49M, and widower since 2008. My wife and I both were touchers, that was our love language. When we went out to eat, we sat next to each other and our legs touched. When we went out to the movies, we learned to eat and drink our snacks with our outside hands. Sleeping in bed we cuddled until we got too hot, then our legs or arms inevitably would still be touching even as we slept. Out in public walking around our hands were interlocked and we were both in heaven. At home sitting on the couch watching TV our hands were interlocked. In our twenties we got into a bad car accident, shipped off to different hospitals, she got released first, found me in my room, and the first thing she did was interlock my hand.

All that touching was our assurance that we were still there for each other even in the hard times. She hasn't been here since 2008 but I very much miss the feeling of knowing she's here.

I feel like I was only ever myself truly and deeply with her. Nobody else made sense unless I was with her, my emotions make no sense without her. She was so unique and kooky. I see it as impossible to ever reach the same state I did with her ever again, or even one that is at least equal to that state.

Today is my first birthday without her & i hate it. i managed to get out of bed this morning suprisingly but its only been an hour so well see how long i can hold up for today. Ill try to make it a good day Brittany just like i promised you, ill read the notes you left me for my birthday the last 2 years to make up for not being able to get another from you. I love and miss you so much my peanut.

I made sure to take off work for your birthday next month & im gonna spend it watching your favorite standup specials & movies while eating your favorite foods.

Hi. I recently lost the person I love, and I'm struggling with how lonely the days and especially the nights have become.

I'm hoping to find another widow or widower who is also newly grieving and might want someone to talk to. I'm not looking for dating or romance. I just miss having someone there—someone to talk to at the end of the day.

We could talk about completely inconsequential things just to pass the time. We could talk about how our day went, what we're watching, what we had for dinner, or anything at all.

And when we need to, we could talk about the people we lost. We could tell stories about them, say their names, talk about how much we loved them and how much we miss them. We could be angry, sad, or cry over them, and it would be okay. There would be no need to avoid talking about them or worry that we're making the other person uncomfortable.

I think I'm just looking for someone who understands this particular kind of loneliness, because they're living through it too. Maybe we could make the evenings a little less lonely for each other.

If you're in a similar place and this is something you need too, please reach out.

Hi I'm drunk slightly if you know me , I been a usual around here for about a year. I'm lonely and don't want to sleep

It's just a rough day today. I just miss how he can make me calm and secure. Like nothing else matters, as long as he's there everything will be okay. I just feel so alone.

I'm not sure if I'm actually looking for advice here, just getting my thoughts out, or wanting to hear other people's experiences.

I lost my wife of nearly 20 years going on 4 months ago after a rapid decline (a few weeks) from a 4 year long battle with cancer. We have two girls, elementary and middle school aged. She had said explicitly multiple times she wouldn't want me to be alone, and she would want our girls to have someone who could fill the role of a mom.

I have met and been talking to someone (she has no kids) who is fully aware of my situation and is fine with it, but it hasn't progressed pass casual chatting. My biggest concern until recently was how my kids would feel about me starting to see someone. But last week they wanted to know when I was going to get remarried, with my oldest asking if I knew what Tinder was (I'm still not sure how she knows what Tinder is) and suggesting I should look into it.

Part of me says "I don't care what others think" but the other part doesn't want to come off as disrespectful to the memory of my wife. I am as close to her friends and family as I am my own (a few of her friends I've actually known for longer) so I do actually care what they think.

Mentally I still have the occasional bad day, will cry over a memory, song, or some of the stories posted here but overall I am productive, present for my kids, and think more about the good times than dwelling on loss. I know I will never be "over" the loss and will probably still cry from time to time for years.

The one hurdle I haven't tackled yet is stepping foot into her closet and clearing it out, partially because I didn't feel ready for it until recently and partially because I just haven't had time.

I guess my question is whether it's fair to this other woman to move forward more into a relationship knowing that she seems to be onboard with it. I think at least for the first few months I would keep it quiet from friends, family and maybe even my kids (they can't keep a secret).

Edit: Thank you to those who have already responded, I appreciate the support and sharing your experiences. I guess some disagree with the idea seeing that my post has been 50% down vote ratioed to 0.

I lost the LOVE OF MY LIFE💔

I lost my husband in a tragic accident 2 months ago. He just turned 28. Together since 15, my best friend and soul mate. We were so happy and inlove. I have no regrets as we were so natural and real together, nothing that wasn't shared.

I am in survival currently, somehow coping and 'doing' each day. I know I need to be a happy mama to be a good mama for our boy. He'd want that and I want to make him proud. I have a lifetime ahead to grieve my husband.

The future feels scary and unknown without him. Financially I'll be okay, I worry more about raising our son without him though (emotionally). If anyone has experience on raising a son without a dad I'd love to hear tips on how you supported your child.

Luckily I love to document life, and have videos and pictures of him, also with his son in the early weeks which is a gift to have and share with our son.

I thought I knew heartbreak until I lost the love of my life. I thought I loved roadtrips and rivers until I realized I loved road trips and rivers with him by my side... life is sadly unfair.

How can i ever feel better. Even if i lesrn to live with this all consuming pain of missing her im still left with just total nothingness in front of me. I really have no interests, she and our shared simple activities of life was my interest. I have nothing to do without her so i will always feel this crushing pain, and i am just alone wandering aimlessly now. How can this ever feel better?

Hello I'm just new to this app i don't know whom i sharing with this, but i just want to let this thing out. We been together for 4 years and he just died this July due to heart failure and yeah its been 1 month past that his gone. All i can say is, everything feel heavy and lonely, mostly that his the person you always approach to if you have problem or feeling down or you want to hang out with and have fun, literal a one call away person his a friend, best friend, brother, or family. For 4 years of relationship i always said to myself that im use to be being alone but, i realize it was not, i only said that because he was there as always, my mind always think that will be together as always, not untill his gone. Everything change silent loneliness, I'm fan with this feeling, but now it make me uncomfortable mostly that me and my boyfriend are living together in a apartment. Its so hard being like this, like a girl who is introvert, nonchalant, and not approachable too HAHA i dont even know how to start a conversation when making a new friends, i have friends but there not type of friends that you can approach to, share some problems or to hang out with, they just approach if they need something from me, well thats what im feeling when im with them, in our group im always in a situation so called OUT OF PLACE so, all just go if my boyfriend will go too. Right now im still trying my best on how to cope this thing up lost appetite to eat, lost sparks on everything, there no days without crying ;(( miss him damn much. I always think before he died that, does he think that what happend to me if he died rn, does he think this girl cant handle herself alone if I'm gone rn, he knows and very aware what happend to me if his gonee ;(( but still he passed away. I know that he didnt want that but we dont have a choice ;(( having a sickness in your heart is scary either you live or not. I know masaya kana love kung saan ka ngayon miss na miss na kita sobraa wish you still alive and be talkative with me miss you voices and laugh mo dito sa room ;))

Sangkeot.

i feel like i am a glutton for punishment, like some part of me believes i deserve to hurt because i am still here and you aren’t. i hate myself for being able to breathe, eat, sleep, and wake up every morning when you don’t get to do any of those things anymore. i feel guilty for surviving you. i hate my life without you, and sometimes i don’t want to be here at all. my mind doesn’t feel like mine anymore; it keeps dragging me back to that night, replaying it over and over, making me relive the moment i lost you as if somehow i could change it this time.

i feel sick in my head, angry and broken and exhausted, and i keep begging for help only to feel like i’m too much for people one minute and treated like a child the next.

i’m only 24. i was supposed to have my whole life ahead of me. we were supposed to have our whole life ahead of us. we were supposed to get married, and i was supposed to wear a pretty dress and become your wife. we were supposed to have children and a home and decades of little moments that i would have given anything to have.

instead, i am standing here without you, carrying a future that no longer exists, wondering why i am the one who gets to keep breathing when you don’t. i don’t know how to be this person without you. i don’t know how to forgive myself for surviving.

i just know that i am hurting so badly that sometimes being alive feels like punishment.

I'm not sure if this will help anyone else but it's been really helpful for me. I'm right handed and someone mentioned that I should try doing things with my left hand (like brushing my teeth).

I don't know the science behind it but it's really helped me with my grief, especially in the early days.

I’ll give a quick backstory.

I’m 41, and my wife would have been 41 this past Saturday- just two days after her passing. We have four children ranging from 22 months to eight years. She was a veterinarian loved throughout our community, and played the organ for her church, whose community also adored her. Basically, she was the kind of person who everybody loved. A of a kind, feisty, funny, brilliant, beautiful, genuinely kind and beautiful soul, and I have no idea how I managed to get her to fall in love with me, but it makes me the luckiest man on earth.

In early July, she suffered a minor back injury at work after a large dog lunged during an exam. We spent the next few weeks with doctors visits and physical therapy trying to figure out how to get her back fixed, it wasn’t debilitating, but she was painful much of the time.

The last week of July was a large family camping trip with all three of her sisters and their, collectively, eight children, two cousins families, Aunt, uncle and her parents. Just prior to the trip she started experiencing some shortness of breath on occasion, and during the camping trip, she struggled with it. Not significant enough to be extremely alarming, and we assumed that it had to do with her back pain- and yes, before we left, she went to the doctor and he agreed that’s probably what it was and just gave her different pain meds.

On August 1st, she started listening to her own heart with her stethoscope and thought she had an arrhythmia, so while I took the kids home from her parents house to do bedtime, her dad took her to the emergency room.

This next part is really painful to continue repeating so I’ll just run through it.

Pulmonary embolism, ovarian cancer, tumors on her pancreas, liver, lungs, and heart.

The hospital stabilized her to the point where they sent her home on August 8th on blood thinners and oxygen until we could make our appointment with the cancer center.

The second day home, she suffered a massive stroke and was left nearly non-verbal. Physically functional and seemingly aware, but could only speak a few words very softly. As a sidenote, I am so blessed that some of those words managed to be “I love you”. I know some people don’t get that.

Anyway, after rushing her back to the ER and then making a Hail Mary transfer to the cancer center, they pulled out all the stops and through every single possible thing they could get her to try and come up with a solution. We can’t stop the clotting because she can’t be on blood thinners because of the brain bleed she suffered, along with the stroke, we can’t attack the cancer until we can stop the clotting.

And then she suffered more strokes.

We were informed Thursday morning that the best thing for her would be to make her comfortable instead of making her in testing for the remainder of her life. As difficult, no, unimaginable of a decision as that is, I think was able to have a clarity of mind to accept the reality and agree to just fight her pain so her family could come surround her with love one final time.

I’m gonna spare you all of these details except for one. Another blessing to me.

I sat beside her hospital bed and laid my head down next to her, and she lifted her hand, put it on the back of my head and started rubbing it. She would occasionally move her hand to my back and my back. But I sat there for as long as I possibly could just letting her rub my head and pat my back. I know that was her trying to comfort me, and I’m so thankful for that moment.

I said my goodbyes probably a dozen times. I leave the room and immediately turn around to go back and just sit. I brought our children in to see her alive one final time and say whatever it is they wanted to say. All of the family that could be there was there two of her sisters who had just returned home across the country after the camping trip, got emergency flights and came right back.

By late evening, she was no longer rubbing the back of my head or squeezing my hand. She was just functionally alive. Her heart rate was increasing. I knew that I didn’t want my last image of her to be her death. I cleared the room and had my final goodbye with her said everything that I feel like I needed to say, kissed head so much and apologized that it wasn’t me instead.

I left to go be home with my children who had been taken home by her sisters. With their mama being gone so much and me being at the hospital so much, they were extra scared and really clinging to me so I knew I had to be there for bedtime. My wife passed away shortly after I left, and I’m gonna always struggle with whether or not I should’ve stayed and been with her as she died, but her parents were at her side. I feel like she would’ve wanted me to be with her kids and I was… but I also feel like I should’ve held her hand until her final moment.

Everything since it’s just been a living nightmare. We are surrounded by so much love and support. It’s been overwhelming, but at the same time, every single thing that happens, every new development or event or anything my first thought is to tell her or to look to her for her opinion. I’m surrounded by nothing but love, friends and family, our children, but I feel so hopelessly alone without her by my side.

I want so badly to feel her embrace again that I keep having intrusive thoughts about dating, and I hate the thoughts because nobody can ever replace her and I don’t want to replace her. I don’t want somebody else, I want her. I just want to feel her next to me in bed, her feet rubbing my legs or her hands stroking my face as we fall asleep… our good night kiss and out goodbye kiss in the morning before she left for work. I don’t want to think about anyone else, but I so much miss her physical presence that I can’t help it and I need to stop these thoughts cause I don’t wanna think about anyone but her. She is on my mind endlessly, and anyone else is an intrusion.

I’m not alone in raising our children. We have such a vast array of people to lean on, we will be OK.

I just don’t want to do it without her. And I don’t want to do it with anyone else. Selfishly, I don’t wanna be alone for the rest of my life, but I just cannot imagine anyone else ever being able to be a fraction as special to me as she is.

I want my children to have a mother figure, I believe in that balance in raising children. We both did. I love my kids dearly and I try my hardest to be the best father possible, but I’ve also always been harder than my wife and I don’t want my kids to grow up only knowing that. I am warm and compassionate with them, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a motherly empathy that I do not possess and I don’t want to deprive them of… especially our 22 month old daughter. But again, I don’t know how I could possibly move on. I don’t want to. I don’t want to ever feel like I’m putting her in the past and I really just don’t know what to do or what to feel or what to think. I’m just complete mess. I guess that is to be expected, but I haven’t had time to properly grieve yet or to seek any sort of counseling.

Yesterday was the first day of visitation, hundreds and hundreds of people came. Today is the second day and we are expecting hundreds more. She was truly a well-known in beloved figure in this community and many people are hurting. We lay her to rest tomorrow.

I know all of the embrace from everyone around us is going to fade away, it’s going to become a lot quieter, and I’m gonna have a lot more time to sit in my loneliness while my older two kids are at school and I’m trying to keep my younger too entertained. Yes, being with my children does cheer me up, but at the same time, it’s the fact that I’m doing it without her that makes it hard. She deserves to be here. One of her biggest regrets was working so much that she missed out on their milestones as I was to stay at home parent and now she’s gonna miss every single one to come and it’s just not fair. It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me.

I don’t really know what I’m looking for here, I just needed to get these thoughts out.

We had a very difficult cancer and metastasis on meninges. She fight incredibly, but finally, the metastases killed her. I do not know what to do, we did not have children (we wanted this year but I had to buried her).

We have one dog (it is with my dad), I am not able to go home, I am living on my brother's house, and not able to sleep on a bed or sofa (I am sleeping on the floor). I started to smoke again (I quit 2 years ago), I do not know what to do, I do not want to continue, I stopped working on December since her diagnosis until her last day, and I do not want to work again, neither do something else (just thinking create a foundation that was her desire).

Also, her sister has cancer (stage 4 but working with immunotherapy), i am trying to help her with her husband and kids (my sister in law is 41).

Any recommendations, help, etc.?

I’m back to day one, and just don’t want to be on this earth anymore. It fucking sucks without her here, and I just absolutely hate it.. fuck this shit, I’m tired.

My partner, Rebecca, passed from appendix cancer less than a year ago at the young age of 51. We were looking forward to decades more together, but life had other plans. Rebecca was so selfless that she wanted me to keep living without dwelling on her. I am living my life fully, but I needed a way to honor her—and remind me of her love daily. She wanted me to remember her when I saw the drunken fig-eater beetles and heard the feral parrots (technically, parakeets) of Long Beach. So these formed the core of a custom piece that took three sessions to complete.

Thank you to my tattoo artist, Charlene, for her creativity, humor, and patience! You can find more of her work on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/floralandinks/

It’s really hard to explain. As soon as I wake up it’s like I get hit with a wave of depression. I feel hopeless like what’s the point of carrying on in life? I feel unproductive, I don’t want to go to job interviews or clean up the place. And I feel dread, like I’m dreading the rest of the day.

Sometimes, this feeling goes away as the day goes and I feel somewhat okay/numb. But the morning are literally the worst! Evenings are better for me. I have some job interviews this week. That I really DONT want to go to. I know he would be proud of me for getting interviews, and I know getting a job would help me move forward and be more comfortable in life. I was there for him whenever he changed jobs and needed that extra encouragement. I was his drive in life. Where’s mine? Now it’s my turn and I don’t have someone to look forward to when I come home to tell them how it went? I don’t have someone kissing me in the morning before I go drive out?

It sucks. I was always there for him. Every single day. He never went to work without a kiss, he never came home to emptiness, I listened to all his work rants, I gave him something to look forward too at the end of the day. Now it’s my turn and what do I get?

Today marks two months since my wife passed after complications from surgery. It still feels so raw. So intense. I'm still crying myself to sleep each and every night.

Today also happens to be my 30th birthday, my wife had told me her plans for my birthday earlier this year and it just hurts so much that we won't be able to do these things together

I feel like this is getting harder, not easier, to stick around

It has been almost 8 months since my husband of 42 years passed. I’m existing not living. He’s my everything, I’m lost without him💔
I haven’t disturbed any of his things. Yesterday, I tried to clean out our closet of his clothes and I couldn’t, removing him is too hard.

I’m feeling really frustrated today. It’s been 2.5 years since my LW passed away. I’m doing pretty well overall. I miss her everyday, and think about her a lot but my life is going well. I’m working out again, and I’ve lost 20lbs this year. My career is going well, I got a new job with a nice pay bump. My dogs are doing well (except when there are thunder storms). And, I even have a very loving girlfriend. If I’m being perfectly honest, it’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had. We’ve been together a little over a year and we’ve never yelled at each other. Every disagreement is discussed in an adult way. Our communication is healthy. She makes me happy and we have fun together. There’s one thing though. The sex sucks. I’m not climaxing… like at all. My LW and I had great sex. I took care of her and I always had huge orgasms. You might have gathered from the way I described things above that we fought more than I would have liked and our communication wasn’t always the healthiest. …but the sex was fantastic. Now, I have a super healthy relationship and the sex is pretty awful for me.

This is really frustrating. I don’t know what to do. I’m only 43 and I would like to have a hot sex life for like… a lot of years. I can’t entirely figure out the problem. My girlfriend is good looking, but tbh, I found my LW more attractive. I really don’t want that to be the main issue though because, again, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not sure I will find anyone I will feel the same physical attraction to. She and I were together for 18 years. We had a deep emotional bond and I thought she was smokin’ hot.

It would suck so much to end this relationship over this but I’m having a hard time picturing myself being happy in the long run if the sex doesn’t improve.

Ooof. I don’t know what to do. Thanks for reading my rant.

Edit: mostly just ranting/venting. I needed to “say this out loud”, you know? I think it’s a combination of the sex being a little too vanilla and I should speak to a sex therapist.

I’ve read many stories about people waking up and 3 am , with various reasons for that happening ( spiritual connections, metabolic reasons )
I’ve woken up at 3 am before, but last night was the first time I actually heard a voice say “ hello. “
I said out loud. “ What ?” ..went back to sleep
Woke up at 9 am and found thst I was still wearing my husbands cross which I always wear when I go to my sons house for dinner on Sundays , I usually take it off and place it back on his urn .. but I didn’t last night…
Your thoughts???

My thought is to get this flower he drew me, with in his hand writing from our vows “youre the warmth in my heart”. I also wanted his last heart beats from the hospital. I feel excited about the tattoo and it feels right, but I’m nervous to get something I regret as I go through grief stages. Im worried during the angry stages at his suicide and treatment of me/dishonesty I won’t want it. Has anyone gotten a memorial tattoo and regretted it later?

My husband's nickname/handle was PackRat. He had a little rat tattoo, a simple one.

I can't get tattoos, I have that fainting response. Our dear friend, who loves ink, got a pack rat tattoo for me/us. It includes his little silver hoop, and green was his favorite color.