Patsy22

It's been nearly 3 months since my partner died and I thought I was coping well. It would have been his birthday last week and while I expected the day to be hard I've been in bits ever since and I'm really struggling to cope. I can't see any end to this and I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. Even though he made my life hard he meant the world to me. I'm so angry with him for leaving me in this hell.

Recovering2

I'm sorry Patsy, I remember what you went through during his last days and his funeral. Are you getting help for yourself? AlANon? Grief counseling? I think even in the BEST of relationships, when there is a death, there is the feeling of how do we go on? 3 months is no time at all, your feelings are still raw and that's normal. Be gentle with yourself. (((hugs)))

Redheadsusie

Hey there - Sorry you are hurting so badly. I joined a support group in my town for people who had lost a loved one when my parents both died. It was through a Hospice House and I am sure other organizations have like groups. It was helpful. Sending hugs and strength your way.

dandylion

Patsy22, you are still grieving--of course, you are. Most all of us know what this feels l ike. It comes in waves and sometimes it feels unbearable until it passes. Please try to be around people who understand that you hurt. Get a support group if you can.

Above all, don't be hard on yourself and take comfort in the knowledge that it does get better over time. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but, it does.

I am glad that you came here to share this with us. Come any time you like, and talk to us about it.

sincerely, dandylion

Patsy22

Thank you. I feel like I am losing my mind. I volunteer at a charity shop which helps but it all flows back when I come home to a quiet and empty house. I turned the radio on and it was playing a Roy Orbison track which I was told was played at his funeral. Thought it might be a message from him but that's not me. I really don't believe in things like that. I wish I did I know it helps people.

dandylion

Dear Patsy, I remember the same thing after my husband died. The quiet alone times in the house. Sometimes you just have to go ahead and cry. We fear that the pain will "swallow us up" and that we can't survive it. The truth is that the pain will pass through us if we do let ourselves feel the pain--from time to time. It is like the crying allows some of the pain out.

I would try to find comedy or light- hearted entertainment on the TV to "get me through the night". It helped, some.

It is good that you are around other people during the day. Also, don't be afraid to let others know that you are hurting from time to time. People can be very compassionate if we give them the chance. we humans need each other at times like this.

You are not going crazy--even if you are afraid you are. Grief can be like this. This is normal.

I promise that it will get easier. (I love Roy Orbison).

sincerely, dandylion

Patsy22

Another day and it's still as bad. I have been dreading the first easter without him so have arranged to cook lunch for friends every day of the long weekend. Now I don't even want to see them and will just be dreading when they go back home. Crying already and its only 6.58am here.

DreamsofSerenity

Hi Patsy,.I totally agree with Dandylion about grieving. The crying lets the pain out. Letting yourself feel sad is what will allow you to feel better. Hugs to you.

Seren

Hi Patsy, I'm really so sorry for your loss and the grief you are suffering. Crying is perfectly OK...Grief is very natural and also perfectly understandable.

Sometimes it helps to talk to others who have been through the same loss. Have you thought about finding a grief support group nearby? I'm sorry I don't know what's available in the UK, but here in the US, we have these sorts of programs all over.

Is there weather improving there? Could you spend some time outside in a park today?

Distraction for me is always key! Bit by bit, things do get better!

Patsy22

I only live in quiet a small town and there is only individual counselling available. I have had a few sessions which helped and am about to meet a new counsellor. it helps at the time but not when I come back home. I should be getting used to it I expect as his family persuaded him to move back to them when he wasn't very lucid and they prevented me from seeing him or speaking to him more than every few weeks. I couldn't even go to his funeral and I have heard nothing from them.Transport is bad here and they took our car as it was in his name and he hadn't made a will. I love walking by the sea and it is close to the coast here but I can't get there.

FeelingGreat

Losing a loved one is sadness enough but not having his family acknowledge your grief and make you welcome at the funeral means you have not had the comfort of closure. No wonder you're having trouble moving on.
Have you had your own memorial service for him? Maybe with some friends or colleagues who knew him? Something where you can remember him and receive comfort from your friends.

Patsy22

although they stopped me from talking to him or seeing him over Christmas and New Year I went there straight afterwards. By then he was in a coma. I was there by myself with the nurse when he died as they had gone to lunch. The nurse said she was sure he had waited until it was just me there.

I had no input into the funeral and was told I would be unwelcome there. I have heard nothing form his friends and I understand his sister has been telling everyone we were no longer a couple. This is untrue, we lived together and were engaged. I was recovering from cancer at the time and wouldn't have been able to look after him easily but I would have tried.

I managed to find out when the funeral was and I went to our local church at the same time. On his birthday I had a little ceremony by myself in the garden and I plan to plant a shrub here when the weather is warmer as I will never know where his ashes are.

It hurts so much that our 8 years of living together are not being acknowledged and many of his friends who had never bothered to see him when he was alive because he was drinking won't even know I exist. I have even questioned whether he loved me in the end.

Seren

I'm so sorry you were not treated well by his family. Sometimes, families react out of their own pain and grief. It doesn't make it right, but it is an explanation. It's a sad truth that no one can change them any more than you could change your fiance.

You definitely do exist...the life you shared is not an illusion. It was very real, for both of you. I'm glad you have found ways to honor his memory for yourself.

What a shame about the car...can you ride a bike? Much cheaper mode of transportation and exercise is very good for helping to overcome sadness.

Patsy22

Thank you. I planned to write a letter to him and attach it to a sky lantern on his birthday but it was too windy. I will do it instead when I plant the shrub. I have started a diary and a memories book to look back on in the future.
I don't expect things to get easier overnight but his family have made everything so much worse. I had visited him every days for months when he was in hospital here and they wouldn't let the staff at the new hospital even tell me if he was alive or dead.

dandylion

Dear Patsy22, I am so glad that you are coming here to talk with us about your feelings.

Honestly, this family sounds very cruel to me. I can see why you have justifiable anger. I feel that your anger would be a good issue to take up with your counselor.

Patsy, it has been a very short time. This sadness and lonliness---and the crying a part of the grieving process. My dear, I tell you gently...there is no avoiding it...the only way is to go thru it. The heart has it's own way....grief has it's own time period. It can't be denied--if we "try"---it will come out i n another way; at some other time.

Crying--and I mean LOTS of crying is normal, right now. Go ahead and cry. You will not cry forever. It is nature's way for the healing to begin. Every time you cry from deep inside your soul, you are a little bit closer to coming to peace with your pain.

Making your own ceremonies, like you are doing is such a good thing to do. I'm glad you are able to do these things. This is also part of the healing.

If i lived closer to you, I would come and cry with you. ***Also, I would bring you a baby kitten---and you would see that love doesn't go away--the heart expands to include more love and life.

patsy, this is going to become easier as time goes along.

We are h ere for you anytime you want to post.

sincerely, dandylion

Patsy22

Thank you all for your lovely responses. I have two Maine coon kittens. Actually they are nearly 3 years old but Maines are kittens and are still growing until they are 4 apparently. I really couldn't have managed without them over the last few months. It's their birthday on Monday and I am dreading that too. M bought them for me and he really really loved them. I know the grief will take time to go and I am certainly crying enough but as more time goes on I am more uncertain that he loved me in the end as I've been told so many times by his family that I was his ex. I would hate to think that he died not knowing I loved him. I have a photo that I took of him 3 weeks before he died (he asked me to) and he appears to be looking lovingly at me - but that could just be my imagination. The nurse who was with me when he died told me the consultant had asked him if I was his partner and M had said we were engaged. He also asked me to kiss him properly the last time I ever saw him conscious. But he was often not lucid near the end. I feel so guilty that when he was to be discharged from hospital he wanted to come home immediately and the hospital said he couldn't until a care plan had been arranged as I was having radiotherapy. They asked me to do or say whatever I could to make him stay in for another couple of days. I begged him to and he refused so in the end I said that if he left the hospital it would be the end of our relationship. I didn't mean it and he would normally have known that but as I left the hospital he followed me and said that he 'still loved me'. He kept ringing me from his parents until he collapsed and in our last telephone conversation he said he wanted our relationship to be as it was and I said I wanted him to come home. I would give whatever I have to have not have said that to him in hospital and I wonder if he partly gave his parents the impression that we had finished. I doubt it though as his parents had treated his ex-wife in a similar way and I was always treated politely when he was well but as an outsider. But he did compartmentalise things and tried to keep people apart, I assume as he was insecure and an alcoholic. I'm sorry to be ranting about all this I know I am repeating myself.

dandylion

Patsy, it is o.k. to talk about these things. I carefully read your post, and everything you say makes me convinced that he loved you very much--trust me, he KNEW that you loved him.

Do not concern yourself with whatever your in-laws may have said. His heart knew you. Trust in this.

sincerely, dandylion

Patsy22

He'd been asking me to marry him for years and I always said no, partly due to his alcoholism and partly as I felt he was a serial monogamist. He'd been with his ex-wife for 18 years though before she kicked him out because of his drinking so I was perhaps being unfair. I regret not saying yes before it was too late, not just as it has left me in a dire financial situation but because then nobody could have said or implied that we weren't partners or didn't love each other. At the moment the regrets are definitely outweighing the positives, not that we didn't have lovely times and I am trying to remember these in preference to the bad times.
thank you for helping me.

FeelingGreat

Hi Patsy you obviously have a lot of unresolved feelings about your relationship along with your natural grief, and I'm sure you realise this. You're still processing things that happened during the relationship, but it seems to me you always acted as best you could in the circumstances.
I'm sure that he knew that his alcoholism spoiled what would have been a happy relationship; give him credit for working that out. He would have known the reasons for your decisions.