Cant sleep

Hi Mylove,

i’m not a member of this group (I have breast cancer) but not being able to sleep randomly logged in to tithe site and found your post.So want you to know someone is listening. You and your family have been through a great trauma. There are no answers I can give - in no way am I an expert or have ever suffered what you have, I am simple here in the dark with you holding your hand. You and your partner have a wonderful love - using the present tense because love never dies. Just as illness changes our physical bodies it can also change us emotionally and spiritually. The love you remember is still there, he still loves you and you still love him. Cancer tried to destroy it.but nothing can destroy love. It’s Ok to feel angry, to shout and scream and rant. You are being so strong in posting this.

sending you love and a hug and praying for peace for you

xx

Oh Wow 

Thank you so much for your beautiful words. A couple of my friends went to see a Meduim today and she said to them she had someone new who had just recently passed. Then said my Partners name and said near on the excact words you have just said to me that he loves me and that our love was so special and it will never die that our souls are so strong together. I don’t know if you believe In Meduims but when I heard my friends were going I looked up above and said something to him. Saying we’ll prove you are with me and mention a certain thing to the Meduim. I never thought nothing of it tbh I was just thinking I was going mad and I didn’t say anything to my friends about what I said. When they Phoned me before they said what the Meduim had told them and she mentioned what I asked my Partner. 

I was totally blown away I thought how could any of them known what I had asked him. So I am now under the impression that our loved ones are with us looking over us. 

I cannot believe the kind words you wrote and they were the same things my friends said the Meduim was telling her. 

I hope you are doing well yourself and thank you so much I really do appreciate it XXX 

Hi there,

so glad you found some comfort.

All I know is God loves us and has a place for us to go when we die. Before this illness  I used to take funerals ( I’m a lay reader) and always tried to emphasise that love does go on and we will see our loved ones some day. Love really does never end.Treasure the love you have, and if you can , forgive your partner for the way he was just before he died, it wasn’t his fault, lack of forgiveness can eat us up from the inside. Open your heart to allow love to flow in.

im doing ok thanks just started chemo  but prognosis is good.

God Bless you

xx

Hi Jane,

Thank you for your open post and for sharing your distress with us.

I can understand that it makes you angry that your husband shut you out. And I don't know if any of what I am going to say can make it better or if those feelings are simply a part of your grief and will have to run their own course and eventually pass.

But what I am thinking is that your husband was perhaps traumatised, really in shock, because of his diagnosis and because he knew that he was going to have to leave you far sooner than wanted. People have different ways of dealing with such an emotional shock. Some want and need to talk about it, to open up about it and to let others in. And some can't talk about it, can't even access those very painful feelings inside themselves, and therefore it seems like they are pushing others away. My husband was a bit like that. He only ever cried once in front of me after the diagnosis of liver mets. The rest of the time he behaved like someone who was watching someone else going through this; calm, a bit distant, serene.

I think our loved ones often become distant like this because they want to protect us. And of course this behaviour is very, very difficult to take because, as you say, instead of protecting us, they are actually hurting us, because we don't want to be protected, we want to go all the way with them and be there for them all the way. But it is perhaps the person's nature to protect us and they can't help it.

Also, your husband didn't want to give you more grief because the situation with your sister was already so difficult. Again, this is of course not right in the sense that you would have wished nothing more but to share those last months deeply with your husband. But he for some reason felt he needed to do this.

My husband too used to say things to me like "Oh once I am gone you will have your life back" or "Once I am gone your life will be a lot easier". It used to hurt like hell. And it used to make me angry because it sounded so depressed and resigned and so much like he felt that he was a burden. I once started to cry when he said this and I remember screaming, "How can you say such a thing?! How could I be better off without you?!" bBut, you know, from their point of view this is probably true. During their illness they become so sick, so fragile, so dependent on us for so many things; maybe there comes the point where they feel "If I was gone, then at least she could live again". But in my opinion it is also depression talking at least where my husband is concerned as he was suffering with lifelong depression.

If you feel your husband around you, perhaps you could talk to him about it. Sit down some time when it feels right and tell him how you feel. If he can hear you, it might be an important conversation to have.

Generally, though, I think that the anger is something that is going to pass like all feelings do. Take time to grieve. Because I think you are right: you first lost your husband to cancer and then you lost him when he passed away. That is really all very difficult to come to terms with.

Love, Mel.

Hi Mel

I think your reply is so true, it happens to so many of us were our loved ones think they are protecting us by shielding us from a lot. What races round in my head is how frightened he must of been putting on this brave face. When he was well he was a touchy feely type of guy always wanting a hug. I remember one time when he was in hospital, me asking a nurse if he got frightened through the night would she give him a hug. She did look at me a bit strange tbh but went yes of course. Bless him he said thanks nurse but the only hug I will except is that of my good lady there. But he never ever asked for one and when I tried to hug him he just sort of tapped my back saying come on now I’m ok. 

I do talk to him a lot but sometimes I feel I’m going mad because I feel in my head he’s talking back to me. I can’t explain it, like the other day I was going around the shops and forgot what I went for, then it was like his voice in my head saying babe don’t forget the new door Matt you need. Or I went to cut some food and in my head he’s saying babe be careful your holding the knife the wrong way and it’s really sharp. when I looked down I was I’d bought a new knife and took it out the plastic back but was trying to cut the food with the blade the wrong way around. I cry so much asking him why he did what he did when he got sick and I just feel like a cold feeling down my side like he’s there with me. It might be all in my head I don’t know and he’s not with me and I’m just feeling like this but it gets me through the day. The pain is so unreal isn’t it. I have lost both Parents over the years and my sister who I loved all Three with all my heart. I thought that was painful enough to try and go through but losing your Partner/Husband/Wife that’s a different type of pain I’ve never felt pain like it. 

how long as it been for you Mel ? I hope you are feeling ok and I do hope this anger subsides in me it’s a feeling I don’t like at all 

Thanks again for your comments means a lot Jane xxx

Hi Jane,

For me it has been a little more than a year now. I lost my husband on 15th May of last year.

Yes, they must have been frightened and feeling very alone with these feelings because they weren't sharing their feelings with anyone. I remember my Paul cried in my arms one night saying, "I don't want to have to leave you so soon!" - that was long before he passed away - and there was another situation where he said that he was afraid of what was going to happen. But those were the only times. Otherwise it seemed to me that he was very calm and very accepting of it all, not questioning anything, not searching like mad for something he could do like I was, not complaining about aches and pains and side-effects of treatments...

In the last couple of days of his life, Paul was quite withdrawan. He didn't really want to be held or hugged and even found it difficult to kiss me good night. At the time I was (unfortunately) quite hurt by this but today I can see that he was simply too exhausted and too busy trying to survive to think of something like hugging or holding. I think I had had this idea that once we were close to the end I would hold him and cuddle him and make him feel safe that way. But that was not what he needed.

I know what you mean when you say that you talk to him and he talks back. I have those experiences too. And I am not sure whether they happen in our minds because we so desperately wish that they were here talking to us or whether it is their spirit being with us and watching over us.

Yes the pain is like no other pain I have ever experienced. Such a hole in my life where so much love and caring and laughter used to be; and so much intimacy and happiness and joy; and so many shared experiences; and, towards the end, so many heartships to go through. But through all of it he was my man and I loved him like I have never loved anyone in my whole life and I suppose will never love again.

Three years ago today, around this time of the morning, I was standing in our kitchen of our new house and couldn't believe how lucky I was: newly married, with the best man in the world, a new house, everything was just perfect. Little did we know how short this period of simple happiness would be.

Love and hugs to you, I hope today is a good day for you - as good as it can be.

Mel.