Death of a spouse

Post Reply New Topic

My wife died a few weeks ago. The doctors said she lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. Neither of us knew she even had cancer.
I work with a Psychologist and a life coach, and neither of them have answers for me.

So I ask you. The been there done that, bought the t-shirt people.

How do you loose a battle, you don't even know you are fighting?
Why am I more upset over the change of my routine than her death?
Why am I discovering/missing the things she did for me more than her?
Has anyone gone through this?

and the most important one, one I ask very often on almost every subject: Is this "normal"?

I haven't been there. So it's probably not worth as much. But...

1) I don't know. I do know that pancreatic cancer can kill very quickly, but other than that I don't know.

2) Because you're you. And that's not a bad thing. Routines are important to everyone, and they're pretty much life to most Aspies. Nobody likes to feel at loose ends. Aspies REALLY don't like it. My dad's been gone for going on 4 years now and I STILL sometimes have trouble starting a morning without calling him up to "share" a cup of coffee.

3) Again: Because you're you. You'll get around to missing "her" eventually, I guess-- but I rather suspect that most relationships are, at least in large part, a sum of interactions. It doesn't make you evil or anything-- it's just a personality thing. I know a lady (presumed to be neurotypical) who is still having trouble with all the things she now must figure out how to do on her own seven months after her husband's death. So-- don't beat yourself up.

I guess it's as "normal" as anything is. "Normal" is a word that gets bandied about a lot, but I'm not sure it deserves all the importance people put on it.

I think its because all of that disturbances in routine simply remind us again and again, that someone we knew has gone. And it will do so until we got used to new routines. So you manage to focus your thoughts on something else, and then you simply do an everyday stuff and suddenly realize again, that something needs to be changed, and again you are reminded on your partner and sad.