Hello

[Sandra61]

Hello Kelly,

I'm glad you are going to just box everything up. I don't think going through stuff is something it is a good idea to attempt when you are still so fragile and getting over the shock. You do make rash and wrong decisions when you are in that state and should not feel guilty or selfish about it. You have to give it time and give yourself and those around you time. You are all going  through turmoil that you cannot comprehend or deal with at the moment and this will only calm down with time.

Don't judge your partner's mum too harshly. Having lost her child, she will be devastated and probably will be looking for an explanation and someone to blame, but you are not to blame. When people are at such a low ebb, especially men, who often feel a duty to be strong and don't like talking about feelings, they hide it well, because they don't want those close to them to know. Like all of us, when we are stressed, we don't always think rationally and make reasonable decisions as we would when we are our usual selves. Sadly, it seems your husband was good at hiding his real feelings and was so weighed down by them that he took this irrational decision that he probably never would have done under usual circumstances. Mental health, depression, stress, they all colour and distort our view of reality and get things out of perspective, in this case, with tragic and terrible consequences and naturally you will play the blame game as we all do, thinking if only I'd done this or said that or known or should have known, but you couldn't because he didn't show or tell you clearly enough. He was probably trying to protect you in his own way. It is not your fault, Kelly.

Acceptance is key. You will mull all this over in your mind for months to come no doubt, but in the end, you have to accept that what happened just happened as it did and if you could have changed it, you would have done, but you couldn't. You were not given the chance, not really. You might think you should have realised this or that, but that is easy to say with hindsight and very different when those events are taking place.

Be gentle and patient with yourself. You are the priority now. You have to live for him too now and when you do meet up again one day, I suspect he will be so sorry that he did whatever he did and will never blame you himself.

Sending you a hug.. xx 

[Kelly89]

Hi,

Thanks for your replies. Everyone is being so kind and welcoming and it’s really is helping.

I keep saying to his family “we have to remember he was poorly, if he’d been in his right mind he wouldn’t have done this.” It’s what I know to be true and I say it to them as a comfort, but I’m having a hard time actually accepting that (if that makes any sense?)

I got at email from the coroner’s office today (she always seems to email on sundays which I find odd - they’re obviously as over worked as everyone else) asking for my background statement about the events leading up to his death. I understand why they need it, but it’s meant me picking over everything in my head again and it’s horrible. I gave a police statement at the time, so it feels like ground hog day. It just gave me opportunities to think about all the signs and looking back, I should have realised. It was always going to be a tough exercise to carry out though.

I’ve agreed with his mum that we’re going to hold Off on his ash internment - originally the push was for it to be this coming Friday (funeral at the crematorium is on Wednesday), but then I have to move on the Saturday. It’d feel like abandoning him and I just couldn’t do it. So we’re going to hold off a couple of weeks or so. I obviously still don’t feel thrilled about what we have to do, but I feel a lot less anxious now. I want the internment to be about putting him somewhere peaceful and where we can visit and remember all the good things. I just didn’t want it to be rushed and more stressful thank it needs to be.

[Karena]

  Absolutely there is no need to rush that, you fill find somewhere peaceful but it needs to be the right place so if a couple of weeks isnt right either then take as long as you need unless there is a religion/belief reason not too.

Please dont torture yourself with this report, the signs you think you should have seen, you only see now retrospectively but in reality at the time they wouldnt have meant you could guess what would happen. As you say he was ill, and its difficult to accept that we cant make it better  -  My friends partner had no idea of his intentions, no one did until his first attempt, after that he got all the professional help available, but it didnt change his decision.

[Sandra61]

Karena is right, Kelly. You can always see things as being significant looking back after the event, but it is quite different when you are in the moment. You can't see into the future to see how things will play out. If we could, we would all have done things differently, whatever the circumstances. I have never yet known anyone who hasn't said that they would have done this or that, 'if only' they had known what was going to happen. Sadly, life just isn't like that, so don't dwell on it. In the end, we all just have to accept that things just happened as they did and we can't change it and could not have known what would happen at the time. So, don't torture yourself picking it over.

You are right to take your time in regard to the interment. A few more weeks - or longer - will help you and his family and give you all time to process all this and see how you feel about that.

It's a long slow path to find your way through all this, Kelly. Be kind to yourself and take it slowly.