Thanks for sharing Arthur . It is so hard.

Your story sounds similar to mine. I'm almost 5 years a widow, and I still miss him. I get so tired of being alone and I struggle in every way without him. I guess we all are finding our way out of our grief. We all own our own grief, and all of our experience are so similar yet no two people grieve alike.

I think "why" is the wrong question ... and we should do our best not to torment ourselves with it. It is a question we ask ourselves because we feel wronged by life, that it was "supposed" to go a particular way / follow a particular story arc, because we were good / worthy / virtuous / hard-working / well-meaning enough to "deserve" it.

That's not to say it feels any less obscene to me that my wife suffered so much for so long, and died in the end anyway. It felt like a raw deal, for her and for me, in terms of effort / intent vs outcomes on various levels. However, objectively, it wasn't any kind of a deal, because there's no deal-maker. It's just not the desired outcome, and there's nothing to guarantee we'll get the desired outcome. There was no way to be more deserving or worthy, or more in control, than we were.

Once you understand this, it does make bearing your losses easier, because you know there's nothing you could have done differently. If you left nothing unsaid and undone between each other, that's better still.

Thank you for sharing those feelings. That is not an easy thing to do. I have been a widow for almost 20 years. My husband was 14 years my senior. I guess i thought he would live forever. The first two years left me in a fog. After that I got it together, dated a couple of men, joined a couple of clubs, etc....and now i’m In a routine. I have family and that’s great. ....but I miss the closeness and the intimacy of being married. I empathize because I am still in that place...to do or not to do. Peace.

Not to do seems to be the mode I'm stuck in.

Be kind to yourself, take all the time you need.

No magic time period . . . it takes the time it takes

Some authorities are of the opinion that you might need up to a year for every 4 years of the marriage. I don’t agree but four years might easily not be enough for a 43 year marriage. My 28 year marriage seems to be taking more than 3 years. But I got mixed up in a really disastrous relationship when I thought that her last year plus the next year was sufficient. I am regretting at leasure my haste.