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My husband died today

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I got the dog to cross the threshold of the dreaded scary looking trailhead this morning.
Good going! That sounds like a big accomplishment. (Give yourself credit too, not just him. :))
I'll never be able to defend myself against their bullying.
I find that hard to believe. I know it won't be easy, and I know they won't like it, but I think you'll find a way, if you keep working at it. You DESERVE to be treated with respect. Really. It's too bad they can't see that. They are cutting themselves off from the chance to get the know the person you really are.
 
It's almost midnight, I can't sleep. The dog will have me up at 6 am.

I keep thinking of him, that day, the day he died. He DIED. Almost 7 months after the fact and I still can't fathom that. He's dead. He committed suicide. He shot himself. How? How did HE do that? He was my everything. How could he not see that? I needed him so much, how could he not see that?

Here comes the stereotypical phrase, "I'm nothing without him." I'm not. I don't know what I am anymore. I feel like I'm just floating around bouncing from thing to thing and not sticking to anything. I have no desire to do anything, I don't see any point to trying anymore in life. I don't. What is the point? Everything he did for others all his life, he never had a single good return on any of that, our life just seemed to keep diving toward rock bottom year after year. We seemed to struggle while other younger couples were taking trips to South Africa and Australia and Tahiti. Where was our cut of that proverbial good life? Why did our life have to go to sh*t so suddenly? What did we do that was so wrong that life had to turn sour on us?

I know he wanted a break. He just wanted a break. I know what that feels like. The world gets too heavy sometimes and we just can't face another day of it, but you're supposed to keep your head down and disappear for a bit, not get out of it permanently! What in hell was he thinking, that my life was somehow going to get better!? That I would be Happy??? I feel like I will never be truly happy EVER again in my entire life. He was such a big part of me. He was such a huge part of how I identified in the world. I've lost everything I struggled and worked so hard to get all of my life - my career, my reputation, my relationship, my marriage, my HUSBAND. I've lost it all. When you've lost everything that you felt was You, what is left? Nothing. I don't see any point to working toward any goals anymore. I don't see any point to bettering myself anymore. I don't see the point to trying at all. For what? Where is it going to take me, realistically, at this late a stage in my life? I really don't want to 'go' anywhere anymore.

I don't want to be alone like this.

He left me alone. Without him, I am truly alone in this world. He was the only person who ever understood me. He was the only person who ever listened to me and took the time to figure me out. He was the only man who ever truly loved me. I only thought I knew what love was before I met him. He taught me what love and commitment were and just how meaningful they could be. He left me alone. No one gets me like he did. I fear no one ever will.

I feel like a pariah. I just don't fit anywhere. I try. I've always tried. I only ever fit with him. He was the key to my lock. We were supposed to be together and now I'm a lost piece of hardware that can't be re-keyed. I'm that old lock you find cast aside in a desk drawer. I'm going to sit here for years, rusting until someone finally finds me and tosses me in the trash.

He was supposed to stay with me. He was supposed to protect me. That was his job! That was his purpose! He was supposed to be here for me. We promised....I guess he could have thrown those exact words at me too though, I wasn't the same after PTSD. The person I used to be died, that woman that he married? She changed irreparably and he couldn't get her back. Instead there was me in her skin, cowering, crying, needing to be protected, afraid of shadows, refusing to try because she couldn't trust anything or anyone but him. A leech. Living off of him. Sucking him dry. Draining his energy, his life from him. Always crying. Always afraid. Always needing him. Always walking in his shadow, hiding behind him. Using him as a shield from the world. Always little, helpless, demanding.

I wanted to be Big again. I said that to him one day. "I'm only going to be little for a little while longer, okay?" He asked what I meant and I said, "I need to be big again. I need to snap out of this and start trying to help you out around here. I need to force myself to get a job, part-time or casual, just anything to help take the load off of you." He hugged me and he said, "You need to be little or you'll break. I don't want you to break. I need you. It's okay to be little for now, just until we don't need it anymore. I make good money, we're okay."

I want to blow the money he left me. The urge gets so strong some days. Just go out and spend every last cent on ridiculous things because you cant' take it with you when you go. Then that Stern Mother voice in my head chastises me for even thinking such nonsense and reminds me what happens if I live to be old, what happens then if I have no money to live on? I have to save this money and try to make it last for at least 30 years more. That voice never acknowledges that I could probably end up in the same boat he was in - see there? Can't even acknowledge it by using the words. This Stern Mother voice will only say, "You are NOT going to kill yourself!" instead of, "But what if you kill yourself?" There is a Stern Mother voice in my head that keeps me denying myself the things that I think will make me happy - junk foods, trinkets, pretty items, trips away - all of those things that are meaningless after you die. instead the Stern Mother says, "How much will fuel cost for the next 30 years? Budget that. What about taxes?, insurance? These are costs that are never going away and you have a finite amount of money that you have to live on For The Rest Of Your Life." My Stern Mother never lets me have any fun.

My Stern Mother was always at odds with my husband. My husband, because of his bad childhood, never denied himself anything and he tried to give me everything I even hinted at wanting. I have baubles and pretty sparkly things all over this house. "Wastes of money." according to that Stern voice in my head. He collected knives. He would spend on average $5-6 hundred dollars per purchase, sadly I looked at the return on most of his collection, their values have fallen, not worth what he paid at the time. He also spent a lot of money on electronics. Trinkets, baubles, toys, fine food, fine spirits, my husband was not me in any way. He felt no guilt when he did those things where I would be sent into an endless internal cycle of worry, he just seemed to carry on, happy at his Things.

I saved and spent my money on him. Trips. Those were my big purchases when I was working and had money. I took him to places in the Caribbean; Aruba, Antigua, Bahamas, St.Lucia, Turks and Caicos and the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. Those were the things you could keep forever and they became a part of you, instead of just sitting on a shelf. Trips enhance and enrich You and that was what was important to me for us. I also took him to smaller places, locally, resorts, camping trips, lodges, country inns. He got his Fine Dining and I got to let someone else cook and clean for me. We never got to see all the places we wanted to see together.

Does any of that matter after you die? Or do you suddenly know everything there is to know about this world and it is merely trivial in that new plane? Is this existence just a blip on the scale of things to know about Life, The Universe and Everything? (Cute reference to my husband's favorite book, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). I never would have known any of that without him. I feel like now that he's gone, my life is over too. Stern Mother will never allow me to relax without him here to over rule her.

I miss him. I wish I was ethereal like he is. I want so badly to be with him some days. because I love him so much and also because I want to know what it's like, I want to know what he knows now. Ever since I was a baby and I felt like I just one day opened my eyes and had consciousness, I've wanted to know what was before that and what comes after those years are completed. He knows that now. I'm envious. I want to be with him. I want us to experience it together.

I miss him so much tonight. Why did I have to be stuck behind?
 
Some days I hate being alive without him. Some days life is just too hard to face alone.

I had a fight with the dog today and I lost it on him. He's afraid of me now. I'm a bad person. All I was doing was trying to treat his feet but he kept fighting and pulling and running away then he knocked over the container and it spilled all over the floor and that was the last straw for me. I let him go and screamed at him, "Fine! Just let the stupid yeast eat away at your feet! The stupid vet almost killed your liver how else are we supposed to do this!?" He ran away cowering and hid from me.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be in control anymore. I don't know how to look after this dog, I just don't.

I burst into tears and I've been crying for over an hour now. He just reminded me so much of my husband, I just kept crying, "I was trying to help you! Why wouldn't you let me help you!? Why did you have to be so damned stubborn!?"

I think I realize now that none of this is about the dog, it's about my husband, about the seven month anniversary coming up on Wednesday. I feel so hopeless and worthless and sad and lonely and in so much pain.

I just want him back. How come he can't just come back? I need my husband. I need him here.

Why did he leave me here alone? What did he think was going to happen? My life would be okay!? It's not okay it'll never be okay again.

He knew when I was at my lowest people walked away from me, he was the only one who stayed by me - everyone is turning away from me and I'm all alone. He knew this happened to me, he knew it, he'd seen it happen a million times, he's the one who used to try to reassure me by saying, when the strong fall the weak scatter. Did he forget? Did he think everyone would stay by my side because of the way he died!? They're gone. They're gone just like they always left me when I needed them most.

I'm left with a dog I can't train. A dog I'm quickly losing patience with. Why couldn't I have just gotten a regular dog!? Why did I have to end up with something that's going to try my patience and be so difficult for me? Why do I always draw the short straw in life!?

I'm about to give up. I'll just let the dog be a dog in whatever shape he's in. Right now it's too much for me. I can't handle it.

I just want my husband to not be dead anymore. I just want life to be okay again.
 
I will be checking in on you on Wednesday and if you want to just talk I will just listen so my offer stands of pm okay? The first anniversary is so very difficult. And painful.

I am thinking maybe take the dog back, he sounds too high maintenece for you. No shame in that . You really tried your best. This is not a failure on your part nor are you a bad person for not being able to deal with him right now. :hug:
 
God this hurts so bad. What did I do to deserve this? Why did he leave me here alone? I'm sitting here on my couch at 930 in the evening and apart from a dog snoring on the floor there is no one else here for me. There never will be. I won't have anyone in my life ever again.

What was he thinking?

Tomorrow is 7 months since he died. He's dead. He doesn't exist anymore. Why in hell do I still feel like he's going to walk through the door one day? Why do I still hold out hope that he'll be here with me again? Why can't I accept that he's dead? What is wrong with me?

I stepped on the dog tonight. Well, I didn't fully step on him, I kind of almost stepped on him, I bonked him in the ribs with my foot - I think it was his ribs, it all happened so fast. I forgot he was lying on the floor in front of me when I was on the couch. I went to get up and swung my feet onto the floor but they landed on something soft instead. He moved pretty fast but I was already pushing him down with my feet, so he scooted/half crawled out of the way and howled and ran toward the fireplace. I screamed and tried to pull my feet back up but the damage was done, the dog was afraid of me. I cried and apologized and begged for forgiveness. I was bawling my eyes out and he wouldn't come anywhere near me. When I went to check on him later, he was leaving blood spots where he was lying and I couldn't figure out where he was bleeding and I was crying all over again - so naturally he was terrified of me. I tried to check his paws and couldn't see anything and I couldn't figure out HOW he could be bleeding. After an hour he sort of calmed down enough for me to check him and he had a laceration on his genital area (???) and that totally didn't make sense to me unless I stepped on his genital region but I'm pretty sure I was on his rib cage. I couldn't figure that one out, I still don't get it. The only thing I can think is that he jumped and scraped himself on a wicker type basket that I have on the shelf of the coffee table or there is also a piece of velcro on the computer cord he was lying on. I have No Clue, that doesn't make any sense at all.

I cried and cried and cried. I was so panicked because he was bleeding, I was just terrified that I'd killed him. I was so terrified that he was going to die. If he died it would prove that I don't know how to care for anything. I couldn't have him die and he wouldn't let me touch him to help him. He's fine now. He's no longer bleeding...he's snoring.

I didn't want him to die. I didn't want him to die, I never imagined him dying on me. Dying was not supposed to happen so early in our time together. He wasn't only supposed to live to 52, he was supposed to live to 104! He always said it, he always said, "I'll be sorry for you when you die at 72 because I'll still have 32 years left to live...it's going to be lonely without you." Well, guess what Tin? It's really F'ing lonely here without YOU!!! You weren't supposed to be gone yet! You promised!!

What was so bad? What in hell was so bad that he couldn't do this anymore? How in hell did I keep going and he die? How do I keep going? Why do I keep going? Why did it have to be me that this had to happen too? I must have done something seriously wrong in this life to have this happen to me. Why do bad things just keep happening to me?

An enlarged heart on x-ray. He even looked it up and it said that it's usually benign and caused by an arrhythmia - he had an arrhythmia, he'd had it for years. There was nothing in that to cause him to kill himself over. Why couldn't he just think straight!? He never succumbed to that kind of ridiculous error in thinking. What happened to him that night that he couldn't find his way out of that spiral? How could he come to the conclusion that he had to die to "make everything better". Nothing's better. It's worse. I'm alone. Maybe I deserve that. Maybe I'm poison now. Maybe I deserve to be alone for the rest of my life, maybe it's better for the world for it to be that way. Maybe it's better to spare another person from having to deal with me.

I'm hurting so bad. I just wish he could come home. I need him home.
 
Maybe I deserve that. Maybe I'm poison now. Maybe I deserve to be alone for the rest of my life, maybe it's better for the world for it to be that way. Maybe it's better to spare another person from having to deal with me.

You do not deserve this and you are a good and decent person. You are needed and wanted here so get those bad thoughts out of your mind, no matter how strong the messages are.

You are a good and decent person.:hug:
 
I had to function today, no choice. I wanted to not function today. My little stinky alarm clock woke me up at 6 am today but last evening my neighbor also told me he was getting his roof done today and I had to have my vehicle out of my driveway all day. I took the dog to the park for an hour in the morning, to a paved walking path for another hour, went to an optometry appointment, then picked up the dog and went to the park for the afternoon. As it turns out, my neighbor didn't get his roof done today, so now I have no clue when he's getting his roof done.

I was crying on the way to the park this afternoon. I was talking to my husband, asking him why, asking him if he really loved me or in the end there did he have doubts, was that why this was so easy for him to do. I pointed out that he didn't just do this to himself, he did it to me and I have to live with it now. I don't like living with this.

People keep telling me that it will get better. That all I have to do is to think of the good times we had together, "Just focus on your good times." No one realizes that after a suicide every good memory is tainted, The "good" memories don't make me happy, they just make me even more sad because I realize that all of those good memories will never be able to be topped or added too...they're just memories, the reality that made them is gone forever. He's gone, forever.

I was thinking of our relationship and evaluating it. He and I had some issues from the start. My hubby always had issues with sex, he was very prude and hated sexual innuendo or joking, he wasn't very "into" it and I was always worried that I was going to get the blame for that, like how all men eventually complain that their wives "Don't put out anymore", it was actually him and it started only months into our relationship. I think this is why I always felt it was important to touch every day; hugs, kisses, holding hands, we needed to keep some level of intimacy. From a very early point in our relationship, being intimate happened only once a month, that stretched to every few months and then eventually once or twice a year. When he died, I can't remember if we were intimate at all that year. I do remember wanting to be one night and he pushed me away growling, "It doesn't work anymore." and he turned away from me. :(

I figured he always had issues with sexual intimacy because he always told me his dad said to him when he was a teenager, "Your mother wanted sex all the time, there was something wrong with her. That's why we broke up." There were other things about his Dad's behavior that always bothered him too, like how his Dad always insisted they leave the door to the bathroom open so he could see them - even when they were older, like 12. He said once he was having a number 2 with the door closed (couldn't lock it because dad disabled the lock) and his Dad came to open the door part way, so he screamed at him and his father said, "Well, I need to know what you're up too in there!" AND how his Dad insisted they kiss him on the mouth when they kissed him goodnight, well into their teens! If they refused he would accuse them of not loving him. My hubby said he finally put his foot down one night and when his Dad came to scream at him to give him a kiss he told him to stop being so weird and perverse.

Was this all that his Dad ever did to him? He never let on that his Dad molested him in any way and he had no signs of flashbacks or anxiety but he HATED his father, always said the man was mentally ill and it just always seemed that in his mind, sex was a bad thing. If he was coping with a long standing depression, a lot of it would have been because of his parents. Dad seemed like a borderline and mom seemed like a narcissist.

Just in the fall, I remember him talking to his mom on the phone and he wanted to ask her something about his childhood but she ignored his question and kept going on about herself. He looked at me, rolled his eyes and made a chattering motion with his hands. When he hung up the phone he seemed sad. He said he wished he had a normal mother who actually cared what you asked about instead of only talking about herself and ignoring you. I've noticed this too when she calls me. I ask about his childhood and she speaks of hers instead. I always tried to remind him that he shouldn't have been expecting more from them, they haven't changed at all, it's like expecting a different response after repeating the same thing every time. He needed a real Mommy. He didn't know what a real Daddy was. He always wished he knew what it was like to be "loved" because he said he never truly felt that because his family related strangely to one another his whole life.

I wish he would have talked more about what happened to him as a kid and expressed his anger toward how he was treated instead of just letting it repeatedly make him sad. I know he was very upset when he thought his dad had died, I don't know why, in my mind I kept thinking, "Good that torment can finally be laid to rest." This was just last September. He was obsessed about going over his childhood after that, emailing his brother, asking about their trips to Disney world and where they saw the first Star Wars movie and things their dad had done or said. I remember at the funeral his brother mentioned those emails and said, at the time, he'd wondered why he was asking about stuff that didn't matter anymore. He'd found it strange....and yet, here I was sitting here on our couch, with him, and we were talking about Star Wars and the Star Trek movies and he was proud to tell me he saw his first Star Wars movie in a theater in the US. He said they were part of only a few white people in that particular theater and his Dad kept saying stupid things that could be misinterpreted as racist. He couldn't remember exactly when it was they went to see it, so he wanted to ask his brother if he remembered. There was nothing strange about that conversation from my side of it. He was happy and it was a bittersweet memory for him.

He was thinking a lot about his childhood last fall though. In retrospect, I can see it now, how something was truly bothering him and I can only guess that it was the potential death of his father. Add depression to stress and you get a foul mix. He was in a bad mood a lot. And yet, he was okay a lot too. We still laughed, we still kissed every other minute and hugged and he still came down every morning and fake humped my leg while I was making breakfast. I still grabbed his butt every day and he would turn and shake it for me in his little baggy pants.

He did that just the day before he died. Doggy humped my leg, licked the side of my face and laughed because I was making breakfast and couldn't defend myself. I turned and we hugged and kissed and I said, "Good morning husband." and he said, "Good morning wife." like we always did. When he was fixing his coffee, I grabbed his butt and he started dancing shaking it at me and I giggled at him. These were normal every day things for us. I was getting him ready for his appointment with the physiotherapist. Only an hour later he would come home destroyed and fearing for his heart. 20 hours later I would get out of bed and he would be dead.

Did you see that happening? I didn't. I didn't understand how he could go from happy, smiling to "I'm so sad" / "i have to settle my affairs" / "Do you need anything?" Silence. Endless silence. No more smiles. No more hugs or kisses. Just. No. More. Gone. Forever.

I miss you husband. How could you point a gun at yourself and pull the trigger? How!? How could you leave me alone like this!? You can't take that back. You can't come back from that. I bet it's not what you thought it was going to be, now was it?

You left me. I'm sad. I'm so very sad.
 
Trying not to be sad today. Spent time in the community garden volunteering. It's nice out there in the morning when the sun is just coming up and the grass is covered in dew. The dog gets to take me for a walk and I actually let him off leash today for the first time. He followed me happily wherever I went. I was proud of him.

My niece posted some joke about a giraffe today on fb, so I commented with a giraffe joke that I used to tell a zillion times. I'd originally heard it on a movie called "28 Days Later" (I think it was) and I couldn't stop laughing, I loved that joke so much I told it at least once a week - and that movie came out 14 years ago! Sometimes I would just come out with the punchline out of the blue and start laughing. My husband used to just look at me and shake his head, "It's not even funny anymore." but then he'd crack up laughing because he thought it was humorous that I still found it so funny.

He and I used to spend our days off watching movies. He was a big movie fanatic. I think we kept Blockbuster movie rentals in business for the longest time. We used to go every other day and check what had just been released. We watched almost every movie ravenously and on top of that, we used to go to the theater a lot to see new movies. He loved this one movie store at the mall, they sold rarer movies and rare classic movies, like The Seventh Seal with Ingmar Bergman (?I think). I still have all of those VHS tapes in the basement. Sadly once he amassed his VHS collection everything switched to disc and then finally digital, so we have a lot of copies of some movies. He was in the middle of switching his discs to digital, I'd love to learn how to finish it for him.

When he was once off work for his "breakdown", he said he was told to take up a hobby, so he'd started rug hooking. He had this cute little rug partially hooked stuffed into a trunk. I found it once and I spent my afternoons finishing it for him thinking he would be happy and we could finally hang it up. He was kinda mad that I'd done that. First he said he'd wanted to eventually finish it himself, then he said it was a reminder of what he'd gone through and why he had the thing in the first place. I saw it as something that both he and I had done together - half his, half mine and was a testament to my wanting to help him in everything he wanted to do.

Sigh, I say that and I think of all of the times I crushed his dreams. I was the one who was the hopeless realist who hated getting lost in dreams. I rarely had hope for things. Hope and me just never got along. He was past the age of most police hires and he still held out hope for joining a police force - he wasn't keeping in shape and he always dreamed that it would Just Happen. He didn't seem to want to work toward that dream, rather it would just passively happen to him, fall into his lap, divine intervention, the fates granting him a wish, kind of thing. I always told him he had to work at it. I got him running. I got him a gym membership that he didn't use. He always felt he was good enough as he was. I always wanted him to try harder and to see the reality, his chances were pretty slim because he was already 35 and it's rare they hire anyone over the age of 28. I sort of made him give up on that dream - I killed it for him.

I just don't know about me. You know, all these years I'd been thinking I was helping him. Thinking i was his Voice of Reason when his feet left the ground. I just wanted him here with me, in this boring existence called reality. We could still have fun with what we had. I was happy with him. It didn't matter that we were living in a crap apartment, in a shitty part of the city, we were still able to go camping, go on vacation, travel. We worked hard to make rent and keep our cars running then. I was able to squirrel away money to put the downpayment on our dream home. This was our HOME. When we moved in he said, "I've never had a Home before. This is our Home. You and me." and he hugged me and kissed me. He always said he never felt he had a true home as a child because they moved so many times. This is our Home.

I always had issue with the word Home because of where I was from. That was always Home for me, anywhere I was out here was where I was living and I eventually thought I'd move Home with my husband. He never wanted to go there. It was just in the past decade that I came to terms with the fact that THIS is HOME now. This is where he and I were going to spend the rest of our lives, it wasn't a "starter home" to be flipped and sold, it was where he and I put down our Roots. This was US. I don't feel that tie to my other Home now because I've come to accept this as my HOME. It still feels like home to me, but more so just out of sentiment now. I don't know where I belong anymore without him.

I miss his smile, his laugh, how his eyes lit up when he smiled at me. I miss his touch. I miss his snores. I miss him. I really, really, miss him.
 
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