Lost without my partner of 20 years...

[Jackie - Richard]

Sadly i have found my way to this forum that no one was ever expecting to join, well here i am after having lost my partner Richard of 20 years suddenly at home whilst sitting in his armchair to a heart blockage...We had met in later life, my Richard was 74, i am 68 and have PP-Multiple Sclerosis, and uncannily i was diagnosed four years ago at age of 64 on 11th April, my Richard suddenly and unexpectedly died on 11th April jut seven months ago...He had not long taken-driven a half hour journey taking our dog to the pet groomers with the intention of driving back to collect him in an hour or two's time, he never made this journey as i found him dead in his armchair...
Seven months and hand on heart there has not been one day i have not shed tears, cried or gone to pieces...It is as our world seems full of couples, we were one of these couples, and now we have been robbed of this, we should be enjoying the next ten years of our retirement lives together but this was not meant to be...

Jackie...sending a ((( HUG ))) to all our bereaved...

[Sandra61]

Sending you a welcome hug, Jackie.    So sorry to hear about your husband. It must have been a terrible shock to lose him so unexpectedly. If there is any good to find in this, it is perhaps that he did not suffer a long illness and was well up until the last. Perhaps you can find some comfort in that. My parents were not so lucky and that does cause me upset.

I think it is natural to feel robbed and lost and alone after any loss, especially the loss of someone so close to you. I think we all feel like that, so you are not alone in this and I am sure anyone reading this will recognise all you have said about how you feel. I cried every day for ages after losing my mum and struggled greatly with it for all of that first year after. It is only two years since I lost her now and I am doing a little better these days and no longer cry every day, so it does slowly become something you grow used to and come to accept, but it never goes away and you never stop missing the person you have lost. You just come to accept it and learn to live with it.

I did find it helped to do little things like put together an album of favourite photos of my mum and to write down how I was feeling each day. Somehow, writing it down does help you clarify your thoughts and feelings and get them out of your system. I think some people like to write a letter to the person they have lost and I wonder if that might help you, especially as you didn't really get a chance to say goodbye to him. Perhaps you can try some of these things to see if they help you. I also found having flowers around helped me a little and getting out to the park was also a help. I find it a very calming place to be to try to absorb all that has happened and come to terms with it.

Please say whatever you wish here. We will all understand and you may find more help from what others may be able to advise. Sending strength and sympathy. 

[Jackie - Richard]

Sandra...
...and bless you...I have lost many members of family over the years, mostly when i was in my 20's and 30's, i had also lost both of my parents 30-40 years ago yet nothing has affected me worse than losing my partner Richard...i miss him so so much...
I have been trying to comfort myself by reading Joni Eareckson Tada...Heaven Your Real Home From A Higher Perspective...I will focus on, this is the place where my Richard is now, although i would still rather him to be. back down here with me...

Jackie...

[Karena]

Hi Jackie i lost my husband too a stroke eight years ago -i have also lost parents and a baby boy and it was the second time of being widowed - the first time that happened  i had my girls at home and had to support them both through their loss and also through keeping them fed and clothed - so it was a struggle and maybe that struggle kept me going or maybe even though at the time i was devastated i didnt greive properly (if there is such a thing as properly)  but this time was different again - it took a couple of years before i wasnt crying every day - the girls had both got their own lives and moved away as had my youngest step daughter - his other adult children were also not nearby - It was his second stroke and i had become his carer after the first - working in between that from home and coming into the office at night to make sure i kept a job but now suddenly there was no point to my life at all - no one needed me to care for them this time and thats all i have ever done - i had no idea how to be alone - nothing to focus on -couldnt stay in our home because i had half the income we used to have - so had to move and lost not just the house but the community we lived in as well -  our plans for when i reitred were gone - The job paid the bills but was also pointless - why pay the bills for a house i didnt want to be in - to keep a life i didnt want to have -I  cant think of a time i have ever been lower,and the people who would have supported me who did previousley were also gone -  and it has been a long hard slog to get to where i am now i will always miss him there will still be times when i cry - but i also feel him by my side -seeing couples all around  used to upset me it doesnt any more i have just got used to it - but it does bring changes - they change towards you and you change where you go and the people you go with over time for some here joining things and socialising that way has worked - we are all different - i tried to join things because everyone said i should it didnt work out and looking back now i know that was because i wasnt in the right places for me - i cant do amateur dramatics i cant do jam and jerusalem - its not me -so i studied online instead and found something that is. learning to be alone and happy with my own company has been a massive process for me - but we are all different, and finding who we are now is diffferent but the journey itself is very similar - thats why we are here.

I decided if i couldnt find a way to live life for myself then the least i could do is live it for him - because if you think of the possability that there is a time or place we meet again and think about that conversation -yes its amazing to be back together and be in each others arms - of course it is,  but that physical closeness wasnt all that made us special as a couple - it was the other things as well, the places we loved the people who we shared that with -the little things we did around the house or garden the little jokes between you.
But w i thought what if all i ever did for the rest of my life was go to work come home and cry then retire and sit at home and cry  - what if i never went to those places again, never did the things we planned and talked about doing -there can never again be those conversations which were part of our relationship  - so i did them - planted native flowers in those places we loved- as a memorial but also to push me to take the steps to go back and to keep me going back to see them  -I  went and did some of those things we were going to do together but didnt get chance  - and even some things he would have chosen to do if he had been able and i would have sat out on
and through doing those things for him i was also building a life for myself -so we can have those conversations if there is any kind of afterlife - and if after-all there isnt i wont have wasted my time i will have filled it - so he still would have been my guide nd he still would have been the one giving me the courage to do it - but  in a different way to the way i believed.

I started by recreating the garden he loved so much and when i was digging the pond i laughed to myself  because my pond digging was one of those jokes, but at the same time was devastated because part of me believed that he was going to come round the corner with a cup of tea for me -  take one look at the muddy face i always manage to aquire and mutter about how i was mad and how big the pond is (i had built 3 in our last garden)
 
I heard him in my head shout at me for standing on the back of the sofa to put a curtain rail up, about not using the step ladder - so i did it again because i wanted to hear him shout at me - he didnt of course but i went ahead anyway -and when i got lost and found a road by accident  that would have been a short cut all the times we went to a place, i swore at him under my breath because there is no way he didnt know that shortcut but had never said. When the campervan broke down i pulled over sobbed and and said out loud to him what do i do now -and somehow i knew what to do and got it started again.
 
I also did lots of reading about a lot of different cultures and beliefs - at the end of it mine isnt necessarilly heaven i have an open mind - my feeling is, if one thing is possible then none are not possible - but where-ever or if ever it can happen, then i will have so much to tell him -but i have a strong feeling when i do, he will be smiling and saying "i know i was there -wasnt the view fabulous from that mountain - i told you when we first met one day i would take you somewhere to see the rainbow in a waterfall you showed me in a holiday brochure
 ( i didnt tell you you would be in Africa suspended from a zip wire terrified out of your mind at the time - but that was for me the rainbow was for you. )
 I know you couldnt retire to our dream place like we planned - but when you visited and stood on the harbour wall and felt so strongly i was standing behind you -  i was there every year after -- i laughed when you laughed, i cried as well when when the dog died i collected him and here he is but i cried for you because i knew how much you needed him with you - I held those new grandchildren when you did. it was me who sent the rainbow that reassured you after the car crash that they were all ok".I stood next to you at the weddings i laughed with you when that hippy tuned up on his barge and when the bridesmaids dress made our sal look like minnie mouse.I couldnt dance with you i wanted too i knew it made you feel sad but i can dance with you now. Oh annd by the way dont you ever stand on the back of the sofa again.

Please dont get me wrong none of it was easy it takes small steps it take time - i still  have far more anxiety than ever in my life before - but i have learned some hurdles can be avoided some can be jumped over and some can be smashed to the ground -  i climbed out of the hole and i spent a lot of time falling back in, and  then even more  feeling afraid i would fall back in -i was always  looking over my shoulder at the black clouds quickly catching up with me -but now i look and theyre still over my shoulder but not as black, not as fast and not as threatening.

     

[Jackie - Richard]

Karena...
...thank you for replying..yes my comfortable life has been turned upside down...only i never appreciated my comfortable life when i had it, a nice house, a lovely garden, trees, greenery and birds flocking to my feeders, three loves of my lives dogs fur-babies, all sadly have gone to the rainbowsbridge, i miss them all terribly and have now been crying over all four losses from the day i lost my Richard...it is just me now and i dont like this one bit, i was meant to go before my Richard, he was always the healthy one, up until we moved from Bedfordshire to here, Dorset, a bad mistake on my part due to giving up our house due to my MS diagnoses 11th April 2015 ( Richard died 11th April 2019 ) just four years apart to the date....I had also lost dog number one ten years ago, an Easter Saturday same date 11th April, hard to believe but true...a date i shall now always remember but all for the sad reasons...I keep asking myself, " where did my life go, i would give anything to put the clock back to us all five of us back home where we once belonged..." the house and garden i had always said i would never leave...well Richards ashes are now back home ( Bedfordshire ) with his brother and parents, at least i owe him this..as neither of us belong here in Dorset...
So much for working all our working lives and enjoying our retirement years together, we were-we are both robbed of this, we had at least another ten years but no, this wasn't meant to be...
One by one all three fur babies have passed away, now my Richard has been taken from me, it is just me left, this world has now become such an empty and lonely place for me..
I am lighting a candle... 

Jackie...

[Karena]

  my heart goes out to you Jackie - i know for me in the early days when people said it will get better eventually i didnt believe them - and for a long time i idnt believe them - there will always be a sadness i think -my heart is still brocken but honestly it does get better - or maybe it doesnt but you live with the pain and start to build a life around your brocken heart.Ben was a rescue dog - a staffie cross - and as keith was at home and i was out most days very much his dog - i think he and i got through the worst days together because we were both grieveing he would sit behind the front door waiting for him to come back and that would start me crying all over again because he couldnt know as i did that it wasnt ever going to happen - but he needed feeding and he needed walking and he needed me so i had to keep going. Losing him was awful - i will never have another dog i dont think - but i do have dogs in my life -i look after other peoples when theyre on holiday -so there is Rufus - another rescue my daughter fostered then fell in love with and adopted - Misty a springer who lives on a barge with a friend - and zabba a black lab who belongs too a colleague - all of them have such characters and a place in my heart and  i love having them, but Ben is just not replacable.
 
I love my wildlife too though - seem to somehow have ended up as a rescue centre - although the birds, bar one are free to come and go they know which side their bread is buttered on -  there is a pigeon with a bent beak - a collared dove, a robin two blackbirds (actually the offspring of one i rescued a while back) 3 hedgehogs (two released one still trying to get fat enough to hibernate  - and a partridge - the partridge is the problem child - cant let it go in the garden because of neighbours cats - cant let it go in the wild because its shooting season - and after that it will be frozen - so how will it survive being fed for five months to having to peck around foraging on frozen ground -ideally i would like too in the spring in a woodland where they cant shoot but again will it be too dependant - so it will be either that or a hen coop with a couple of quail or bantum for company its  a male so no partridge eggs (all this for something that most people would have put in the oven) Inside i also have three rescued fish - two goldfish and a parrot cichlid. some-one needs to teach me how to say no.

Our retirment plan was to move permanantly onto the campsite we used to camp on - but in a caravan - we knew people there it was cost effective loved the place - (i still do)  and i could have earned extra over the summer in town - but there was also a little house on the cliff we looked at as well  - but since he died the campsite has sold out to a corporate - so the caravans are expensive and you cant live there all year and the house - half of that has slid down the cliff - so i gues it would never have been anyway in reality - but for you to have got there and now be left alone there and missing your old home must be extra hearbreaking.