How To Survive Losing A Spouse
It can happen to anyone. Your spouse walks out the door one day, never to be seen again. It's a no-win situation - they either don't care about you anymore or they're leaving because they have nothing left to live for and want to end it all. Whatever their reasons, you're the one who is now left with a big hole in your life that needs filling.
If you've lost your spouse and are wondering how on earth you will survive in this new life, here are some basic but important things that might help:
* Take time for yourself every day by doing things like cooking a healthy meal or taking a long bath with candles lit.
* Don't start to over-do things and over-think since that's a sure way to kill yourself.
* Remember that you're going to have lots of time for grieving so don't do it all at once. Start by focusing on the good times, then move onto your feelings after they've left. Then you'll be ready for the next phase when you must learn how to live alone.
* Remember that life goes on, so there's no need to dwell on what happened - keep busy with activities and don't let your life become a sad routine of crying and eating alone at the dinner table. (If this is you, it's best if you avoid wine. Like I keep telling friends who ask me why I cry all the time, "It's because of the wine!")
* Try to avoid talking about your loss with other people. It will only bring more pain and make it harder on you. It's okay to talk about it with close friends, but don't do it with strangers or shop clerks.
* Don't lose too much weight - this is a sure way to make yourself miserable, which is exactly what you don't need right now. Stay at the same weight until things stabilize and then start to lose if you need to (like in the first six months after their death). A normal weight loss of one to two pounds a week is healthy enough and desirable.
* It is good to sleep alone however, if you sleep on their side of the bed, try sleeping on the other side of the bed so you can still feel connected to them. That way they'll be around while you're sleeping and they can watch over you. It's a good thing to have them around while you're asleep because that way they know what's going on in your life when they're not there with you.
* Keep most of your financial accounts in their name because it will be easier for them to help pay for your expenses if needed (depending upon how much money is left after bills are paid).
* You can keep some of their jewelry in your home so that you'll at least have copies of it to remember them by. However, most of it should be liquidated and sold (if you're lucky, they had accumulated a lot of fine jewelry.)
* Don't tell other people all the details of your loss as they will feel obligated to help. Instead, focus on getting through one day at a time and not talking about them. If you do need to talk about them, try playing the "What were we doing that day again?" game several times a day for about 6 months. It will help you remember them and how much fun you had with them.
* If your spouse was abusive, it's okay to feel relief that they are now gone. You might even have mixed feelings about it. Try not to do anything drastic, since you don't want to go crazy just because they left you.
Get used to things as they are and enjoy life every day. That's the best way to make it through a loss such as this one.
You're never ready until you're ready, so take your time - it's not something that can be done quickly or easily. You'll have a fulfilling life if you do the work it takes to make it so.
(If any part of this article resonates with you, send me a message on Facebook .)
A few days after this article was published Scott and I decided to take a little trip to visit my parents and show them that I was still alive. To celebrate, we hit up a happy hour and had some drinks. As we were walking back to our hotel, Scott suddenly became overwhelmed by sadness and began to cry uncontrollably . . . and then he passed out on me. I carried him back to our room, where I sat with him on the bed until he woke up. He looked at me and asked, "Umm... how did we get here?" This was the second time he'd had this reaction, and it scared the shit out of me.
He was right: how did we get here? We'd been together for over six years with no problems whatsoever. We'd lived together happily in several different houses and had fun traveling all over the world, but now Scott decided that a single event could be the end of our relationship. One negative experience: everything changed.
I thought about Scott's question for the rest of my trip, and eventually I made some changes. It's hard to overstate how important it is to keep perspective, especially when you're in a volatile situation. I needed to talk about what had happened with a few trusted friends (who didn't need the details) and make sure that they knew that I was still around.
There's no way I could have known how bad this event would be for me until it actually happened, but even then I chose not to say anything until my state of mind had stabilized.
The feeling of loss following a bad event is always different than the feelings that come later - while they may be similar, they are not the same thing. Someone who has been through a horrible car accident might think and feel miserable for weeks, but if it wasn't that event, they would have a happy life.
If you've gone through something terrible, feel free to talk about it with friends or loved ones -but don't get triggered by bad news. When someone says or does something that reminds you of your situation, try to remember what you're feeling now and not back to that moment when the bad things were happening.
All I needed was time and space to cope with this like any other situation in my life - it wasn't good in the moment but I knew it would be alright in a few days.
If you're going through something terrible, remember that it will get better. It's hard to believe that things are going to be better when they are in fact very bad, but you will survive if you keep working through them.
Everyone deals with loss differently, but if you take something away from this article, let it be this: the end of a relationship or a life is not the end of your world. You will survive and it will suck at first, but eventually everything will be alright.
Names have been changed to protect identities.
If any part of this article resonates with you, send me a message on Facebook .
Conclusion: Coping with the loss of a loved one is never easy, and I don't think this article adequately covers it. There are more life events that can make us miserable than we can possibly imagine (at least in my experience), so the best advice I can give you is to prepare for the bad ones by being okay with them. Don't believe everything you read about stuff happening to other people until it happens to you, because it might not be as bad as you fear. On top of that, if anything does happen to you, remember that it will get better over time if you work through it.