Author Topic: Loneliness  (Read 1997 times)

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Offline Charlotte

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Loneliness
« on: August 18, 2019, 01:09:34 PM »
I’m Charlotte, I live in Belgium and have lived here for 27 years. I was married to my husband who I met here for 24 of those years. He died very suddenly 2 months ago. I have a great job, lots of friends and I have always been very independent, but the terrible emptiness of our house is almost more than I can bear. My husband took early retirement so he was as always here when I got home from work or back from travelling. Now I feel like a ghost in my own house. I know that I have to get used to being alone here, but some days, especially the weekends, I feel such despair. I go out all the time just so that I don’t have to be here - yet I used to love our house and garden and I have as always happy to be here alone before. It’s also very very hard for me that I never got to say goodbye to Nico or to tell him how much I loved him. We went into the hospital with what we thought was food poisoning and I came home alone.

Offline Emz2014

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Re: Loneliness
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2019, 06:59:11 PM »
Sending you a welcome hug  :hug:
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. 
Hold on in there xx

Offline Sandra61

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Re: Loneliness
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2019, 12:39:10 AM »
Welcome to this group, Charlotte. I am so sorry to hear about your husband. This must have come as a great shock to you.

I know all about being in an empty house on your own and coming home to find no one there anymore. It has been almost two years now since I lost my mother, who I lived with, but I still find it saddening and lonely to come home and find she isn't here anymore and to have no one at home to talk to. Like you, I try to make sure I go out a couple of times a week to make my life a little more interesting and the time at home alone, easier to bear. I don't think it is so much the fact that the house is empty so much as the fact that the person who is gone has left such a void behind them. We miss that space being filled by their presence and that change is painful and unwanted.

I suppose you learn to live with it and find other ways to make it more bearable, but life will never be the same, so you have to.

I hope you find some comfort and sympathy and useful advice here, Charlotte. If nothing else, you will at least find others who feel the same and have the same problem. Let us know if you find anything that helps.

Best wishes... :hearts: :hug:

Offline Karena

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Re: Loneliness
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2019, 11:25:29 AM »
 :hug: Hi Charlotte, i had to move not long after losing my husband and also loved that house and garden, so pretty much replicated the garden  building a pond and creating a similar - or be it smaller version, at the new house,  but as Sandra said it isnt the house so much as the person, any house without them is going to feel empty.

 For me weekends were the worst - i had work during the week which wasnt fulfilling but at least distracting, but stepping through the door on a friday night knowing i would probably not speak too another human until monday was difficult and i would find myself lingering trying to put it off - and really jealous that colleagues were looking forward too their weekend and now mine held nothing but emptiness - sometimes it still gets to me a bit that i used to be first out of the door but not now, and in winter when i used to get home to a lit fire and a hot meal it was hard to step into the cold and make my own tea, in the early days i actually didnt bother to be honest.  - There were always the big things i missed but the little things like that end up being the triggers we dont anticipate.
Then i started just finding something that became  a friday night treat - creating something that would make that prospect less daunting, - nothing major maybe a hot bath with candles or some new music or a film and chocolate - I know it doesnt sound like much but creating anything that will welcome you in through the door - a vase of flowers, a favourite ornament, a poster or saying  a warm rug can make a difference to stepping in too the house.
In the process of doing the garden i found that actually being in the garden was the least lonely place, because i was never really alone  there was the wildlife and it was never as still and silent and dead as the house so i focussed the rest of the weekend very much on being out there, and i still do that except in really extreme weather, as i built myself a little shelter and surounded it with his favourite plants and bird feeders and a small water feature - in winter i can light a fire in a fire pit next too it at night and it is fine being there on my own because i designed it to be somewhere to spend time on my own it wasnt somewhere we had shared but it was somewhere i had built for me with representations f him in the plants i chose.
It sounds contrary to instinct of what we want to do,when we want to have them back  in our whole life - to create our own special place seems to be shutting them out - maybe it was a place to escape grief for a while i cant really explain it,  but it helps me.

Offline Charlotte

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Re: Loneliness
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2019, 07:30:33 PM »
Thank you for your lovely post. I do love gardening and the garden was always really my place. I’m spending more and more time in the garden for exactly the same reason as you - it’s full of life. Nico loved the garden too, but it’s always been mine, so it feels less lonely than the house. Plus I’m usually in the garden with our dear cat Kasimir. I need to make the house more ‘mine’ while still keeping Nico here. I know it’s early days...I really hope that the edge wears off this horrible emptiness..

Charlotte

Offline Charlotte

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Re: Loneliness
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2019, 07:39:05 PM »
Thank you for the kind replies Sandra and Karena