kayc

How sweet! I think forgiveness is more for us than them anyway.

Well I'm kind of feeling that way myself too. I know there are some good men out there, I just think they're few and far between and I no longer trust my judgment to pick them. In fact, I no longer trust, period. One of the casualties of what I've been through. I think Jim and I could have stayed friends if he'd handled things differently...we're older and our relationship was companion-like anyway, but I can't get past what he's done to me and how he's done it. I mean, all year long he kept saying he loved me and he intended to spend our future TOGETHER and he kept referring to me as his fiancee. He gave no indication that he intended to break up or anything changed. That's why I feel so betrayed, so led on and deceived. And I'm sick of it. He knew what I'd been through with my ex and he said he'd never hurt me yet here I am.

Thanks Mary Lou, but right now the best I can hope for is this incredible pain would go away. I don't hope for anyone to come my way, I feel pretty done with men, I'm tired of being led on, lied to, betrayed. I just don't need it. My hopes are more along the lines of just being able to make my house payment so I can keep my wonderful funny dog with me. Now THAT would make me happy! This weekend was a little tougher as I was alone. My house is getting very clean.

Melina, Please don't worry about that. It's good that you found this place so soon! It's good to express your feelings, and not keep them bottled up inside of you. Don't worry about this being about you, it IS about you right now, and each and every person going through this! There will come a day when you can lend a shoulder to someone new here, but for now, you are, as Marty said, lending voice to each person who recently loss their partner and has a hard time putting into words what they are going through. This is the beauty of having a forum like this, we all have our place here and each one helps the others to make it. You are already so very special to us! Kay

Oh yes, we've been through that, for quite some time, and it does get better, it takes time to work through everything. What you are experiencing is normal. Sometimes the preoccupation with their final moments and life at the end can be a way of hanging on to them and not letting their memory die. Of course we know their memory will never die with us, and eventually we are able to bring back the happier memories with them and think of them, the whole of the person. Please keep sharing what you are experiencing, it all helps to process it, and it's good not to keep it bottled up. There are a lot of people here going through similar things. (((hugs))) to you! Kay

Leesa, That one year mark can be a tough one. I can assure you, you didn't do anything wrong or contribute to his death. My husband had just had his 51st birthday and I had had no idea he had heart trouble. I don't know why some get warnings while others are totally caught off guard, but the shock of sudden unexpected death can be pretty tough to assimilate. Yes, it does seem like a bad dream sometimes...if only it were, but after time passes, you realize it isn't and we're each left here for whatever reasons. All I can tell you is keep coming here and we'll all go through this together, there's strength in knowing you are not alone. ((((hugs))) Kay

Korina, Do you have a picture of your daughter you could share with us? Happy moments...I can't remember the last one I had, it's been a while. I wish I could be sharing ALL the moments with George, happy and sad both. My XBIL had a bad motorcycle accident last week, we didn't know if he'd live or die, he lost his foot, he was unconscious. He just got upgraded to stable condition. He may lose more of his leg. I remember when he was out here visiting and George met him...this was my exH's brother...and he loved George. George had that way with people. You and I have seen each other through a lot. I know what you are saying, and I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better. But at least you're making it, you have someone you took in and that will help out, I'm proud of you!

Melina, Your story could have been written by any of us. I chewed George out for not putting things away and not helping as much in his last year. did I feel bad later? Yes, but there's no way I could have known that he had five blocked arteries and his heart was ready to totally give out. He did a good job of keeping going and not letting on just how poorly he felt. My dad also died of heart trouble and my mom said it made him cranky (it's hard for me to picture my dad cranky), so sometimes it's just the illness talking. The truth is, life isn't a bed of roses for any of our relationships. My relationship with George was excellent, but if you read all of my posts, you'll find where I talk about the imperfections. None of us should come down on ourselves for not being perfect or having perfect responses all of the time. The truth is, if the shoe was on the other foot, they probably wouldn't have been any more perfect at handling it than we have...and I'm quite sure they understand and love and accept us as we are anyway. Remember, one of the number one rules when you're grieving, "Be kind to yourself". Treat yourself as a friend. Be understanding of yourself. Remember, you are going through one heck of a lot. We ARE our own best friend! Be forgiving of yourself. Treat yourself as your spouse would have and would have wanted you to. (((hugs)))

Deb, I am kind of feeling the same way...my fiance broke up with me via Fed Ex 12 days ago at work. Needless to say, it took me by surprise and I've been in shock ever since. I am doing the best I can but my whole world has been jarred and besides missing him, I am left to deal with all of the unanswered questions, how could he do this to me, was our whole relationship a lie, am I that unlovable, etc. etc. He spent three days every weekend with me for the last 13 1/2 months plus we talked on the phone several times a day so my routine is greatly altered. People tell me "he isn't worth my tears" (while that may be true, my tears are here regardless) or "at least you weren't married" (not of great consolation to me as I look at our rings, my dress and shoes, etc.), or "get over him" (I'm trying but you can't rush time and without closure, well it's tough) and then there's always the "You need to learn to pick them different/go about it different" (what, so now this is my fault on top of everything else?)...well I'm doing my best but I still have my emotions and broken heart to contend with. Yes, I'm sure people tire of facing something as uncomfortable as this. We are a visible reminder to them of their own vulnerability and that with love, comes risk. They'd rather see happy endings and happily ever after...that's the kind of movies they pick. But the reality is, life isn't always like that. People die prematurely, people break up with people, some of them in cowardly ways, and life doesn't always end up "happily ever after". We are the ones that drew the short end of the stick and I have to add, we are doing a commendable job of trying to survive what is thrown at us. It is to this place I turn, this place where I can receive the much needed understanding, comfort, encouragement, and example of those who've been through this before us. It is to this place we need never feel we've outstayed our welcome or aren't handling things right. Here we can always count on the arms of someone else going through it or some words from Marty. People do want to fix things, and not always just men, sometimes it's women like that too (I have a sister who is a "fixer"). Sometimes I let them have their say and then go find someone more understanding to talk to. At three months, you are nowhere near the end of the grief journey...if there is such a thing, and I don't think there is...at what point have we achieved? At what point do we stop missing them? It's more like we learn better how to cope with it, but oh my it takes time, and then there's always that moment when we least expect it that it creeps up on us again and catches us unawares. I guess I've come to expect that and just deal with it as it comes. Whether it's losing a husband, a fiance breaking up with us, loss of our special job, a home we loved, or other loss, it's just plain tough no matter how you slice it. Keep coming here, we'll all be here for each other.

Melina, Anxiety attacks and depression are common with grief, just make sure you stay in close contact with your doctor about your needs. It helps to manage it rather than let it get out of control. Walking helps me relieve stress, taking care of myself makes me feel more in control (an important element since losing my husband made me feel I lost my control). Hang in there and take a deep breath...don't look to your family to be there for you if they don't know how to be supportive...let others who are better at it do the job...but do let your family know tangible ways they can help you if you think of something. (Some people are better at fixing a leaky roof than they are lending a shoulder to cry on, we all have our strong points.) I'm kind of going through something similar right now with having lost my fiance...I woke up at 3:00 am and could not go back to sleep, I should have just gotten up and gone on line instead of futilely trying to go back to sleep.

Leesa, (((hugs)))...there, just felt you needed that. It's not anything you did, life just happens, I think, rather randomly...we got the luck of the draw. And you have plenty of company. I feel your lamenting, and I don't understand either why the boys have to grow up without their dad, or you should have to face birthdays without him. Life IS unfair sometimes! I there a way you can hang on to the house a little longer? Or maybe refinance it...the rates are as low as I've seen them, maybe it'd help the payment be more affordable and help you get a little start. Things will work out, sometimes we can't foresee it, but it does. This is one of the roughest spots you'll ever face...but it won't stay like this. Hang in there, and we're always here if you need someone to talk to. Kay

I feel like each day that goes by without hearing from Jim, it just gets harder. I feel so rejected and it hurts so bad. It feels like he hates me or something, that he could just do this to me and not even care. We were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together and instead I'm discarded like a piece of trash. Does he never think about me? Does he never miss me? How could he just totally throw me away and not even want me for a friend? I don't get that. At least when I lost George, it was beyond his control, he didn't reject me, he didn't have a say so, so it wasn't anything personal. But this, this hurts so bad! It was a year ago that I took the day off work so we could take Ciera to the fair. And in a couple of weeks it'll be a year since Jim accompanied me to my daughter's wedding, and his granddaughter came home with us, and he wrote on my page, "I'm so lucky to have you in my life!" What changed? When did he stop feeling lucky? And why didn't he tell me? I thought he was someone I could count on, I thought we were family. I don't feel I can ever trust again...to invest this much of yourself into a relationship only to be thrown away without even a backward glance, that's just too tough. How could he do that?

Mary, My thoughts and prayers go with you today. I think the first year is esp. hard because of reaching all those "firsts without". I know I felt a sense of relief when that first year ended. The second year is not necessarily any easier, but at least the first year you get to check off all those milestones as having survived them. (((hugs))) Kay

Melina, Try to get him to open up and talk to you about it. Or if not to you, to someone. Have you considered having him go to a grief counselor? My son was in the Air Force when George passed away. He told me one morning, "Mom, I don't know what's the matter with me! I wake up crying, and sometimes (at work) I start crying for no reason!" I told him, "You're grieving, Paul, and it's okay. It a perfectly normal reaction under the circumstances, and people at work will just have to understand." We do talk about George from time to time, and I think it helps not to keep it bottled up.

Mrs. B, How wonderful to hear a GOOD story! Thank you for sharing that with us, I'm sure he DID make your day, and some to come! Kay

Marty, Thank you for sharing that with us! That was the best explanation I've run across for why some people disappear on us. When George died, it was NEW people who were there for me, the old people just dissipated. I'm saving that article! Kay

Kim, It's good to hear from you again! I'll certainly be thinking of you as you hit that three year mark. I hit my five year mark in June...it's weird, but after a couple of years out, noone mentions it, it feels like you're the only one carrying on their memory, although I know others think about him, they just don't maybe remember dates like we do. I hope things are going better for you, I know you've had a tough road...how are the kids? It's hard to believe your youngest graduated! My daughter is married and my son is attending OSU. It's weird how life seems to continue, I guess it's part of the cycle, but for us who are left behind, it's forever changed... Love you lots! Kay

Melina, that is what most of us have found both odd and true...that people that we would have expected to be there for us aren't, yet there are others we barely knew that have been there. Some people are copers, some are not, some seem to know what to say, some are clueless. Your grief counselor is so right, try to stay right here in the now and not go too far back which invites depression and not go too far ahead which invites anxiety...today is enough for itself, that's even in the Bible. There is time enough to take care of tomorrow...right now, today, it's enough going through each moment. We are here for you, you can tell us about your day, your fears, your triumphs, each and every thing, we'll walk with you. I live in the mountains in Oregon and also have snow...I know what it is to worry about making it through the winter alone...last year I had my fiance on weekends, that helped alot as he could chop kindling for me and check and see what was wrong with the water pump, stuff like that, but this year my son will be away at school and my fiance dumped me so I'm alone again. But I trust God will provide somehow or another and it is HIS problem...MY job is to trust Him and do my best, HIS problem is to take care of me and meet my needs. We're all sending you comfort and encouragement and hope you can feel our arms around you from clear around the world...and Melina, Norway? I'm jealous! Kay

Oh my dear WhiteLilly, Please let me embrace you, I am so sorry! Yes, most people have secrets, things they don't feel comfortable sharing with others for whatever reasons they have. But it sounds like this is far more than that...he had a dual life. Yes, it happens, usually to "somebody else", not somebody WE know! But it always happens to someone somebody knew. And it affects lives...spouses, children, etc. What you are going through is complicated grief. It is far harder and takes longer to assimilate all of this information we discover about our spouse and process it and come out on the other end. My sweet husband George had a troubled life and for the most part was completely honest with me and was making such huge strides in his life. I am so proud of him for all he became victorious over. But it wasn't 100% perfect. Three weeks before he died, he confided in me and our pastor and elders that he'd been using drugs. I was blown away. Suddenly, all of the "missing money", "bad luck", etc. made sense. For every time he used, another lie was made up and told to me to account for the missing money. I had a pretty hard time with it. I thank God he did take the opportunity to come clean before he died. But long after he passed away, I was left holding the bag, trying to deal with it all...let alone pay for it all. And then a year after he died, I received a call from his former girlfriend (someone he'd known long before me). It turns out he'd paid several visits to her AFTER we were married. Not that anything was going on between them, other than friendship, but still...he'd made promises to me and this didn't fit with those promises. He'd kept this secret from me. I was angry and there was no one to direct that anger to. I wanted him to come back here so I could deal with him! But I was left to deal with this too, alone. It took me probably three years altogether to process all of it...to realize that George was who I always knew him to be, but instead of trusting me with all of his secrets, and I can understand his reticence, he kept them to himself. Perhaps he thought he was protecting me. Perhaps he didn't realize how big my heart was or my capacity to understand. Perhaps he just made poor choices that led him to breech his agreements with me. But little by little, I began to forgive him. It was hard because I realized he'd broken trust with my kids too...and that was harder to forgive, I almost felt like it wasn't even my place to forgive...or not to, that it was theirs, not mine. But I began to realize that George was still who I knew him to be...and he was also more...a person I didn't know him to be...he was all of those things, all of those people. He had a relationship with his friend (and I learned, former fiance, a fact he'd never shared with me) Allie. He hadn't meant to hurt anyone, but as is the case when we lie or sneak around or make poor decisions...it does hurt somebody. What is hidden is made known. As all of our secrets will be eventually. I learned to love the WHOLE OF THE MAN, not just the part of him. I recognize today that he was a man who loved me with all of his heart and soul, and he was the sweetest most caring man in the world. He would give the shirt off his back to anyone just for the asking. He was a man who loved to eat, and had the most beautiful smile in the world. He shared my love of nature, and our furry friends. He was a family man and was so good to my kids and my mom. He loved God and I know where he is today. His secrets, his sins, his faults...they did not take away from who he was, they were in addition to who he was. Just as all of us are. I wonder, how would we feel if our most secret thoughts were known, if our most hidden sins were made manifest to everyone...and we watched as the world turned away from us as we cried after them, "But that isn't ALL that I am!" The things your soulmate did were before your time. They had nothing to do with you or with his son. They were, if anything, a sin against his wife...something, if she were here, she would have a really hard time with. But we don't really know what their marriage was like, do we? That was between them. We don't know what would make a man go outside his marriage bed multiple times...did he have an addiction? An inferiority complex he was trying to assuage? Who knows...at this point, it doesn't matter so much the "why" as that he did, and you'll never know the "why"...but it's done. Were he here today, I'm sure he would be devastated to know that you know, that his son knows. Perhaps this is something he berated himself for at least a million times. And he didn't get a handle on it...or did he? Unless this was current, perhaps he did overcome it. But one cannot change history, their past remains. In time I hope you can still know and love him as the man you both knew...and know that there was also a troubled side to him...you mourn that too and then let it go. Bury it. If there is any way you can just throw the boxes away...maybe there's no need to know any more. Unless there are important documents mixed in with it...and I can't imagine a person combining both personal and legal documents like that... You and your would be step son are in my prayers, please feel my arms around you and feel free to msg me...

I thought I was doing pretty good and now all of a sudden I feel like crying again...how is it you can be someone's fiance one minute and you're going to share your whole life together and the next instant you don't even have access to them? How can they just cut you off without even a backwards glance? How can they just forget about you, not care about your feelings? How can he not miss me like I miss him? Was I nothing to him? Was he playacting all this time? How can you be so unaware of yourself that you don't even know whether or not you love the person you've promised yourself to? How can I just be discarded so easily? This feels just like when John did it. I never got an explanation either time. I was good to them, how is it I always seem to get singled out for bad treatment? Some people say he must have been a loser, bad person, etc., but he wasn't! Yes, he had problems, obviously, but I don't know too many that don't...but how was I to have foreseen this? Is there something wrong with me? Am I a magnet for these type? Why couldn't I have just gotten someone normal? Was it because my mom is so abnormal and I didn't know anything else growing up, that I don't know normal from abnormal so I'm subjected to a lifetime of this? I don't ever want to go through this again, but then I didn't want to this last time, he seemed so stable, so nice, so open and above board, he had such a good history...do I bring out the worst in people? If so, how? I fix dinner, clean house, spend time with them...my life doesn't seem so abnormal, I don't do the drinking/smoking/drugs, I'm loyal, I hold down a job, I pay my bills on time...what is it that is so different about me from anyone that attracts people that would treat me in this way? The one man who loved me I couldn't keep alive and God didn't much ask me what I thought about it. I guess I am destined to a lifetime of nothing but work, chores, and aloneness...no one to share a sunset with, no one to hold me, no one to notice if I make it home at night. I feel like life has passed me by and my time has come and gone.

That is great news, Nats! We're so glad to hear it! Kay

Marion, if you figure it out, let us know. I guess "alone" has never been my preference, although I've managed to live alone much of my adult life, sometimes even while married. I think I have someone in my life just to have them leave again. It does take some getting used to. I can tell you that the up side is you can eat the whole bag of Doritos, pick out the movies you like to watch, make your own decision about whether to get a pet, and nobody much cares if you wear makeup or not. It's up to you if you want to buy something, how late you stay up, or what you have for dinner...or don't. But no matter what I point out, it doesn't matter, cuz there's not a one of us that wouldn't have our mates back if only we could...we'd gladly put up with muddy feet, watching sports, and having to fix dinner every night at 6:00. We'd give anything to stay awake while they snore, have them steal the covers, or pick their dirty socks up off the floor. We just flat out miss them. We'd gladly trade the rest of our lives for just five minutes of them holding us again. And that's the bottom line. You are trying to look on the bright side and that is good, for it will carry you through in the long run. We're all here for you, rooting for you! Kay

This is such a hard stage...the time when the protective shock has worn off, everyone has gone home, and you're left to figure out what to do with your life. It's about the time when you no longer expect to hear their voice on the other end of the phone or when the door opens you don't look up expecting to see them. My heart goes out to you. We do somehow manage to muddle through our life that is left and survive...that cold hard word that sounds like an oxymoron. Most of us don't feel this is survival at all, and yet that is what "they" tell us we are. Just today I had someone tell me that I'd find another George and go on with my life. Ha! Most of us know and agree that that is preposterous, ridiculous even! Those who have not been through this can't possibly know...not unless you've been stuck in this club that none of us asked for. I send my hugs to both of you gals...know you are not alone, we're all in this together. Kay

Faith Full, I'm sorry you are facing yet another loss...is there anyone in your retirement community that you are close to? Have you considered doing something like babysitting to involve yourself around others? Sometimes being around children can be so uplifting. Or maybe some form of volunteer work. I know that anything I suggest right now will probably ring hollow, nothing is the same as just plain having your fiance back and you've suffered so many losses, I know what that is like. It will take some time but eventually you'll find your own path...just as I am also once again trying to find mine. Keep coming here, we need each other! Kay

Jennifer, I know, life isn't fair. George is the only man that ever really understood me too, and cared. I'm glad you have your son because you have to hang in there for him. Try to remember that Mark is STILL present, just in spirit form but your love continues even now. Kay