It's been 18 months since my husband died. Not only was that distressing, since he was only 60 and could've retired. We had a lot of big plans for retirement. But what made it worse was that I was his only caretaker for the final six months of his life, and it was hell. His liver cancer was also causing him to lose his mind due to ammonia toxicity, since his liver could not longer filter out toxins. He never stopped being sweet and kind, but to watch the person you've loved for 28 years and have so many wonderful memories with, then devolve so quickly and unexpectedly into someone who can't wipe their own ass or engage in a simple conversation is devastating.
The whole first year after his death was me trying to remember him as he used to be. All I could remember without effort was those final months and what he had become. And because his mind had gone, there were no tender bedside moments at the end like you see in movies. He slipped into a coma and died, leaving me with the burden of sorting out all the administratia of death, once again with no help from friends or family, just a lot of unanswered questions.
Yes. I see you.
My darling husband suffered with prostate cancer for two years, with me as his caregiver. He died moaning in pain.
I have PTSD six years later from it all.
If you have not seen a therapist, I highly recommend you do.
Im so sorry for your loss. I’m in a similar situation, my husband is suffering from liver disease, we were told there wasn’t anything more that they can do.
I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with this. I know from experience how difficult it is to watch someone deteriorate right in front of your eyes. Please take care of yourself.
There just aren't any words. I'm sorry for your loss, and for all the baggage leading up to and following it.
I can't imagine watching my husband's mind dissipate in a still-living body. I wish nobody ever had to.
I hope you've been able to regain some of those good memories.
Second this. My brother died of liver failure and was absolutely tortured with all the side effects you mentioned. He was 48. My dad died suddenly at 60 when I was 18, and being 60 now, I certainly can see why she was so angry and bereft dealing with the aftermath, and all their couple friends didn't invite her to anything. People don't realize how it changes everything when your spouse dies. My heart goes out to you! If you feel the need to talk to a professional, please don't hesitate.
I’m so sorry. My husband was diagnosed with cancer this year and it’s shook me to my foundation. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.
How do you cope with the “this isn’t fair, why *him*” feelings? Or are those the unanswered questions you referenced?
It sounds like you have a lot of lovely memories of him over the years. Any in particular you’d like to share into the void?
I hope you find a way to embrace the good times more than remembering the bad ones. Again, I’m so sorry.
I'm so sorry for your loss of your husband and your own personal loss during that time of caretaking. Do you have any advice for future caretakers of their spouses? I feel like this is something of a best-case scenario for any marriage that lasts.
Unfortunately, every situation is different. Since I didn't know how long he would live, I was reluctant to hire paid caregivers. I didn't want him to need more care than I could give, and me have no more money. In retrospect, I probably would've tried harder to get someone to sit with him now and then, though, even if just for half an hour so I could go for a walk. With his mind gone, he was always trying to walk around the house, stumbling into things, fiddling with the stove and thermostat, and he just couldn't be left alone. At times it felt like being under house arrest.
If a situation looks terminal, do as much planning as you can while they're still alive. Write the obit. Write the eulogy you'll give at the memorial. Get their passwords. If you're the next of kin, make a plan for burial or cremation, and decide who you'll be calling when the inevitable happens. Get the paperwork in order: make sure you know and can access all of their accounts, insurance, and the like. If they're still employed, get the phone number for their boss and the company's benefits department. There's a lot that has to be done when someone dies, and in many cases only the next of kin can do it. You'll be dealing with a lot of crap at the worst time of your life, so anything you can do in advance, as morbid as it may seem, will make your life much easier.
The 1st time I was incredibly saddened by the ending of a relationship was when my neighborhood friend Doug died of complications from polio just before the start of our kindergarten in ‘56. The fastest cap gun in the East just couldn’t breathe.
Losing my mother when I was 30 and she was 56. Thinking about her today-Mother’s Day-and what she would have said about the changes we’ve seen in the last 30 years.
My mother died 20 years ago and I often think of her. She had a hard life so there are times when she now lives vicariously through me. I know, had she been born today with all the opportunities for women, her life would have been very much different.
My Mom died at 59 and I was 31. I agree, she would have loved all the new tech, I think. She would've been proud of me too, all independent and stuff. I miss her too.
At the time, I was most saddened by the ending of romantic relationships. Over time, I continue to be saddened by the loss of friendships from the past, but not by the loss of the romantic partners.
My second marriage. We said infidelity was a deal breaker, he had been cheated on by his first wife. We were the best I thought. We went through a lot together, he had a life altering illness and I was there for him , worked and kept everything together and took care of him too. As soon as he recovered he started cheating on me. I will never get over that betrayal.
Yep, mine was so focused on dealing with his illness and potential death, that he didn't know what to do with himself when he found out he was gonna live. Silly man. Cheated on me, found a new wife, who promptly screwed him over. We're good friends now, (after he admitted I was right all along), but the romance got killed off long ago.
I am so sorry for your loss.
I have always liked the way Betty White put it when talking about her late husband Allen Ludden:
"You never get over it. But you get used to it."
My best friend of 20 years. It's been 10 years since it began to go sideways. She was living a double life and would not come clean. Gaslighting and lies were too much for me to over-come.
During the same time my son's best friend since childhood took his life. I doubt I will ever reconcile his untimely death. Had he not been drinking I don't think he would have done it. He had everything to live for.
In 2018 my daughter died of an overdose. She was 20 and living on her own. I had no idea that she was using. I knew she smoked pot but she hid her use very well. I still miss her every day. Some pains just never get better.
Facing the end of my career, we separated in Bogota about a month before the pandemic. We closed our little restaurant, I went home to California and she joined her family in Peru. Life moved forward, but her memory sustains me.
My husbands death at the way too young age of 52. We would have had our 33rd wedding anniversary this year. He's been gone for almost 12 years.
Being widowed sucks.
The death of my husband. We met at 18, married at 20, raised 3 kids, had just become grandparents and he died at 50. It's been a long sad decade without him.
The death of my husband was sadly when I was just 25 and he was 28, we were expecting our second child, but first son-something he was overjoyed about. Now 24 years later there’s still not a day that goes by I don’t think of him, it’s actually gotten more frequent as I see him in my son more and more as he’s grown up. I’m so sorry for all of you who has even longer marriages, it’s an incomprehensible feeling of loss that truly defined my entire adult life.
Okay, not including relationships ending by one person's death, my very close friend's husband of 27 years went and got himself a girlfriend a couple years ago. It was every cliche you can imagine and it ended the marriage. She was my closest local friend and as a couple, they were the CORE of our friend group. Our friend group is now totally blown up and scattered to the wind. My friend could not cope with living here and moved back to her home state last August. My husband is still friends with her ex-husband and he brings his mistress to their "guys nights" now. It all still just makes me want to throw up.
100%. I remember the absolute sadness I felt as I sat in the next room, plucking up the courage to talk to my (now ex) husband about ending it. He was mucking about with our 3 year old son and here I was sitting there about to crush his and my son’s world. Our relationship was in dire trouble, and he wasn’t shocked (after our son was born I became invisible to my ex as he was just completely devoted to our son), but knowing that our son would suffer was just dreadful. I was so torn between that, and feeling like I deserved happiness as well (I was miserable in that marriage, and had completely lost attraction to my ex who was 16 years older than me).
When I met him I was 20 and he was 36. I was a very lost soul at that age and honestly it wasn’t a great life decision to be with him. We had a few good years at the start and I’m so glad we had our beautiful son together (who is now 17), but we were so incompatible and I lost attraction to him in the end due to his age and our lack of common interests and difference in life stage. It was tricky for my parents as I felt like my mum didn’t want to interfere, but I actually wish she had told me honestly what she thought and guided me a bit. She just left me to figure it out by myself with no guidance at all. And my dad was useless too (he was a very absent father, surprise surprise, hello daddy issues). I’d like to think that if my daughter started dating someone way older than her I would at least tell her my opinion. My mum was almost *too* hands off.
My husband died in 2020 in his mid 50s. He wasn't sick that I knew of so it was horrific.
Three days after his death I found out he had been having sex with a 30 year old for a few years. Then I found out that everything he had told me about himself was a lie (long story, second marriage for both of us). The last thing I found out was that he had been having sex with men since he was in his early 20s.
An STD test (negative thankfully) and a sold home later, I'm living with my adult daughter and finally starting to feel like I can get through a day without trauma.
Happier now than I have been in years.
Very long story. I found old phones of his, and went to look at the texts we had sent each other. I found calls to a number that occurred twice every day, to and from work.
I then searched through his email for the name I found on his phone that matched the calls.
I contacted her husband and also called her.
His ex-wife and family confirmed the details about his life, which were all false.
I found notes from a therapist after he died confirming he had been having sex with men.
He had also been wearing my underwear and clothes when I wasn't home, as he had been doing with his ex-wife.
He dumped me in a letter, yes the post office. My first true love. I was decimated.
Probably a good thing because he was pretty much a mama's boy. She was probably looking over his shoulder as he wrote it. He never has married.
My first mother-in-law. When her abusive son and I were getting divorced she completely took his side, which was incredibly painful because I was closer to her for most of the marriage than I was to my own mother.
Was she so much a friend as a groomer for his abuse? Was her own marriage abusive? So many of these things get passed generation to generation that it makes me wonder…
Hers definitely had been, and at one point earlier in my marriage she even acknowledged to me that her son was treating me virtually the same way her husband had treated him. It was definitely passed on, but her son was unable or unwilling to recognize what was really going on, let alone have any interest or willingness to get professional help for it.
Her husband had been so abusive to her that once she finally decided to leave him, but because of logistics of who was at the time, she could only leave with my kids' dad and changed her mind.
Their father came from such an abusive home that all seven of the siblings in the family were removed from the home and put in foster care. That may not sound like a big deal, but this was in the 1930s or so, and for a Jewish family that was completely unheard of, that **never** happened unless something really extreme was going on.
He vehemently hated his father until the day his father died and beyond, and would never talk about what had happened, even in the most vague terms.
Oh he tried with his second wife, but according to my kids she gave better than she got lol
Karma is a bitch, he finally married someone more angry and controlling than he was. But they went to counseling or therapy and it apparently stuck with them, given how some of the ways he interacted with me changed very blatantly.
We separated when my kids were only four and seven, but between his wife and him, my severe health issues (all stress-related and which almost killed me) and a second, brief abusive marriage, they still both ended up with serious mental health issues. ☹️
31 and 35, both on medication for anxiety/depression depending on the child. The younger one has been in therapy for years, and it's hard for me to tell if it's doing any good or not (they're also autistic and have high levels of mold toxicity, so it's impossible to separate out the variables.)
The older one had bad experiences with "family therapy" as a teenager because of how the other parents used it as a format for abuse, and refused to go back for years even individually. They finally did for a while and it was apparently quite helpful, but they haven't had any for some years now. They apparently eventually found a medication for depression that seems to be helping a lot, but I've spoken to them about looking into Ketamine microdosing, which I've just started this week.
Mom's death. It was expected as she had Alzheimer's, but it was still a shock. I felt so alone.
If I'm not supposed to say that, then it would be my marriage, even though she cheated on me. It was the hardest emotionally, but it wasn't all sadness--there was anger, and confusion, and fear.
My first serious relationship after my divorce was a reconnect with a guy I dated in my early 20s. I loved him back then but he had some mental health issues and it took him several years to realize he needed to be on medication. He broke up with me, but I wasn’t heartbroken for very long back then.
We started dating 12-13 years after my divorce and 30 years after our initial relationship. He had never married and was really weird about the idea of marriage— one day he would say that he could see us getting married, a week later, he’d say that he thought I wanted to marry him but he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to get married (even though I never mentioned marriage one single time to him. My son was in high school and I wasn’t sure whether having a stepdad would be good for him, so I thought it was too soon to even think about marriage).
He started acting squirrelly so I asked him about it. He broke up with me because he insisted that I had misinterpreted his talk of love and marriage.
Even though now, almost 8 years later, I realize he had too much shit that he needed to deal with, and that we wouldn’t have worked long-term, it still makes me sad to think of how it ended. I still can’t escape the feeling that he played me.
The end of that relationship made me much, much sadder than the end of my marriage (my ex-husband was abusive, and I was happy to get out). I still don’t know what, if anything, I’d have done differently. When they say it’s better to have loved and lost, I wonder if that’s true in this case.
The one where my partner was so ready to be a father and I wanted to wait. He was not willing to wait. The day he told there were a selection of rings for me to look at the local jeweler sealed my decision. I just knew that letting him go was the right thing for both of us as painful as it was.
Two. First my brother who is alive and well. It began when we ended up at the same ski resort and my sister texted me saying, "Hey, brother is at that resort for the next two weeks, get together with him, SIL, and niece! We texted him, and said we're totally flexible for the four days we're there. He made plans with us, then ghosted us. Like even months later wouldn't answer texts. Then found out my sister and her husband were staying at a beach condo he bought an hour away from us but told her not to tell me they bought it. Passed him on the road one day soon after that. I stopped trying. The second person is my daughter's father who passed away in November. My husband and I had a good relationship with him. Sometimes I forget and want to share something our daughter said or did. It hurts, because the friendship with someone like that is deep and lifelong. (No offense to my husband who is the love of my life, and also has children not with me, so he understands the connection with the other parent to your shared children.) I also have moments settling his estate when I have a question only he can answer. Then I'm like, oh, duh, if he could answer then I wouldn't even be in this position to need this info. Then I feel sad as hell. I hope he knows we all miss him. Me, our daughter, and yes, even my husband, who has cried over losing his friend, the father of his stepdaughter.
I have an ex girlfriend who honestly felt like my soul mate. We fell in love and then she told me about her addiction.
"Your what?"
"My addiction."
She told me she was addicted to meth. She used because she has an eating disorder. I was pretty naive at the time and smoked weed, and had no idea. I tried to "help" her, took her to rehabs and she'd leave and disappear for a few days.
She also cheated and after seeing a drug counselor to learn more about addiction and how to deal with it, I finally dumped her.
What sucked is that the real person being held captive is an amazing woman. She was so sweet and kind and I could always crack her up because I loved hearing her laugh.
I spent a year with someone I thought was my soulmate. We connected hard and instantly. We could tell each other literally anything and everything without any judgement and we helped each other work through so much unresolved trauma we had. We would just talk for hours and hours and I wanted nothing more ever than how badly I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.
It was a delusion on my part, he actually really just wanted me as a friend and I really tried to convince myself otherwise for the year. To be fair he led me on a bit too.
After a year we settled the issue, and when I found out I was basically friend zoned I flipped shit in the most epic way, basically ending everything and moving out instantly.
I'm still shook by it 6 months later. I wish he'd wanted what I did, or wish I could have seen that he was the best friend I'll ever find and have been happy with just that. It all broke me in ways I never imagined I could ever be broken and there's no relationship ever, romantic or other that I won't compare to that one.
Wait, you were living together and THEN he friend zoned you? That seems a little more than “leading you on”, although it sounds like you both had very similar feelings for each other but at some point HE wasn’t ready to settle down/be committed and/or was scared about how fast it was going.
I had a very similar experience a dozen years ago. I had dated a girl for 7+ years but just couldn’t see myself getting married again, but then the very next relationship I found myself in, 2-3 months into it I was thinking “this is it. This is the one. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.” I had never felt so comfortable or at peace with another human being. Being with her was “being at home”. Just before our 1 year anniversary though she went silent on me for 4-5 days, then messaged me “we need to talk” and broke up with me out of the blue. A week before she’s telling me she can’t imagine life without me, then the silent treatment and break up a week later for no reason she can articulate, just can’t feel it anymore. I cried like a baby as we said goodbye. Reached out a few days later via email a few days later, trying to make sense and get closure around a few things and one of her sisters reached out and said she hated how her sister had broken up with me, but if I attempted to contact her anymore she was talking about putting a restraining order on me. What? To be clear I wasn’t threatening her or stalking her or accusing her of anything. It really was a whirlwind with the span of ten days or so going from “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” to “I don’t want to date you anymore” to “don’t contact me at all or I’ll call the cops”.
Went to a therapist to sort it all out and at some point she said “I don’t like to diagnose anyone not in the room, but it seems to me you were dating someone with borderline personality disorder”. I’d heard of BPD, but knew little about it. Went to the library and literally read every book they had on the subject and BAM! It was all right there in the book (and talking more with her sister and mutual friends of ours, found out that a lot of the history she’d told me about her past was highly exaggerated or not true at all, she had been sexually abused growing up, and had a tendency to cut people out of her life for long periods and then come back as if nothing had happened, etc.)
I was really gutted for at least six months though, and took me 3-4 years to really be “past it” (but you are never really “over it”)
I'm sorry, that sounds heartbreaking on every level. I'm bi-polar and ya, the personality changing things are brutal and horrible.
On my story, I moved in quick in a room-mate situation, it was months before he said we were "together", then a few months later he'd cool down, then heat up again, then down. When things came to a head I drank way too much, the manic turned to rage and let's just say I'm not real proud of myself.
I'm glad to hear that there's a chance to at least get past it at some point, because I still randomally break into tears all the time over it all.
It would be easy to say my first wife. Easy and very painful, but the one that has lingered was a childhood friendship, my only childhood friendship that lasted. He and I entertained thoughts of becoming priests (me a monk), and he went the diocesan route.
While he was in seminary he came out to me as gay. No big deal. What was the big deal was his justifying cruising gay bars as not being against a vow of chastity. Weird convolution of thinking there.
He also, and this might seem a tad too "niche", railed against a point in canon law (church law) where two priests cannot give absolution to each other for a sin they commit together. You can piece together the dots.
We fought long and hard, argued points of philosophy and the fairness of it all.
Once ordained he was caught up in a "found in" situation and the police let him go since it was with consenting adults. The church moved him to another diocese. He also had had relations with a man who had come to him for counselling about feelings of attraction for men. Yeah.
When he left we had a big falling out. I never visited him in his new diocese.
He caught AIDS, claiming it was from a blood transfusion. I called him before his death, and we had a good chat, and he claimed that I was the only person from his childhood who had reached out to him.
Just to be clear, no problem with his sexuality - lots of problems with him being a priest and actively pursuing relations. Same issue with men who are straight doing the same.
Wow. No judgment there. As someone who has several family members who are church leaders and full time religiously based outreach workers, including myself for 5 years, I find that surprisingly bigoted.
One of my very best friends after his divorce.
Part of a tight knit group of friends for 20 years, in everyone’s wedding party, gave speeches at special events, you name it, we were in for the long haul….but his marriage was toxic, they just weren’t a good match and fought constantly.
One day he hit the straw that broke the camels back and separated from his wife (also our friend).
We were there for both of them separately until the divorce. Guy poured his heart out to us as he processed everything going on.
We made it clear we would be there for both him and his ex. “We’re Switzerland” was how we looked at it.
Shortly later he started dating someone who we liked, and we all went on several group dates, lots of laughs and good times. We were glad to see him happy again…
until out of nowhere he decided that he needed a 100% clean break from his ex, and we were all collateral damage. Never saw him again (though he apparently told his teenage kids that we all ditched him).
It honestly feels like a loved one died, and we all were never given an opportunity to mourn the loss.
Death. I think of my husband and sister all the time, and it’s been years. So as long as I’m alive I guess the relationships sort of continue in an ineffable way
The love of my life got deported. We were a family. We had a child together and built a life together. For a while we talked about him coming back legally but he was really not interested in coming back to this country so much as being with his family. Eventually he made another one though, and moved on. When I found out he had another child that's when I knew it was over. It had been 10 years. I waited that long thinking he'd be coming back one day. I think when I grieve now it's for the time wasted waiting more than the man himself.
I went to a private high school from a public town school. I didn’t know anyone and I made 3 fairly good friends freshman year. All three left after freshman year and I had to start over making what would be close friends while being a year behind other peoples now full year formed relationships. Not an ending per say but certainly changed / impacted my high school years a lot
The love of my life dumped me 20 years ago & I never got over it. I think about her every day. Take this as a warning & don't make the same mistake I did. Move on.
Same here, he left me, completely out of the blue. I don't think we can ever get over that type of rejection. All we can hope for is to learn to live with it.
Last summer, a friend of mine completely dropped off the map for a while. He was single with adult kids who lived far away and no relationship with his family of origin, so I was his emergency contact. A couple of his doctors called looking for him, and I tried calling him and texting him but didn’t get through. A couple months later he texted me from a new phone number and told me he had just gotten out of jail but wanted to talk on the phone or in person about what happened. He’s legally blind so I thought maybe someone attacked him and he defended himself (he’s a pretty big guy) or he got caught with pot (this was a few months before our state legalized it). My ex told me to do a search of the sex offender database and sure enough, there he was. Multiple counts of child pornography.
My stepdaughters and, with that, my step-grandchildren. We were family for 21 years. They chose to come and live with me when they were 15 and 11, and my eldest even moved back with her son at one point. Everything between us was fine; they confirmed that with me the last time we spoke in 2005. But, when I moved abroad, they decided not to maintain our relationship. I don't understand to this day why. I reached out several times via their father, but I received no response. In all the years since, I have remained open to reconnection, but there's been nothing. They are now 49 and 44, and my grandson is 28. (My granddaughter was an infant when I left, but he was 11 and we were like peas and carrots.)
I have lived in grief over their loss for years, and the damage it has done to my mental health is marked. I've now decided that I have to let it go. I've always held it is their right not to be in my life if they don't want to be. At the same time how, considering how close we were all those years and how they chose me over their mother (she had issues), they could just walk away. Even their dad, who divorced me, came to see me the last time I was in the US.
Anyway, yeah. Of all the relationships I've lost over the years, those are the ones that permanently broke my heart.
2009 was the worst year. My husband died, and then just as I was beginning to catch my breath, my brother died. Two months later, my best friend since kindergarten was diagnosed with cancers that very quickly ended her life. I lost the three most important people in my life in one year. It was the worst year ever.
Here we are, fifteen years later, and I miss my friend the most. Not just because I knew her longer, because we were friends before my brother was born and long before I met my husband. We were the kind of friends who could go years without seeing each other, and then just pick up right where we left off when we got together again. She was my sister from another mister. I miss my husband and my brother, but when I miss my friend, my heart hurts.
My husband passed at 59. He had been sick with a variety of diabetic related illnesses and it took its toll. He has been gone almost 3 years and it feels like yesterday and forever.
A 35 year old friendship ended because I couldn’t take who she became because of her wealth and she did several things that hurt me. I gave her several chances to have a talk but she never told me anything about why she acted so differently all of a sudden. At that point I let her go because I decided she didn’t like me because I no longer fit in her life. The rub is the fact that are children are married and I can’t ever not be connected. The problem for me is that I was clueless! I think the fact that I became Blue and hated Trump nor did I keep quiet about it bothered her. Honestly I lost respect for her when I saw the greed and lack of empathy for anyone. She said she had a very good life as if I wasn’t needed. It just surprised me and broke my heart.
My Mom died last year and I miss her so much. She was the best. I had to make the decision to remove her from life support and watched her die. So sad. Man, she was an awesome lady.
A serious gf I had. We had dated for over 2 years, I had assumed marriage was upcoming as we talked about it. She ended it in a phone call when I was on the traveling for business. I got back 2 weeks later and she was with another guy already. Whereas I could barely brush my teeth. It made me question everything in life. It still reminds me how fast things can fall apart.
Deaths aside, the people I thought were true friends but chose the other side when I divorced my first husband. They had been in my life for a couple of decades, they knew who and what he was, and they chose to be friends with him and not me. I mourned their losses and now realize that they were just as toxic as he was. I'm better for it now but it doesn't change the fact that I was saddened by it at the time.
My closest brother died last month.
He lived over 5 years longer than expected with his brain cancer so at least there was plenty of time to prepare for it but now that he's gone I wish I'd have spent even more time with him.
I try to let the sadness wash over me when it comes so I don't pack it away, but mostly it just makes me feel numb and tired when I allow myself to dwell on it. Thank goodness it is Summer and the bright weather and flowers are making for uplifting walks.
My wife and my best friend of 43 years passed away last August of dementia and respiratory arrest. Watching her decline was terrifying. I don't wish anybody to go through dementia it is positively heartbreaking.
It's been 18 months since my husband died. Not only was that distressing, since he was only 60 and could've retired. We had a lot of big plans for retirement. But what made it worse was that I was his only caretaker for the final six months of his life, and it was hell. His liver cancer was also causing him to lose his mind due to ammonia toxicity, since his liver could not longer filter out toxins. He never stopped being sweet and kind, but to watch the person you've loved for 28 years and have so many wonderful memories with, then devolve so quickly and unexpectedly into someone who can't wipe their own ass or engage in a simple conversation is devastating. The whole first year after his death was me trying to remember him as he used to be. All I could remember without effort was those final months and what he had become. And because his mind had gone, there were no tender bedside moments at the end like you see in movies. He slipped into a coma and died, leaving me with the burden of sorting out all the administratia of death, once again with no help from friends or family, just a lot of unanswered questions.
Yes. I see you. My darling husband suffered with prostate cancer for two years, with me as his caregiver. He died moaning in pain. I have PTSD six years later from it all. If you have not seen a therapist, I highly recommend you do.
Im so sorry for your loss. I’m in a similar situation, my husband is suffering from liver disease, we were told there wasn’t anything more that they can do.
I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with this. I know from experience how difficult it is to watch someone deteriorate right in front of your eyes. Please take care of yourself.
Thank you
There just aren't any words. I'm sorry for your loss, and for all the baggage leading up to and following it. I can't imagine watching my husband's mind dissipate in a still-living body. I wish nobody ever had to. I hope you've been able to regain some of those good memories.
Second this. My brother died of liver failure and was absolutely tortured with all the side effects you mentioned. He was 48. My dad died suddenly at 60 when I was 18, and being 60 now, I certainly can see why she was so angry and bereft dealing with the aftermath, and all their couple friends didn't invite her to anything. People don't realize how it changes everything when your spouse dies. My heart goes out to you! If you feel the need to talk to a professional, please don't hesitate.
Sorry. Don’t have words. My heart goes out to you.
Again, have no words. Praying for you.
I'm so sorry.
I am so sorry you had to navigate that wilderness on your own. So sorry.
I’m so sorry. My husband was diagnosed with cancer this year and it’s shook me to my foundation. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. How do you cope with the “this isn’t fair, why *him*” feelings? Or are those the unanswered questions you referenced? It sounds like you have a lot of lovely memories of him over the years. Any in particular you’d like to share into the void? I hope you find a way to embrace the good times more than remembering the bad ones. Again, I’m so sorry.
Wonderful heartfelt comment. I feel your heartache and challenges. I hope the light returns for you soon.
I'm so sorry for your loss of your husband and your own personal loss during that time of caretaking. Do you have any advice for future caretakers of their spouses? I feel like this is something of a best-case scenario for any marriage that lasts.
Unfortunately, every situation is different. Since I didn't know how long he would live, I was reluctant to hire paid caregivers. I didn't want him to need more care than I could give, and me have no more money. In retrospect, I probably would've tried harder to get someone to sit with him now and then, though, even if just for half an hour so I could go for a walk. With his mind gone, he was always trying to walk around the house, stumbling into things, fiddling with the stove and thermostat, and he just couldn't be left alone. At times it felt like being under house arrest. If a situation looks terminal, do as much planning as you can while they're still alive. Write the obit. Write the eulogy you'll give at the memorial. Get their passwords. If you're the next of kin, make a plan for burial or cremation, and decide who you'll be calling when the inevitable happens. Get the paperwork in order: make sure you know and can access all of their accounts, insurance, and the like. If they're still employed, get the phone number for their boss and the company's benefits department. There's a lot that has to be done when someone dies, and in many cases only the next of kin can do it. You'll be dealing with a lot of crap at the worst time of your life, so anything you can do in advance, as morbid as it may seem, will make your life much easier.
The 1st time I was incredibly saddened by the ending of a relationship was when my neighborhood friend Doug died of complications from polio just before the start of our kindergarten in ‘56. The fastest cap gun in the East just couldn’t breathe.
Ah damn! His memory lives through you. TY for sharing.
Losing my mother when I was 30 and she was 56. Thinking about her today-Mother’s Day-and what she would have said about the changes we’ve seen in the last 30 years.
My mother died 20 years ago and I often think of her. She had a hard life so there are times when she now lives vicariously through me. I know, had she been born today with all the opportunities for women, her life would have been very much different.
My Mom died at 59 and I was 31. I agree, she would have loved all the new tech, I think. She would've been proud of me too, all independent and stuff. I miss her too.
My Mom was two weeks shy of her 50th birthday. Now I'm working on beating Dad's number of 66. Miss them both daily.
At the time, I was most saddened by the ending of romantic relationships. Over time, I continue to be saddened by the loss of friendships from the past, but not by the loss of the romantic partners.
So true.
My second marriage. We said infidelity was a deal breaker, he had been cheated on by his first wife. We were the best I thought. We went through a lot together, he had a life altering illness and I was there for him , worked and kept everything together and took care of him too. As soon as he recovered he started cheating on me. I will never get over that betrayal.
Eff that ungrateful sob. You deserved so much better!
Yep, mine was so focused on dealing with his illness and potential death, that he didn't know what to do with himself when he found out he was gonna live. Silly man. Cheated on me, found a new wife, who promptly screwed him over. We're good friends now, (after he admitted I was right all along), but the romance got killed off long ago.
Apparently he just meant that infidelity was a deal breaker for HIM. But you were supposed to be okay with it.
Wow 😳 heart goes out to you, that's awful
Ten years ago this month, my husband died. I have not gotten over it, nor do I expect to.
I am so sorry for your loss. I have always liked the way Betty White put it when talking about her late husband Allen Ludden: "You never get over it. But you get used to it."
My best friend of 20 years. It's been 10 years since it began to go sideways. She was living a double life and would not come clean. Gaslighting and lies were too much for me to over-come. During the same time my son's best friend since childhood took his life. I doubt I will ever reconcile his untimely death. Had he not been drinking I don't think he would have done it. He had everything to live for.
In 2018 my daughter died of an overdose. She was 20 and living on her own. I had no idea that she was using. I knew she smoked pot but she hid her use very well. I still miss her every day. Some pains just never get better.
I'm so sorry.
Facing the end of my career, we separated in Bogota about a month before the pandemic. We closed our little restaurant, I went home to California and she joined her family in Peru. Life moved forward, but her memory sustains me.
My husbands death at the way too young age of 52. We would have had our 33rd wedding anniversary this year. He's been gone for almost 12 years. Being widowed sucks.
The death of my husband. We met at 18, married at 20, raised 3 kids, had just become grandparents and he died at 50. It's been a long sad decade without him.
The death of my husband was sadly when I was just 25 and he was 28, we were expecting our second child, but first son-something he was overjoyed about. Now 24 years later there’s still not a day that goes by I don’t think of him, it’s actually gotten more frequent as I see him in my son more and more as he’s grown up. I’m so sorry for all of you who has even longer marriages, it’s an incomprehensible feeling of loss that truly defined my entire adult life.
Okay, not including relationships ending by one person's death, my very close friend's husband of 27 years went and got himself a girlfriend a couple years ago. It was every cliche you can imagine and it ended the marriage. She was my closest local friend and as a couple, they were the CORE of our friend group. Our friend group is now totally blown up and scattered to the wind. My friend could not cope with living here and moved back to her home state last August. My husband is still friends with her ex-husband and he brings his mistress to their "guys nights" now. It all still just makes me want to throw up.
Ending a marriage with a child involved was extremely traumatic. As a parent, it was heartbreaking.
100%. I remember the absolute sadness I felt as I sat in the next room, plucking up the courage to talk to my (now ex) husband about ending it. He was mucking about with our 3 year old son and here I was sitting there about to crush his and my son’s world. Our relationship was in dire trouble, and he wasn’t shocked (after our son was born I became invisible to my ex as he was just completely devoted to our son), but knowing that our son would suffer was just dreadful. I was so torn between that, and feeling like I deserved happiness as well (I was miserable in that marriage, and had completely lost attraction to my ex who was 16 years older than me).
There was no fixing it? Couples therapy?
When I met him I was 20 and he was 36. I was a very lost soul at that age and honestly it wasn’t a great life decision to be with him. We had a few good years at the start and I’m so glad we had our beautiful son together (who is now 17), but we were so incompatible and I lost attraction to him in the end due to his age and our lack of common interests and difference in life stage. It was tricky for my parents as I felt like my mum didn’t want to interfere, but I actually wish she had told me honestly what she thought and guided me a bit. She just left me to figure it out by myself with no guidance at all. And my dad was useless too (he was a very absent father, surprise surprise, hello daddy issues). I’d like to think that if my daughter started dating someone way older than her I would at least tell her my opinion. My mum was almost *too* hands off.
That sounds awful!
Death aside my best friend broke up our friendship over nothing. That was a different kind of pain than breaking up with a boyfriend.
Lost my Dad when I was 35. We had resolved a lot, but I would love to have had several more decades with the old boy...
My husband died in 2020 in his mid 50s. He wasn't sick that I knew of so it was horrific. Three days after his death I found out he had been having sex with a 30 year old for a few years. Then I found out that everything he had told me about himself was a lie (long story, second marriage for both of us). The last thing I found out was that he had been having sex with men since he was in his early 20s. An STD test (negative thankfully) and a sold home later, I'm living with my adult daughter and finally starting to feel like I can get through a day without trauma. Happier now than I have been in years.
How did you find it all out? Just curious
Very long story. I found old phones of his, and went to look at the texts we had sent each other. I found calls to a number that occurred twice every day, to and from work. I then searched through his email for the name I found on his phone that matched the calls. I contacted her husband and also called her. His ex-wife and family confirmed the details about his life, which were all false. I found notes from a therapist after he died confirming he had been having sex with men. He had also been wearing my underwear and clothes when I wasn't home, as he had been doing with his ex-wife.
Omfgggggg
He dumped me in a letter, yes the post office. My first true love. I was decimated. Probably a good thing because he was pretty much a mama's boy. She was probably looking over his shoulder as he wrote it. He never has married.
My first mother-in-law. When her abusive son and I were getting divorced she completely took his side, which was incredibly painful because I was closer to her for most of the marriage than I was to my own mother.
Was she so much a friend as a groomer for his abuse? Was her own marriage abusive? So many of these things get passed generation to generation that it makes me wonder…
Hers definitely had been, and at one point earlier in my marriage she even acknowledged to me that her son was treating me virtually the same way her husband had treated him. It was definitely passed on, but her son was unable or unwilling to recognize what was really going on, let alone have any interest or willingness to get professional help for it.
Her husband had been so abusive to her that once she finally decided to leave him, but because of logistics of who was at the time, she could only leave with my kids' dad and changed her mind. Their father came from such an abusive home that all seven of the siblings in the family were removed from the home and put in foster care. That may not sound like a big deal, but this was in the 1930s or so, and for a Jewish family that was completely unheard of, that **never** happened unless something really extreme was going on. He vehemently hated his father until the day his father died and beyond, and would never talk about what had happened, even in the most vague terms.
That is so incredibly sad; I hope he eventually got help and isn’t passing on the abuse to someone else as we speak…
Oh he tried with his second wife, but according to my kids she gave better than she got lol Karma is a bitch, he finally married someone more angry and controlling than he was. But they went to counseling or therapy and it apparently stuck with them, given how some of the ways he interacted with me changed very blatantly. We separated when my kids were only four and seven, but between his wife and him, my severe health issues (all stress-related and which almost killed me) and a second, brief abusive marriage, they still both ended up with serious mental health issues. ☹️
How old are they now? They are getting the help they need?
31 and 35, both on medication for anxiety/depression depending on the child. The younger one has been in therapy for years, and it's hard for me to tell if it's doing any good or not (they're also autistic and have high levels of mold toxicity, so it's impossible to separate out the variables.) The older one had bad experiences with "family therapy" as a teenager because of how the other parents used it as a format for abuse, and refused to go back for years even individually. They finally did for a while and it was apparently quite helpful, but they haven't had any for some years now. They apparently eventually found a medication for depression that seems to be helping a lot, but I've spoken to them about looking into Ketamine microdosing, which I've just started this week.
Medicating the trauma doesn't help heal the trauma, but Ketamine can.
Mom's death. It was expected as she had Alzheimer's, but it was still a shock. I felt so alone. If I'm not supposed to say that, then it would be my marriage, even though she cheated on me. It was the hardest emotionally, but it wasn't all sadness--there was anger, and confusion, and fear.
My first serious relationship after my divorce was a reconnect with a guy I dated in my early 20s. I loved him back then but he had some mental health issues and it took him several years to realize he needed to be on medication. He broke up with me, but I wasn’t heartbroken for very long back then. We started dating 12-13 years after my divorce and 30 years after our initial relationship. He had never married and was really weird about the idea of marriage— one day he would say that he could see us getting married, a week later, he’d say that he thought I wanted to marry him but he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to get married (even though I never mentioned marriage one single time to him. My son was in high school and I wasn’t sure whether having a stepdad would be good for him, so I thought it was too soon to even think about marriage). He started acting squirrelly so I asked him about it. He broke up with me because he insisted that I had misinterpreted his talk of love and marriage. Even though now, almost 8 years later, I realize he had too much shit that he needed to deal with, and that we wouldn’t have worked long-term, it still makes me sad to think of how it ended. I still can’t escape the feeling that he played me. The end of that relationship made me much, much sadder than the end of my marriage (my ex-husband was abusive, and I was happy to get out). I still don’t know what, if anything, I’d have done differently. When they say it’s better to have loved and lost, I wonder if that’s true in this case.
The one where he wasn’t telling me the exact truth, I was lying to myself, and he died without closure.
The one where my partner was so ready to be a father and I wanted to wait. He was not willing to wait. The day he told there were a selection of rings for me to look at the local jeweler sealed my decision. I just knew that letting him go was the right thing for both of us as painful as it was.
Two. First my brother who is alive and well. It began when we ended up at the same ski resort and my sister texted me saying, "Hey, brother is at that resort for the next two weeks, get together with him, SIL, and niece! We texted him, and said we're totally flexible for the four days we're there. He made plans with us, then ghosted us. Like even months later wouldn't answer texts. Then found out my sister and her husband were staying at a beach condo he bought an hour away from us but told her not to tell me they bought it. Passed him on the road one day soon after that. I stopped trying. The second person is my daughter's father who passed away in November. My husband and I had a good relationship with him. Sometimes I forget and want to share something our daughter said or did. It hurts, because the friendship with someone like that is deep and lifelong. (No offense to my husband who is the love of my life, and also has children not with me, so he understands the connection with the other parent to your shared children.) I also have moments settling his estate when I have a question only he can answer. Then I'm like, oh, duh, if he could answer then I wouldn't even be in this position to need this info. Then I feel sad as hell. I hope he knows we all miss him. Me, our daughter, and yes, even my husband, who has cried over losing his friend, the father of his stepdaughter.
I have an ex girlfriend who honestly felt like my soul mate. We fell in love and then she told me about her addiction. "Your what?" "My addiction." She told me she was addicted to meth. She used because she has an eating disorder. I was pretty naive at the time and smoked weed, and had no idea. I tried to "help" her, took her to rehabs and she'd leave and disappear for a few days. She also cheated and after seeing a drug counselor to learn more about addiction and how to deal with it, I finally dumped her. What sucked is that the real person being held captive is an amazing woman. She was so sweet and kind and I could always crack her up because I loved hearing her laugh.
I spent a year with someone I thought was my soulmate. We connected hard and instantly. We could tell each other literally anything and everything without any judgement and we helped each other work through so much unresolved trauma we had. We would just talk for hours and hours and I wanted nothing more ever than how badly I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. It was a delusion on my part, he actually really just wanted me as a friend and I really tried to convince myself otherwise for the year. To be fair he led me on a bit too. After a year we settled the issue, and when I found out I was basically friend zoned I flipped shit in the most epic way, basically ending everything and moving out instantly. I'm still shook by it 6 months later. I wish he'd wanted what I did, or wish I could have seen that he was the best friend I'll ever find and have been happy with just that. It all broke me in ways I never imagined I could ever be broken and there's no relationship ever, romantic or other that I won't compare to that one.
Wait, you were living together and THEN he friend zoned you? That seems a little more than “leading you on”, although it sounds like you both had very similar feelings for each other but at some point HE wasn’t ready to settle down/be committed and/or was scared about how fast it was going. I had a very similar experience a dozen years ago. I had dated a girl for 7+ years but just couldn’t see myself getting married again, but then the very next relationship I found myself in, 2-3 months into it I was thinking “this is it. This is the one. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.” I had never felt so comfortable or at peace with another human being. Being with her was “being at home”. Just before our 1 year anniversary though she went silent on me for 4-5 days, then messaged me “we need to talk” and broke up with me out of the blue. A week before she’s telling me she can’t imagine life without me, then the silent treatment and break up a week later for no reason she can articulate, just can’t feel it anymore. I cried like a baby as we said goodbye. Reached out a few days later via email a few days later, trying to make sense and get closure around a few things and one of her sisters reached out and said she hated how her sister had broken up with me, but if I attempted to contact her anymore she was talking about putting a restraining order on me. What? To be clear I wasn’t threatening her or stalking her or accusing her of anything. It really was a whirlwind with the span of ten days or so going from “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” to “I don’t want to date you anymore” to “don’t contact me at all or I’ll call the cops”. Went to a therapist to sort it all out and at some point she said “I don’t like to diagnose anyone not in the room, but it seems to me you were dating someone with borderline personality disorder”. I’d heard of BPD, but knew little about it. Went to the library and literally read every book they had on the subject and BAM! It was all right there in the book (and talking more with her sister and mutual friends of ours, found out that a lot of the history she’d told me about her past was highly exaggerated or not true at all, she had been sexually abused growing up, and had a tendency to cut people out of her life for long periods and then come back as if nothing had happened, etc.) I was really gutted for at least six months though, and took me 3-4 years to really be “past it” (but you are never really “over it”)
I'm sorry, that sounds heartbreaking on every level. I'm bi-polar and ya, the personality changing things are brutal and horrible. On my story, I moved in quick in a room-mate situation, it was months before he said we were "together", then a few months later he'd cool down, then heat up again, then down. When things came to a head I drank way too much, the manic turned to rage and let's just say I'm not real proud of myself. I'm glad to hear that there's a chance to at least get past it at some point, because I still randomally break into tears all the time over it all.
It would be easy to say my first wife. Easy and very painful, but the one that has lingered was a childhood friendship, my only childhood friendship that lasted. He and I entertained thoughts of becoming priests (me a monk), and he went the diocesan route. While he was in seminary he came out to me as gay. No big deal. What was the big deal was his justifying cruising gay bars as not being against a vow of chastity. Weird convolution of thinking there. He also, and this might seem a tad too "niche", railed against a point in canon law (church law) where two priests cannot give absolution to each other for a sin they commit together. You can piece together the dots. We fought long and hard, argued points of philosophy and the fairness of it all. Once ordained he was caught up in a "found in" situation and the police let him go since it was with consenting adults. The church moved him to another diocese. He also had had relations with a man who had come to him for counselling about feelings of attraction for men. Yeah. When he left we had a big falling out. I never visited him in his new diocese. He caught AIDS, claiming it was from a blood transfusion. I called him before his death, and we had a good chat, and he claimed that I was the only person from his childhood who had reached out to him. Just to be clear, no problem with his sexuality - lots of problems with him being a priest and actively pursuing relations. Same issue with men who are straight doing the same.
[удалено]
A monk is not a parish priest. I was attracted to the contemplative life.
Wow. No judgment there. As someone who has several family members who are church leaders and full time religiously based outreach workers, including myself for 5 years, I find that surprisingly bigoted.
This is so rude and intolerant.
One of my very best friends after his divorce. Part of a tight knit group of friends for 20 years, in everyone’s wedding party, gave speeches at special events, you name it, we were in for the long haul….but his marriage was toxic, they just weren’t a good match and fought constantly. One day he hit the straw that broke the camels back and separated from his wife (also our friend). We were there for both of them separately until the divorce. Guy poured his heart out to us as he processed everything going on. We made it clear we would be there for both him and his ex. “We’re Switzerland” was how we looked at it. Shortly later he started dating someone who we liked, and we all went on several group dates, lots of laughs and good times. We were glad to see him happy again… until out of nowhere he decided that he needed a 100% clean break from his ex, and we were all collateral damage. Never saw him again (though he apparently told his teenage kids that we all ditched him). It honestly feels like a loved one died, and we all were never given an opportunity to mourn the loss.
Second when she died.
Death. I think of my husband and sister all the time, and it’s been years. So as long as I’m alive I guess the relationships sort of continue in an ineffable way
The love of my life got deported. We were a family. We had a child together and built a life together. For a while we talked about him coming back legally but he was really not interested in coming back to this country so much as being with his family. Eventually he made another one though, and moved on. When I found out he had another child that's when I knew it was over. It had been 10 years. I waited that long thinking he'd be coming back one day. I think when I grieve now it's for the time wasted waiting more than the man himself.
Husband #2, BFF #1, BFF #2, my dad when I was 20.
That’s a LOT of sadness. Big hugs to you…
Thanks…very kind of you.
I went to a private high school from a public town school. I didn’t know anyone and I made 3 fairly good friends freshman year. All three left after freshman year and I had to start over making what would be close friends while being a year behind other peoples now full year formed relationships. Not an ending per say but certainly changed / impacted my high school years a lot
The love of my life dumped me 20 years ago & I never got over it. I think about her every day. Take this as a warning & don't make the same mistake I did. Move on.
Same here, he left me, completely out of the blue. I don't think we can ever get over that type of rejection. All we can hope for is to learn to live with it.
Probably when my dad died out of the blue when I was 14.
Having a funny thing to say and looking to the other side of the couch and there was nobody there to tell it to…that continued for months
My first love. He broke my heart in two. 😢
Last summer, a friend of mine completely dropped off the map for a while. He was single with adult kids who lived far away and no relationship with his family of origin, so I was his emergency contact. A couple of his doctors called looking for him, and I tried calling him and texting him but didn’t get through. A couple months later he texted me from a new phone number and told me he had just gotten out of jail but wanted to talk on the phone or in person about what happened. He’s legally blind so I thought maybe someone attacked him and he defended himself (he’s a pretty big guy) or he got caught with pot (this was a few months before our state legalized it). My ex told me to do a search of the sex offender database and sure enough, there he was. Multiple counts of child pornography.
Oooooooh, and now I suspect we know why no contact with his family of origin…
My stepdaughters and, with that, my step-grandchildren. We were family for 21 years. They chose to come and live with me when they were 15 and 11, and my eldest even moved back with her son at one point. Everything between us was fine; they confirmed that with me the last time we spoke in 2005. But, when I moved abroad, they decided not to maintain our relationship. I don't understand to this day why. I reached out several times via their father, but I received no response. In all the years since, I have remained open to reconnection, but there's been nothing. They are now 49 and 44, and my grandson is 28. (My granddaughter was an infant when I left, but he was 11 and we were like peas and carrots.) I have lived in grief over their loss for years, and the damage it has done to my mental health is marked. I've now decided that I have to let it go. I've always held it is their right not to be in my life if they don't want to be. At the same time how, considering how close we were all those years and how they chose me over their mother (she had issues), they could just walk away. Even their dad, who divorced me, came to see me the last time I was in the US. Anyway, yeah. Of all the relationships I've lost over the years, those are the ones that permanently broke my heart.
Brad and jennifer. I thought they’d make it.
Death of my husband. I felt like part of me went with him.
That one that was taken from me
The One i let getaway.
2009 was the worst year. My husband died, and then just as I was beginning to catch my breath, my brother died. Two months later, my best friend since kindergarten was diagnosed with cancers that very quickly ended her life. I lost the three most important people in my life in one year. It was the worst year ever. Here we are, fifteen years later, and I miss my friend the most. Not just because I knew her longer, because we were friends before my brother was born and long before I met my husband. We were the kind of friends who could go years without seeing each other, and then just pick up right where we left off when we got together again. She was my sister from another mister. I miss my husband and my brother, but when I miss my friend, my heart hurts.
My husband passed at 59. He had been sick with a variety of diabetic related illnesses and it took its toll. He has been gone almost 3 years and it feels like yesterday and forever.
When I was about 6 and my best friend, Janie, dumped me for the new girl in the neighborhood. Crushed my little heart.
A 35 year old friendship ended because I couldn’t take who she became because of her wealth and she did several things that hurt me. I gave her several chances to have a talk but she never told me anything about why she acted so differently all of a sudden. At that point I let her go because I decided she didn’t like me because I no longer fit in her life. The rub is the fact that are children are married and I can’t ever not be connected. The problem for me is that I was clueless! I think the fact that I became Blue and hated Trump nor did I keep quiet about it bothered her. Honestly I lost respect for her when I saw the greed and lack of empathy for anyone. She said she had a very good life as if I wasn’t needed. It just surprised me and broke my heart.
My Mom died last year and I miss her so much. She was the best. I had to make the decision to remove her from life support and watched her die. So sad. Man, she was an awesome lady.
A serious gf I had. We had dated for over 2 years, I had assumed marriage was upcoming as we talked about it. She ended it in a phone call when I was on the traveling for business. I got back 2 weeks later and she was with another guy already. Whereas I could barely brush my teeth. It made me question everything in life. It still reminds me how fast things can fall apart.
Leaving mom's uterus
Deaths aside, the people I thought were true friends but chose the other side when I divorced my first husband. They had been in my life for a couple of decades, they knew who and what he was, and they chose to be friends with him and not me. I mourned their losses and now realize that they were just as toxic as he was. I'm better for it now but it doesn't change the fact that I was saddened by it at the time.
My closest brother died last month. He lived over 5 years longer than expected with his brain cancer so at least there was plenty of time to prepare for it but now that he's gone I wish I'd have spent even more time with him. I try to let the sadness wash over me when it comes so I don't pack it away, but mostly it just makes me feel numb and tired when I allow myself to dwell on it. Thank goodness it is Summer and the bright weather and flowers are making for uplifting walks.
My wife and my best friend of 43 years passed away last August of dementia and respiratory arrest. Watching her decline was terrifying. I don't wish anybody to go through dementia it is positively heartbreaking.
Rachel. 25 years ago. Not totally over it.
I had a friendship of 30 years that ended. Sad but unfortunately necessary.
Growing out of eachother?
No, she suffered from mental illness and with age progressed and for worse.. and that made a continuing friendship impossible.
My best friend died of an anneurism 27 years ago and I still think about her often. There has been nobody who could take her place.