Hello Richard, welcome to this forum. Sending you an understanding hug.
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your wife.
It is understandable that the pain is so raw for you and your family, if you lost her such a short time ago. It is still very early days for you in finding your way through this horrible grief experience yet. You ask how long this pain lasts and the answer i'm afraid, in my own experience, is not good. I found my way here after losing my mother three years ago. It was the third anniversary of her passing last Friday, 9th October. I am at once shocked that it is already three years since she passed away and conflicted in how I am doing in recovering from that. Although the years have gone quickly, the days and in the beginning, the nights in particular, seemed endless and dragged interminably, whilst I sat crying and not noticing time passing at all and realised as the sun faded from the sky outside my window, that I had not remembered to eat or drink all day or even got washed or dressed some days! I think that period lasted for some weeks for me and would have lasted longer, but for the pressure to return to work, just as you are finding now.
No, it is not unusual to want to hold some item that your lost loved one used. I still have most of my mother's clothes in her wardrobes and only recently began feeling strong enough to start turning out her belongings and deciding what to keep and what I still can't bear to part with. Some people make a cushion from favorite items of clothing worn by the person they have lost, so that they can feel they are hugging some part of them when they need to to help them feel closer to them. That wouldn't have worked for me. My mum would have thought it sacrilege to cut up any of her lovely things, but it might be something you might like to do!
Work is thorny issue after a loss. Part of the problem is that sometimes, your employers make up the lucky number of people who have not yet experienced a close loss and so don't understand how devastating and difficult to come to terms with that it can be and expect you to be able to put it behind you and carry on as normal within a few weeks. Obviously there is also the practical difficulty of being a person down at the workplace and the work still needing to be done, so getting you back in is a practical matter for them, but a huge deal for you.
I found it very hard to get back to work. The problem was not so much that work was any different. It wasn't. But I was. A close personal loss rocks your world and the foundations of your life have fallen from under your feet. As a result you feel lost, isolated and alone and going out from the house can feel like a challenge. Making a cup of tea can feel like a challenge! Then coming home to an empty house again once you do go out, is just depressing and makes you feel the loss of your loved one all the more keenly.
I found grief changed me. It made me see life and people differently. I had much less patience with people's everyday gripes and squabbles and their concerns seemed so petty to me, so stupid and unimportant and I just thought 'how can you be so upset over such trivial things when my whole world has collapsed?' I still feel that way, three years on. I suppose what I am trying to say is that grief and loss make you into a different person and you have to learn to accept that you will never be the person you were before this happened and so you have to learn to live with the new you in this unwanted new normal and that takes time. Much more time than anyone who has not been through it will be able to understand.
You ask how long? Well, getting to a point where you can function in the world around you, which has not stopped, however much you feel it should have and your own world has, varies from one person to another. I had to go back to work within two weeks of the death of my mother and I found it very hard. Fortunately I have my own office, so if it all got a bit much, I could have a bit of a cry without too much chance of discovery and that did happen several times. Some people visit their doctor and manage to get advice in whether they are fit to return to work or not and if your GP signs you off as not fit to return, your employers will have to put up with that decision. However, you also have to consider how long they will hold your job open for you and how you will manage if your wages are reduced or if you may be putting your job at risk as well, so the decision to go back is a difficult one.
You could speak to them and explain that you don't feel up to going back yet or you could get yourself signed off by your doctor. You could ask to have a phased return and go back on reduced hours or reduced duties and see how it goes. Chances are you will struggle to some extent no matter how or when you go back. Only you can decide what might work best for you and what the priority is in terms of your need to keep your job, but hopefully these are a few options to consider. You might also ask to be referred to Occupational Health to help your employers manage your return to work better. Whatever happens, it won't be an easy experience and will take time to return to your routine there and that will be made harder by your changed circumstances at home.
When does the pain stop? Well, in my experience, it doesn't. It remained painfully sharp for the first six months and nearly drove me to a nervous breakdown six months in. Then I knew I had to do something to combat the grief as I was sinking into a pit of despair that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to climb out of again, so I made a written plan of how to carry on for the next year or so and that did help me feel I had regained a little control over my life again. I am still sticking to it now and it still helps.
I think that nothing improves much until you reach acceptance that what happened happened and can step back a little from it and realise that at least the person you lost isn't suffering anymore and that that terrible time of their illness only made up a small part of their life and not the bulk of it. Then, you find that some weeks are easier than others and you feel a little better, but then something happens that brings it all back and you have a bad few weeks again. Many here describe it as a roller coaster ride. The sad truth for the long term is though, that it never really goes away. It becomes a part of you and you learn to live with it. The pain dulls and you gradually have times when you are less aware of it, but it is always there in the background for me and life has never and will never be the same again, but that does not mean it is bad. It is just different and sad and I have got used to that and am trying to build a new life for the new me in this new reality that I never really wanted. You will probably have to do the same, but for now, if you can function day to day, you will be doing well. The question of work is not easy and likely, will be a matter of trial and error in terms of going back and coping with being back. You will have to try to have a think about that.
As for the family coming round and ending up crying together, that is probably inevitable to some extent, but how about engaging them in doing something concrete to remember your wife? You could put together an album of everyone's favorite photos of her and make a copy for everyone to have. Or ask them to write down their memories of her, either events they recall or just personality traits that they liked and put them in a book or on scraps of paper in a jar or tin that you could pull one out of at random to try to bring back memories of better times you spent together. Or if you have a garden, why not get them to help make a special spot to sit and remember her in and plant it with her favorite plants? You could club together to get a bench placed at a favorite spot she had that you could visit to remember times you spent there together. Revisiting place you went to together also really helps bring back the good memories, even if it also brings a tear to the eye, it will also provoke discussion of those memories and you will smile too. Or if she liked baking or doing some other activity with the children or grandchildren, do that with them and you will be remembering her and will end up laughing at some memory or other.
Key to feeling better for me was to get out of the house and I found walks in the park helped. It was a calming environment in which to sit and try to come to terms with all that had happened and being amongst nature really helped me feel more peaceful about it all. Many of the benches had inscriptions on them for lost loved ones from those left behind and they reminded me that love never dies and the person who died goes on being loved and missed by those who knew them when they were here.
Grief is a long hard process to get through and as you say, is the hardest thing you will ever go through. There is light at the end of the tunnel but getting to it is a much longer harder process than any of us ever expects and once you are a grieving person, you are likely always to be in one sense or another. Not a day goes past without my thinking of those close to me I have lost and that is true even for my dad, who died in 1985. I still talk to their pictures when I get in in the evening and tell them about my day and ask for their help and sometimes I am lucky enough to find a feather that lets me know they are still around sometimes and thinking of me. It may sound crazy, but I don't think it is.
Find out what helps you and use that to try to feel better, but how long does the pain last? It never really goes away, but it does get better. Sending you a hug and wishing you well.
