022, at 2:17 p.m. I love the idea of holding a moment of silence in his memory and trying to connect with him at that time next year and every other year for as long as I live. I've never been a religious person whatsoever. My mother is Jewish and my father is a Catholic priest (interesting combination, I know!). Right now, I am more about spirituality than religion and believing that we do still live on in spirit form after we leave our physical bodies and that we really can connect with our loved ones who have passed and that they will always be with us. It's really all I have to grasp onto at this point. I miss his physical presence so much that I actually get nauseous and a couple of times even threw up when I was REALLY missing him. It's just the anxiety of repeatedly realizing he's gone that overwhelms me and almost puts me into a state of sheer panic. I've never known a life without him. When I met him, I was just an 18-year-old kid still living at home with my parents and then we moved in together about a month after we met. We've been together ever since. I know that tomorrow will be VERY difficult for me. It's the one-month anniversary. I keep saying like I feel like somebody hit stop on my life on June 28th and I haven't been able to move past that day. It's like I'm trapped, frozen in time. It's the worst feeling I've ever experienced in my life. 😥

Tomorrow will mark exactly one month since my husband suddenly and unexpectedly passed. We were together for 22 years and we are young. I am 40 and he had just turned 52 a few weeks before his sudden passing. My husband and I were hardly ever apart for 22 years. In the past month, the absolute WORST time of the day for me is when I get up in the morning. As soon as I wake up, the realization hits me that my husband is not here. I cry most mornings. Waking up alone for the very first time in 22 years is absolutely nauseating. I literally feel sick to my stomach. I miss the comfort of his presence so much it hurts. I HATE being like this and I feel so heartbroken and angry that my soulmate was taken from me so soon and so suddenly. I'm only a month into this, but as holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. approach, I'm sure that I will be a complete and total mess. Thanksgiving and Christmas will be especially hard. We actually got married on Thanksgiving and my husband and I went crazy at Christmas decorating the house, getting together with friends and family, having and attending holiday parties together, etc., and now I won't have that. 😥

My grief is so multifaceted. Matt had many chronic health issues that went on for many years. However, in these last 2-3 years or so, his health really took a downward turn. This year in particular (obviously) has been the worst. He had to be rushed to the hospital in early February with severe sepsis that they could never determine the source of. They had to give him pressor medications to get his blood pressure up because it was dangerously low. He also had sepsis about a year prior to that and the exact cause was never determined at that time either. Then, in early April, this foot wound cropped up out of nowhere. Literally, it was like it just appeared out of thin air. He suddenly one day started complaining of his right foot being very painful. At the time, I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, great. Here we go again. Another ailment/complaint." I don't think I even saw the wound in the very beginning when he first brought it up, but he did go to his PCP, who was extremely concerned about it and urgently referred him to a podiatrist/diabetic limb salvage specialist about 30 minutes from where we live. Then, he ended up in the hospital for about a week, where they took him to the operating room several times to clean out the wound and remove an infected metatarsal. The conclusion was that he had Charcot foot and had also fractured his foot at some point (we had no idea when or how - he never mentioned any foot pain prior), hence the infected bone that had to come out. When he came home from the hospital, the wound was huge. He ended up back in the hospital about a week or two later with sepsis and was in the hospital for another several days to a week. He ended up getting a PICC line so he could come home and infuse the antibiotics through the PICC line himself. When he passed, he was in severe metabolic acidosis, which is a clear indicator of severe sepsis, and they also believe that he had a pulmonary embolism due to right atrial enlargement of his heart that wasn't there on a very recent echocardiogram that he had during one of his recent hospitalizations only weeks earlier. The embolism very well could have come from his PICC line. His doctors all told him that he needed a below-knee amputation and warned him that he was at severely high risk of developing life-threatening sepsis if they didn't amputate fairly quickly, but my husband refused. He wanted to do everything possible to try and save his foot and insisted on continuing with the daily wound care and PICC line antibiotic infusions. He was terrified of ending up like his mother, who was wheelchair-bound due to losing a leg as a result of something similar at a similar age as my husband (also diabetic). It all boils down to the fact that even before his passing, I had already been mourning the loss of our marriage/relationship as it once was before his health took a drastic turn for the worst and it became the main focus of our lives. We used to be so active and spontaneous and loved to travel and do a variety of things together. We had plans almost every weekend. Our life was never boring. However, over the past 2-3 years, that all stopped. My husband suffered from chronic pain due to severe spinal canal stenosis and was on opiates for years. Those pills alone, especially when taken chronically over a period of many years, will drastically change a person. It was like he stopped caring about almost everything and he was just a shell of my husband. He rarely ever felt well and didn't have the energy or the physical ability to do so many of the things that we used to do. He couldn't drive very long distances due to his worsening back and neck pain. He was also frequently irritable and in a bad mood. That led me into a deep depression. I have always loved my husband with all my heart and so badly wanted him to get better and to be happy again, but it wasn't happening, so I've just spent the past 2-3 years in my office working. My depression caused me to lose interest in just about everything as well, so I definitely could sympathize with how my husband was feeling. We rarely did anything and rarely went anywhere during that time. I tried with all my might to help my husband improve his health and the quality of his life and begged him to adopt healthier habits and to quit smoking, but it was like talking to a brick wall. Still, though, we had each other. He was always here when I needed him and our love never faded. I never once gave up on him and I did my very best to take care of him. Everything that has happened has me devastatingly heartbroken and I miss him so, so much. Just his presence alone (even when he was in a grumpy mood) was so comforting and reassuring to me.

I'm definitely not planning on rushing out to find someone. That is not even on my radar at this point. Matt and I shared an amazing 22 years together. We were so in love and were soulmates. I am nowhere NEAR ready to date or get involved in a new relationship. It has only been a month (well, tomorrow it will be a month). Of course, being with the wrong person is much worse than being alone and I would NEVER want that. All I want is my husband. He was the only one I ever wanted, but now he's not here and I am left with the raw, unbearable pain of losing him. I've said it before and I'll say it again - he was the air in my lungs....always. I have a necklace that I wear every day with our initials on it and it says "always and forever." I still wear my wedding band and have NO plans to take it off any time soon. What Matt and I had cannot be easily replicated. Our connection and love were so deep. I still can't shake the feeling of shock that he's gone. One day, when the timing is right, I hope to meet someone who I can love, but right now, all I want is my Matt. He wasn't just my husband, but my best friend. 😥

Thank you so much for this! It really does help. I know for a fact that Matt wouldn't want me to be sad and alone for the rest of my life. I'm only 40. I don't want to be alone. In fact, I HATE it. I've NEVER been alone in my entire life. Sure, I have always enjoyed my "me" time and Matt and I would do our own things around the house, but just knowing that he's not here and that I can't just run into the other room or text message him to talk to him is the most depressing thing in the world for me. I just need someone who I can connect with and who will accept me for me the way that Matt always did. Of course, they also have to be an animal lover because my pets are the world to me (Matt and I never had kids and our pets have always been our babies and have always meant the world to us). Right now, I'm so deep in my grief that I can't even think about being with anyone else; however, at some point, I would love to find someone. The memories that I have with Matt and the love that I have for him will be kept in my heart forever.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing/wanting companionship and not wanting to be alone. I feel the exact same way. We are only human and our souls crave love and connection. Matt and I were together nonstop for 22 years. Aside from when we were working, we were ALWAYS together and we always had each other to rely and lean on. To have that suddenly ripped away from you is so crippling. I will ALWAYS love my husband with all my heart. He was my first and only true love. He was the first and only one I was ever intimate with. I have always said that we obviously must have had a very intense connection and bond for me, an 18-year-old wild and free kid, to fall so head over heels in love after spending just a few days with him. I had NEVER felt that way about any other guy. When I first met Matt, marriage or even a serious relationship were the furthest things from my mind. I was just a kid a few months shy of 19 who had just graduated from high school and hadn't even been out in the real world yet. I was having a blast dating different guys, hanging out with my friends, and planning for college. Then, along came Matt and everything changed. I was completely swept off my feet. I remember after we had spent several days together in Acadia National Park and he had to go back to Boston because he had to get back to work, I was bawling my eyes out. I did NOT want him to leave. I knew he was the one. To experience that at such a young age is so incredibly rare. The only thing I can call it is a soul connection. It was like I knew at that very moment at just 18 years old that we were supposed to be together and that we were meant to meet. Nothing could keep us apart. While I so badly want to love again, I'm terrified that I'll never find anybody like Matt, or even close. I'm worried that I will constantly be comparing other men to Matt, and that's not fair to anybody. I'm just so lost. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. I've never once been a religious person in my entire life, but I've spent this entire past month praying for some sort of guidance. I also pray that Matt will always be watching over me. I don't think I will ever recover from losing him.

In two days, on July 28th, it will have been exactly one full month since I suddenly lost my soulmate. I don't even know how I've made it through this past month. Most of it is a blur. I feel like my life has been frozen in time on the day he passed, like I'm living in this dark tunnel that I can't find my way out of and can't see the light at the end of. My parents, best friend, dogs, and cats have been instrumental in keeping me somewhat sane. It's so devastating because I literally don't know a life without my husband. I was with him since I was only 18 years old. I was with him for over half of my life and for my entire adult life. We met and started dating the same week I graduated from high school. He helped shape and form the person I am today. He was 11 years my senior. We had just gone under contract to buy our dream home only 4 or 5 days before he so suddenly left this world. Now, I am left trying to continue on with our dream of purchasing this house and having to deal with the loan officer, underwriter requesting more and more documents, etc. Closing is supposed to be on August 8th. I want to continue purchasing this home because I know it's what my husband would have wanted. He loved this house so much and he was so excited for it. I want to do this in honor of him and what we had together. It's just hard. SO, SO hard. I miss him so much it hurts. I wake up every morning feeling anxious and terrified knowing that he's not here. He was here for 22 years. How am I supposed to get past this? I'm only 40 years old (will be 41 in September) and I don't want to be alone forever. I'm the type of person who needs companionship and who needs to feel loved and to have somebody to love. It's just what my husband and I had was SO special and rare and I don't know if I'll ever find that again. We were soulmates. It's so difficult to have the level of comfort in a relationship that my husband and I had. We could be our true, raw selves with each other. We could confide in each other about anything and we could do anything together. We were rarely ever apart for 22 years and now I have been robbed of my best friend and soulmate. I'm also so frustrated and angry that he would not take any steps to improve his health so that this whole thing could have been avoided, which I BEGGED and nagged him to do for YEARS, so it's been a whole rollercoaster of emotions. I'd give anything to have him back for even just one day. I miss his hugs so much. I always knew I was safe and protected with him. Now, I am so lost and feel so vulnerable and alone. 😥

He actually wasn't in diabetic ketoacidosis, but metabolic acidosis as a result of severe septicemia from his diabetic foot wound. He was showing signs of infection for weeks (freezing when it was 80 degrees in his office, diarrhea, lethargy, etc.), but did not seek medical attention until it was too late. In fact, during the last several weeks to month that he was alive, he was constantly hypoglycemic and could not get his sugars to come up no matter what. He had many things going on at once, unfortunately.

THIS. Yes, it's the connection, companionship, love, and comfort of having a life partner who is always there is what is missed. You can't just fill that void with any random person. You need to have a connection and attraction. If you can't love yourself, then it's going to be EXTREMELY difficult for others to love you.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I am only 40 and my husband had turned 52 just 3 weeks before he passed, so much too young to be dealing with something like this. It has been almost a full month since he passed and I don't know how I have made it through this month. I literally have NO IDEA how I've survived this month without him. Thank GOD for our best friend, who has been coming over every single evening since he passed and getting me out of the house a bit. It helps that she loved him (as a best friend) as much as I loved him as a husband, so I have someone to share the grief with. She's been our best friend for 21 years, so I am SO fortunate to have her. She's a good bit older than my husband and I (64), but she has ALWAYS been our best friend (really more like family). She also lost her mother last August, both of her brothers within months of each other in 2020, her sister in 2012, her nephew in 2003, and her youngest son in 2000 or 2001, and her husband of 20+ years (who was a severe alcoholic) walked out on her 10 years ago right after her sister passed, so she is a grief expert and has been a SIGNIFICANT help to me She is helping me pack up our house in preparation for my move into the new house next month. This has been the single most traumatic experience I have EVER been through in my entire life. Nothing could have ever prepared me to lose my husband at such a young age. We had SO much to look forward to with our brand new house that we had just gone under contract on and we were both SO excited about our future together in our new home, which we had both worked so hard for. I'm still going through with purchasing the home, but it's going to be VERY difficult doing it without him. It was supposed to be OUR home. This was OUR plan and OUR goal and we had JUST reached it and then he passed days after having our offer accepted and signing the purchase and sales agreement. I can't even think about it without crying. Ironically, the seller of the house worked with my husband and we didn't even realize it until after he had passed. She, too, lost her husband 10 years ago and, just like my husband, her husband was also originally from Boston. Fate? Divine intervention? Purely coincidence? I have no idea. Ever since he passed, I have woken up every single morning in tears because I immediately realize that he's not here and the anxiety and sadness hit me like a ton of bricks. Waking up every morning and coming to that realization is like losing him all over again.

This is what I suspect happened with my husband. He really let his health go, especially over the last couple of years. Also, in the several weeks before he passed, he kept telling me how much he loved me and how much he appreciated everything I had done and was doing for him. He also expressed similar things to our best friend, telling her what an amazing friend she is, etc., and neither of us thought much of it at the time. We thought he was just being extra gushy. He would say things to me like, "I love you to the moon and back." We ALWAYS said "I love you" to each other several times a day, but in the weeks to month or so before he passed, he REALLY layered it on thick with the "I love yous" and repeatedly expressing his appreciation. I really wonder if he had just given up and he knew he wasn't going to be around for much longer. I wish I would have picked up on the signs. I don't know what I would have been able to do, but it just breaks my heart and brings me to tears thinking back on it and reading his old texts from before he passed expressing his profound love and appreciation to me. After he passed, I went into his medical records and saw where doctors had advised him several times that he really needed to have a below-knee amputation because his foot wound was very serious. They warned him that he could become septic again and it could be a life-threatening situation. Looking back (and I have a strong medical background), I think he was highly septic at the time of his passing. There was a foul spoiled fish-like smell coming from his foot wound (although the visiting nurse and doctors had all said it was looking better) and he was CONSTANTLY freezing, even though it was 80-85 degrees outside, he was VERY weak and tired, and he had quite a bit of diarrhea. He also could NOT get his blood sugars up no matter what he ate or if he didn't take his insulin. The ER note from when he passed said he was in severe metabolic acidosis, which can happen from sepsis. I wonder if he had taken the advice of the doctors and had the amputation done if he would still be here. I KNOW that he was hell-bent on keeping the foot. He did NOT want to be an amputee like his mother was. I also don't think he would have been strong enough to use a prosthesis with all of his spine issues and other chronic health issues. He was in very poor physical shape. The entire situation breaks my heart and I miss him so much that I at times feel physically sick.

Our stories are so similar. When my husband and I first met and "coupled up" 22 years ago, I, too, was only 18 years old (I was 3 months shy of 19) and my husband had just turned 30. My husband just passed a little under a month ago at the young and totally unfair age of 52. He had just turned 52 a few weeks before he passed. We had also just celebrated 22 years together not even 2 weeks before he passed. I know exactly what you are talking about. Since my husband and I were never apart for 22 years, I'm sure that neither of us noticed the physical changes in each other as we aged. I was literally still a kid who had just graduated from high school when we first met and now I am 40. Honestly, my husband always looked the same to me throughout the years. Sure, he started getting some gray hairs as he got into his 50s, but who doesn't? Aside from that, he still looked pretty much the same to me as he did when we first met 22 years ago, albeit a slight bit older looking, but not much at all. Believe me, I have MANY pictures of us/him that go WAY back to when we first met and I don't see much difference at all in his physical appearance throughout the years. Of course, he died at a very young age, so that may have something to do with it.

This is exactly how I am feeling. I keep asking over and over what I ever did to deserve this. I'm only 40 years old and my husband had just turned 52 the same month he passed. Neither he or I deserve this. We should have had decades ahead of us together. I feel totally robbed. You are so right. This is THE MOST humbling experience I have ever been through in my entire life, and it hasn't even been a full month for me yet. We were together for 22 years, but only actually married for 12 of those years, but it was as though we were married the entire time because we always lived together, paid the bills together, bought cars and homes together, etc. The one thing that I am proud of is that I was ALWAYS there for my husband throughout all of his health struggles over the years. He hated it when I used to nag him about taking better care of himself, quitting smoking, eating better, etc. but I still did it because I love him and was so worried about him. Whenever I would bring it up, no matter what approach I took, he would either shut down or it would turn into an argument and I would have to walk away out of frustration. I did anything I could possibly do to try and help him improve the quality of his life (really OUR life). I was his voice, his advocate. Even though I didn't attend most of his medical appointments because I had to work, I was VERY involved in his healthcare. I always spoke with his various healthcare providers on the phone, made phone calls and sent electronic portal messages to his providers for him because I always knew exactly what to say if he was having an issue or needed something. Whenever he was in the hospital, I always called at least a couple of times per day for updates on his condition. Despite his many years of significant health issues, I never gave up on him. Yes, there were many times where I got frustrated with our situation and the nonstop ailments that he had and I sometimes took that frustration out on him, but I didn't mean to. It just happened and I needed to vent. I was committed to him to the core. I didn't care if he had no arms or legs and was just a torso and a head. I would STILL love him. I loved him more than anything in this world and would have never left his side and always did everything he ever asked of me and then some. When he was dealing with that awful diabetic foot wound the last 2-3 months of his life and he had a visiting nurse who came to our home to perform wound care and bandage changes 3 times a week, I was always right there doing it myself on the days that the nurse didn't come. I was all gloved up, removing his old bandage from the day before, cleaning his wound, packing it, medicating it, and wrapping it. His doctors actually said I did a better job than the nurse! I wasn't grossed out by it (my husband and I were both paramedics years ago, so used to that stuff). At first, my husband was worried that I would "freak out" when I saw how bad it was after he had come home from the hospital after having multiple surgical debridements on it and having some infected bones removed because they were causing him to be septic. It never once bothered me and he was SO relieved by that and thanked me profusely for taking care of him. He was my husband and I would do anything for him. I know for a fact that he would have done it for me. That is something I know I can be proud of. Now, I feel like I've lost my sense of purpose. I spent so many years taking care of him (don't get me wrong - he very much took care of me as well), but I was almost always doing something for him and now...nothing. I miss all of the little things that were seemingly so insignificant when he was alive, such as filling up his water bottle for him, making him sandwiches, putting his laundry in the dryer for him, walking our dogs, going out for coffee, taking breaks from our work just to go outside and talk, etc. I got a necklace that has our initials on it and it says "always and forever." I MISS HIM SO MUCH!!!! 😥

This is so true. Ever since my husband passed, I have NOT been able to stay up nearly as late as I always used to. Prior to his passing, I was a night owl to the core. I've been that way since my late teens/very early 20s. I wouldn't go to bed until 4-5 in the morning most nights. I would be up all night working (I'm self-employed) and doing other things. Now, since losing my husband, I just have NO energy left and can barely make it past midnight. I truly feel that my energy has been depleted since he passed.

I've always been the same way...very skeptical. There's just no way to prove or disprove that this sort of thing is real. I just can't help but remind myself that my phone charger that I've had for 2 whole years has NEVER done this until after my husband passed. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I know that we need to be open to receiving signs in order to pick up on them. Also, the day after he passed, as I was scrolling through Facebook, I saw an ad that made me stop dead in my tracks. It was an ad for a T-shirt that said, "Husband and wife - not always eye to eye, but always heart to heart - a bond that can never be broken." I've never seen that ad before and I haven't seen it again since, and if there's one thing I've noticed, it's that almost all Facebook ads are repetitive and you'll see them over and over until you hide them. This T-shirt ad was the EXACT sort of post that my husband would have shared with me on Facebook when he was alive. He always shared that mushy stuff with me. I took a screenshot of it on my phone so I can always have it. The message I took away from that post was that we have an eternal bond that can never be broken - even by death.

I have a feeling that this forum is going to be a large part of my daily life for quite some time and I am so glad that I found it. It's incredibly therapeutic to be able to write about how I'm feeling and about how much I miss my soulmate and what an amazing relationship we had for 22 years. You guys are the only ones who understand what I'm going through because we all have that shared experience of losing a spouse. I've also been watching a lot of Matt Fraser on YouTube, who is an amazing psychic medium and his videos give me so much comfort. Yes, my husband and I had plenty of ups and downs and plenty of fights/disagreements and tough times, but that's just married life. It happens. I think something would be seriously wrong if you went through your entire marriage/relationship where nothing ever went wrong or where arguments were never had and mean things were never said. When you have such a deep soul connection with somebody, you can FEEL it. You KNOW what they are thinking. You can finish each other's sentences. You so often say and think the exact same things at the exact same time. That's what I had with Matt. I'm not a religious person by any means and I've never really even considered myself to be a very spiritual person, but the one thing that I never questioned was that Matt was my soulmate and that we were meant to find each other in that AOL chatroom all those years ago. I may have already mentioned this earlier and I KNOW that it probably sounds a bit crazy and hocus pocus, but I'm fairly certain that Matt is trying to communicate with me through my wireless phone charger. It's one of those cradle chargers that you put your phone on to charge. It's on my desk. When it's charging, there is a solid blue light on the front of it. When it's fully charged, that light turns solid green. When the phone is not on the charger, there is no light on it at all. However, about 9-10 hours after he had passed, the light on my charger started flashing blue and green at the same time. It did this for several minutes. My phone was not even on the charger. I put my phone on the charger and it continued to flash. I took my phone back off the charger and it still continued to flash. I did this multiple times, but the light would NOT stop flashing no matter what I did. I checked for a loose connection on the power cord, but it was nice and snug in the outlet and hadn't even been moved. Finally, it stopped and my charger started behaving normally again. Then, it happened again last weekend right after I had a vivid and emotionally upsetting dream about Matt that had me sitting at my desk bawling. It happened twice on Saturday, once in the morning and once in the evening. Then, it happened again several times last night. Last night when it was happening, I felt a comforting warmth around me. This happens at TOTALLY random times and without any obvious reason. It just starts flashing the two colors at once for several minutes at a time. Then, it will stop for a bit and then do it again and then it won't happen again for days. I've had this charger for 2 years and it has NEVER done that until Matt passed a few weeks ago. I even Googled the model of the charger that I have to see if there was a known issue with this, but found NOTHING. Call me insane and toss me in a looney bin, but I really think that's him. I've recently learned that our loved ones who have passed on often use their energy to manipulate electronics in order to communicate with us and send us a sign to let us know they are here and still with us. Matt was BIG into electronics and gadgets when he was alive, so that sort of sign would be so typical of him.

I just woke up about an hour ago and stayed in bed crying while hugging one of his T-shirts for another hour because I miss him so much it hurts. There is nothing more painful than waking up without him here. Every morning when I woke up, he would be in his office in just the next room working, waiting for me to get up and have my coffee all made for me with a big smile on his face, usually saying, "Good morning, my love!" He gave the best hugs. I feel like a massive part of me is missing, like half of me died with him. I don't even know who or what I am without him. We were always a team. We did absolutely everything together for 22 years. He has been gone for almost a month (it will be a month on the 28th), but I feel like I have been stuck frozen in time on the day he so suddenly left this world. That was the most traumatic day in my entire life. Even my own parents don't understand what I'm going through because they still have each other (which I am so grateful for). Nobody understands. None of my friends or family have ever lost a spouse. I've tried to back off a bit on posting on Facebook about my husband or how I'm feeling because I don't want to annoy or overwhelm people. I feel physically sick and so, so alone.