My love died two weeks ago.
We weren't married; we'd been together since May 2019. His wife died 4 years ago (from a long term condition) and I was his first serious relationship since. I have a complicated history with PTSD from an abusive marriage. In November last year, I took fright because T was moving toward wanting us to live together, and I ended our relationship. I really hurt him. But we remained friends and stayed in touch, and in February this year we were talking about meeting up... and then l got CV-19... and then lockdown happened, so we couldn't meet up. I'm sure if we had we'd have rekindled our relationship, but it wasn't to be. But we stayed chatting throughout lockdown.
Then in early July he was rushed into hospital with a blockage in his intestine. It turned out to be a large tumour, with secondaries on his liver. And he died on August 25th. I went back to live with him in July when he came out of hospital, and we had a chance to talk about our relationship, how we felt about each other, what we wanted and hoped for our future. But he died before we had a chance to make any of that real.
I am so lucky to have had those last few weeks with him. So lucky that I got the chance to hear that he still loved me and wanted me with him.
His sister and brother were also with us, most of the time. His sister was explicit about feeling that I shouldn't be there, as it was a time for him and his family only. But he wanted me there, so I stayed. She obviously was very angry - mostly with the cancer, partly with me for having hurt him... I think that's the right sense of it - and she very much wanted to be in control of his care and medication. She spent quite some time telling me to leave them be for quiet family time, and I tried to respect her space and her wishes - after all, our situation *was* complicated and she had known him and loved him far longer than I.
After he died, his immediate family have excluded me completely. I wasn't allowed to be involved in planning his funeral (which was yesterday); I wasn't asked to suggest music or contribute to his tributes. There was no mention of our relationship in the retelling of his life. That's kind of fine; I do recognise that our relationship was complicated and the funeral certainly wasn't about me. But at some level it's also hurtful and quite cruel. His brother, cousins and friends were very kind to me after the service, whereas his sister didn't speak to me at all. I didn't feel I could go to the reception, afterwards - although his wife's sisters tried to encourage me.
I can live without warm feelings from his family; I understand that their feelings toward me will be complicated and to some extent that chimes with my own guilt. But I do need support from somewhere. Is this a place I could ask for it? Or does the complicated nature of our relationship mean I don't quite fit here? And if the latter, can you suggest somewhere else, that might have been helpful to you?
That was my first husband but it was a few years ago now. Their loss. They didn't really know the real Simon. You move on from people like that xxx
